I want to visit Canada, the Niagara Falls area. My plans were to go with a friend of mine. I was mentioning this to a coworker and they were telling me how when you get to the border, you have to show your birth certificate, and that they won’t let an American that has a felony record in their country.
The friend who I plan to travel with (we are driving) has a felony on his record. He didn’t kill anyone, it was a conspiracy to commit burglary. Basically what happened is that he should have gotten off without a record on this, but he was young and didnt understand the ramifications of having something like this on his record. So he has this felony.
I called the place where you cross the Canadian border. I was told that they do check, and that if he had a felony, he would not be able to enter.
My question is this…I know they have to tell me the rules. Do they follow these rules? Do they really check every person who enters record? Or do they look in the car, make sure you look normal, check the trunk and let you go? We’ll be driving a car with me, him and my year old daughter. Whats the chance that we’ll have a problem? I’d hate to drive all that way just to be turned away. Anyone have experience with this?
Humm - I think this is one of those things without much wiggle room - they almost always check ID at the Canadian side, and they would probably notice a felony and then your friend will NOT be let in, for sure. If, for some odd reason, they don’t check, then you would be OK, but I’ve had to show ID every time I’ve come from the US back into Canada (I’m a Canadian).
It may be the rule, but I’ve never had to show anything other than my driver’s license to enter British Columbia. We just pull up to the gate, tell the Mountie that we are headed to the Ukrainian deli in Vancouver, and that we have nothing illegal in the car, and off we go. No background check, no nothing. Getting back into the US takes a lot longer. Of course, YMMV.
It looks like you’re asking for help in breaking the law, if indeed it is against the law for a felon to enter Canada. We normally don’t permit threads asking how to break the law or how to get away with it. But the law in question is apparently not a U.S. law, so I’m not sure how to proceed. I’ll close this thread at least for now and discuss the issue with the rest of the staff. I may reopen the thread later, but I wouldn’t count on it.
