Last month during a family vacation along the northern border we (young kids, parents, grandparents) piled into a mini van for a day visit to the Canadian side. All of the passports and birth certificates were in order and the immigration interaction on the Canadian side began normally. After requiring the windows to be rolled down and sunglasses removed the agent asked the driver, “Do you have any guns in the vehicle?” The driver has lived his entire life in the area and had made this same trip countless times. He’d never been asked this before and was a bit surprised. He answered truthfully, “No.” From there the line of questioning became more disconcerting.
“Do you have any guns at home?”
“It is illegal to bring guns into Canada.”
“What kind of guns do you have at home?”
“When was the last time you shot them?”
“When was the last time you had guns in your car?”
“If you have a gun in the car we can hold it for you until you leave.”
“If we inspect your vehicle and find a gun you WILL be arrested.”
Interspersed through this interaction, the agent prefaced some queries with, “This is not a trick question …”
The visit occurred in the time window after the breakdown of US-Canada trade talks and before Lake America and has prompted several more conversations as to, “What was that all about?” Nothing that we can think of would cause anyone to think that we were anything other than three generations of a “plain vanilla” family. None of the boys even had a camo cap on.
Where should the driver/where would you have “drawn the line”, declined to answer, and turned around and come back to the US (if that would have even been permitted without an inspection)?
I think you handled this well. You showed your children how to face an unexpected problem with a government authoritarian. No loud noises, polite behavior, professional. People in law enforcement usually have no sense of humor while working. They really can’t when you consider the number and types of people they have to deal with everyday. Hopefully your children were left with a positive memory of a day with their family and not one of dad in handcuffs. As to why the border guards performed as they did, well who knows? Because all policemen are cast from the same ultra conservative mold? Very doubtful. I personally have stopped going to Canada. That is not a protest. I just don’t want the hassle. I can fish and hunt in the US and there are no border guards. If Canadians feel the same way about the US that’s fine. There will be less traffic in south Florida this winter.
