There are lots of good reasons that border guards deny visitors entry into Canada.
Suspected terrorists or common criminals looking to cause mischief aren’t going to breeze through customs.
Of course, it has long been the practice of border guards the world over to turn away unkempt, malodorous and otherwise undesirable backpackers on the grounds that they have no visible means of supporting themselves.
But is being too weird another reason to deny people entry?
Apparently, yes, said Pam Sutton-Henderson, a Canadian Border Services Agency officer.
Read Also
Rural emergency room closures continue to be vexing problem
Staffing issues are at the root of disruptions and closures in hospital emergency departments, both in rural and urban Canadian locations.
“We do get quite a few characters at the port at times,” she said, as she gave a presentation at the Manitoba Women’s Institute annual convention in Brandon last week.
“Everything from people wearing tinfoil hats who are fleeing the KGB or the FBI or something. Some are just very comical.”
Sutton-Henderson said that in her experience, the most notable rejects were a father and son from America’s Deep South who upon arriving at the border, declared to customs officials that they planned on “buying land” in Canada.
“There was something a little odd about them. I looked in the back seat and it was full of all this kind of organic stuff, it looked like weeds or something,” she said.
“They said, ‘oh, that’s tumbleweed. We were travelling up here and it was blowing across the road. We never saw it before so we thought we’d stop and pick it up. We’re taking it home.'”
Things got stranger after that, she said, and the border officers decided to pull them aside for a secondary investigation.
“In the trunk we also found something like 20-odd straw hats and night vision goggles,” she said. “Needless to say, under the circumstances, they weren’t allowed into Canada.”
She noted that Canadian citizens have the inalienable right to return to Canada, while permanent residents are legally entitled to enter the country.
Foreign nationals, on the other hand, are allowed in as a privilege. Therefore, border officers who suspect something fishy about them can send them back home.
Preventing contraband from being brought across the border is all in a day’s work for a border services officer, she said.
During her presentation, Sutton-Henderson displayed an array of prohibited items, such as replica firearms, ninja weapons, fake lipstick tubes that can be used to smoke drugs and innocent looking soup and pop cans that can be used to smuggle narcotics.
