Law/regulations for border agent to hold my passport
- Thread starter jshrek
- Start date
If your query is questioning whether agents are allowed to do this, apart from the extensive investigatory authority and broad discretion the CBSA has as law enforcement officers with a paramount mandate to protect Canada's borders, a Canadian passport is the property of the government of Canada. Kind of, well, theirs to do with what they will.
If you are doing research aimed at analyzing and documenting the jurisprudence and particular provisions of law and regulations underlying their investigatory authority, or the authority of IRCC to issue passports that remain in government ownership, that seems an overly broad, vague agenda. Might help to more narrowly focus and refine what you are looking for.
If you are venting some frustration, even if misguided, you should find plenty of company in these waywordy woods. Sooner or later, at one Port-of-Entry or another, anyone who travels much will experience the dark side of broad discretion applying the profoundly heavy-handed powers of border officials. (Albeit this tends to go badly more often elsewhere, not so much when returning to Canada, recognizing nonetheless there's a tendency for people with power to push it, even here in this great country. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. closed more than a few chapters in a novel or two, "so it goes.")
My query is questioning which laws/regulations give them the power to withhold my passport from (what are the specific criteria, according to the law, that a border agent must meet in order to say "we are going hold onto this").
I do not see any specific laws or regulations in the Passport Canada laws that I looked at that give border agents to the authority to withhold it from me, outside of a peace officer being able to hold it if they think it is fraudulent.
I guess as further explanation, I am just interested in holding those that are supposed to enforcing the laws, accountable to those same laws. But you can not hold them accountable if you do not know what laws govern their behavior.
I will give you an example...
The past couple years when they were requiring COVID tests when you re-entered the country, my response was "I will gladly do a screening test that meets the criteria listed in section 14(1) of the Quarantine Act."
Section 14(1) of the Quarantice Act says this:
Screening technology: Any qualified person authorized by the Minister may, to determine whether a traveller has a communicable disease or symptoms of one, use any screening technology authorized by the Minister that does not involve the entry into the traveller’s body of any instrument or other foreign body.
So this means that they are NOT allowed to stick anything in your nose (or anywhere else), and therefore if they are trying to force me to get a test that is against the law!
I do not see any specific laws or regulations in the Passport Canada laws that I looked at that give border agents to the authority to withhold it from me, outside of a peace officer being able to hold it if they think it is fraudulent.
I guess as further explanation, I am just interested in holding those that are supposed to enforcing the laws, accountable to those same laws. But you can not hold them accountable if you do not know what laws govern their behavior.
I will give you an example...
The past couple years when they were requiring COVID tests when you re-entered the country, my response was "I will gladly do a screening test that meets the criteria listed in section 14(1) of the Quarantine Act."
Section 14(1) of the Quarantice Act says this:
Screening technology: Any qualified person authorized by the Minister may, to determine whether a traveller has a communicable disease or symptoms of one, use any screening technology authorized by the Minister that does not involve the entry into the traveller’s body of any instrument or other foreign body.
So this means that they are NOT allowed to stick anything in your nose (or anywhere else), and therefore if they are trying to force me to get a test that is against the law!
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Examining a passport for a finite period of time is one thing, but if you're asking if a CBSA officer can seize your passport...that's different.
Maybe the primary officer had questions as to whether or not the passport was genuine, had been tampered with, or any number of valid reasons for inspecting it...just like they can inspect anything on (or inside of) your person, your phone, laptop, etc.
Was your passport actually seized, or was it eventually returned to you? If it was the latter...let it go.
This would be true if and only if the authority to do the covid screening was authorized under the Quarantine Act, and not some other act.
Are you certain this is the case?
"I will hold on to this" sound more semantics of "wait till I am verifying whatever you are claiming". Not sure if this is really a violation of your fundamental rights and similar to a cop asking for your DL after being pulled over. This also sounds quite different than being subjected to a covid / any other disease screening which you are referring to later on.
@jshrek
Under section 4.1 of the CBSA's operational manual pertaining to point of entry examinations and the resulting link to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act under 15(1)(3):
Under section 4.1 of the CBSA's operational manual pertaining to point of entry examinations and the resulting link to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act under 15(1)(3):
"Examination by officer
15 (1) An officer is authorized to proceed with an examination if a person makes an application to the officer in accordance with this Act or if an application is made under subsection 11(1.01).
Provincial criteria
(2) In the case of a foreign national referred to in subsection 9(1), an examination of whether the foreign national complies with the applicable selection criteria shall be conducted solely on the basis of documents delivered by the province indicating that the competent authority of the province is of the opinion that the foreign national complies with the province’s selection criteria.
Inspection
(3) An officer may board and inspect any means of transportation bringing persons to Canada, examine any person carried by that means of transportation and any record or document respecting that person, seize and remove the record or document to obtain copies or extracts and hold the means of transportation until the inspection and examination are completed.
Instructions
(4) The officer shall conduct the examination in accordance with any instructions that the Minister may give."
Let me give you simple advice ,boarder agents USA or Canada you don't want to mess with ,if they red flag you in the system ,every time you travel air ,land ,sea or by any means you will go into secondary questions its no point arguing with them .
If it happens at a land border crossing they probably doing a customs secondary check on ya.
Means they want to check you in detail (document, stuff u bringing in etc)…..
It shouldn’t be taking very long but expect delays till u r cleared to leave.