Arrived at Pearson yesterday afternoon, the usual 300 + people in line at passport control. I snaked around the line tapes for about 1hr 15mins. When it was my turn the IO officer asked all the normal questions, where have you been? why did you go? what did you do there? what did you spend $157 on in duty free? then she looked at my work permitt and noticed it runs out on March 30th. She asked what my status was in Canada I wanted to say you are looking at it, but refrained. She asked if we had renewed our LMO and if we had applied for PR. I said yes to both questions, she asked to see proof! I said I dont have any with me, she said she couldnt let me back in, as she has no proof that we have applied for a new LMO or PR and we may not leave at the end of March. She said when there is less than 6 months left on a work permitt then you need to carry proof with you. She said she should send me into the immigration office, and the only reason she wasnt was because the line was really long at the minute and on this occassion she would stamp my passport.Strange thing is, my husband arrived back a week before me and had no problems at all.

Blimey that was a close call Good advice for others though who are travelling with visas due to run out soon.

Not close enough, she let me in

Seriously though, not sure if you need the paperwork or not, OH didnt even get questioned!

i'm sure you would have been fine if you had been sent over to the immigration office - i've been sent there for something different and they have ways of double checking stuff, just would have been a bit more of a hold up

I'd be looking up exactly what the requirement is

After reading the problem someone had trying to get their goods to follow list stamped I suspect there are a lot of people at airports and the like who just make up the rules to suit them especially if they are having a bad day

Last time I travelled to the US in November, I had a valid visa waiver stamped into my passport.

Drove up to your friendly US border services person, who directed me into immigration. I pointed out that I had a valid waiver in my passport. She told me she did know her job, and made me visit immigration.

Cue much scratching of heads in the office, with the question "why are you here" and a wasted hour while I waited for my place in the queue just to be told I had a valid visa.

Ho Hum. Border crossings, a lived experience.

I think the problem there is that airports no longer use the green I 94w but land borders do

Even on the us forum they can't figure out if you have the stamp in your passport then do you need the green thing in your passport and vice versa

As we both agree though it's down to the mood of the person on the day

Ben has been in a similar position , I think they were about to let him in but then they realized I hadn't so they made us both shell out the $6

Thing is though, that when they scan your passport it should tell them that you have a valid I94. If they can manage to ask me what address I lived in when I last lived in London, even though it was a different passport, I do think that they should be able to know if I have a valid visa waiver or not...

I agree 100% unfortunately the first rule of border control people anywhere is " never admit you are wrong"

Know what you mean. She got pretty snarky, and I worried that I was going to be refused entry. I was just trying to be helpful after all...

You got that right!

I had similar problems yesterday coming back into Halifax. My PR card expired in December, new one hadn't arrived before I left, so whilst I was away I went to Canadian embassy in Paris to get visa allowing me to come back. The immigration officer I saw at YHZ said she'd never seen the one off visa before, how did she know I hadn't already used it etc. Finally put a blue pen line through it and let me in but the delay meant I missed my kids citizenship ceremony

My husband had to fly to New York yesterday from Buffalo. When he came back into Canada the Officer at the border didnt batter an eyelid about the work permit only being valid until 30th March. He said to my husband, "I expect you are aware that your work permit is about to expire, I am sure you have applied to extened it" How differnt from the woman at Pearson who wanted to throw me in chains and banish me from this land! - Beats me, no consistency to anything here, regarding immigration or customs.

I had a little shock on returning Wednesday as the immigration officer asked where my letter was from my wife stating her permission to take my son out of the country ! We were away for 2 weeks watching sport , and immigration mentioned i should have a signed letter from wife and or doctor giving me authorization to take my son with me . I mentioned we are not divorced have been married for 25 years but then got the horror stories of parents abducting their own kids ! I understand the situation but didn't realise it was such a big deal. Immigration mentioned we will be put on a register to check this doesn't happen again. Seems weird that we travel to the US regularly and it has never been mentioned before !

My daughter and grandson came over in 2009.The immigration officer asked her for a letter, she said she didnt have one, they asked my grandson a few questions, where was daddy? where was he going? was he happy to come to Canada with mummy? he was just 5 at the time! so last year when my younger daughter and 2 granddaughters came over, she and her partner went to a solicitor got a letter wrote up saying he was happy the girls were coming to Canada to vist me ect ect guess what, she was never asked for it and the girls were never questioned - go figure!