Hey guys,
In the light of CBSA restriction on flag-poling wanted to share my experience of an unsuccessful landing "attempt" last night.
All 4 bridges in Niagara were turning people away last night. We ended up trying our luck at Queenston bridge and failed. We arrived there at 12:40-ish am today, Thursday June 22, passed the US checkpoint and got the flag-poling document no problem, but were denied an attempt to land by an officer at the Canadian checkpoint.
The officer told us that "they don't do it anymore" and advised to book an appointment with a CIC office, or, if we did want to try our luck again, - come back to the bridge during "regular hours" between Tuesday and Thursday.
The bridge was empty. We were the only car passing through. The parking lot by the building was practically empty - we saw a few cars parked and 3 people walking from the parking lot towards the building. The building (which is see-through glass from top to bottom) looked empty - no lines, not even a single person at a single counter.
Anyway, this sounds to me like an internal conflict between CBSA and CIC that is not getting resolved properly and the consequences of which are not being communicated to the public, and as a result people end up driving for hours only to be turned away.
If it's a long drive for you and you have to work the next day, or if you have children, etc. etc. - I advise to not go because at this point it appears to be useless and even though what happened to us last night contradicts the new "unofficial" CBSA policy where flagpoling is only restricted from Friday to Monday (but Thursday is listed as one of the days you could and should go, with no restrictions on the time of day) - this is the reality and they don't seem to care. We weren't even offered an option to wait "in line" even though there wasn't any.
Hope this helps and good luck to everyone!
Keep us posted about similar experiences - booking an appointment at CIC centre included.
