Dear merb community,
As I was just turned away from entering Canada from the US (or, rather, I voluntarily withdrew my application for entrance into Canada and was allowed to leave/go back to the US), I hope that my story and its relative amount of detail can help prevent fellow forum posters from having a similar fate befall them:
The story: I arrive at Billy Bishop in Toronto for a connecting flight to Trudeau in Montreal (demographics wise, I am a white American male, mid-30s, middle class). I approach the customs agent and go through the usual questions (I am there for pleasure, I intend to stay for five days in order to visit a few particular historical sites and to see the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Musee des beaux-arts, I have a return flight home, here is my documentation, and so forth). In addition to these questions, I am asked my relatively short stay (truthfully answered: the unusual scheduling at my job permits me to take 5-6 days off in a row but rarely permits me to take off more), why I decided to come back after only visiting a little more than two months (truthfully answered: I did not have enough time to explore the city the first time I visited because of the aforementioned work scheduling), and why I had split my accommodations between two nights at a hotel and three nights at an airbnb location (truthfully answered: although I wanted to stay in a hotel for the duration of my stay, I got an airbnb gift card for Christmas and did not want to waster it).
After answering these questions to what I perceive to be to the satisfaction of the agent, I am given back my customs form and told to pick up my checked baggage. After picking up my checked baggage and showing my customs form to another agent, I am told that I forgot to sign the form (an error on my part) and that I needed to go to another room for further questioning. Subsequently, I go to this room where I am met by the same agent who had initially questioned me. This agent then questions me further on my job and then proceeds to go through all of my luggage and my laptop carrying case. The agent finds a significant amount of money that is less than the amount that I would need to have declared and questions me further about the reasons for my visit. At this point, I am asked to turn over my phone for search purposes (something the agent is supposedly allowed to do since this involves the matter of whether or not I shall be permitted into Canada) and I comply. Stupidly not having heeded the advice within this thread, I am (figuratively) caught with my pants down as I did not delete either text messages or emails relating to rdvs that I had planned for for this trip.
The aftermath: After being told to wait and to leave all of my belongings at the counter, the agent seemingly confers with other agents about my case and appears to show them exchanges on my cell phone. I am, after an hour or so, ushered back by the agent who informs me that they know why I am really here based off my cell phone and that they will be denying my entry into Canada. Based off of this decision, they further inform me that I have two options: I can either, a) sign an agreement to voluntarily withdrawal my entrance application and wait in the airport lounge for the first flight back to my original point of departure (while they hold on to my passport to make sure that I do, in fact, leave) or, b) forgo this agreement, be subject to a formal report, and face further questioning, and possible detainment, from Canadian law enforcement. Not wanting to potentially jeopardize my life for transient (but still amazing) pleasure, I take the former option.
While I am putting all of my belongings back, I am asked further questions that I find to be extremely personal and borderline insulting but that I hesitantly answer after being threatened by the agent with having to instead answer to law enforcement. After waiting for another 30 minutes or so, I sign my voluntarily withdrawal, am escorted back to the airport lounge, and wait for three hours until I am given back my passport and head home towards my original point of departure.
The moral: Obviously, delete/privately store all communication w/ SPs/agencies before going through customs. I have included details in this story in the hopes that more seasoned/experienced members of this community may highlight other red flags that are not readily apparent to me (perhaps the route of travel I chose, my age, the fact that I forgot to sign my customs form, etc). After I was denied entry to Canada, I did make sure to contact everyone that I had made plans with to inform them that I would not be making it to Montreal due to "border issues" and that I was deeply sorry for having wasted their time.
As I do not know the exact consequences of having signed the voluntary withdrawal of application for entry into Canada (I am most surely now in some sort of database but I am not sure how long for or whether or not I would automatically be denied entry into Canada for a certain period of time), I suspect that the probability of further hobbying in Montreal on my part is zero. So, please, take what you can from this story and use it to your advantage. I sincerely hope that my troubles prevent similar ones for you. Why, you may ask? Because now, if I want to experience anything remotely similar to what Montreal has to offer, I have to fly a continent over to Germany and pay 6-7 times over what I would normally pay :lol:.