Targetted Again: Detained for Three Hours & CBSA Steals My Laptop
MISSISSAUGA, July 17, 2026. Late this afternoon arriving in Toronto on a flight from Tokyo, I was pulled aside for secondary inspection, the only one, I believe, on a plane carrying several hundred passengers. I was informed I was being “detained”, my cellphone, change and keys confiscated temporarily. Led by an officer named Dhaliwal, two Canada Border Service Agency agents searched my luggage, poring over newspaper clippings. They kept two cd discs I’d been given years ago, the memory chip of an old camera I had and my laptop. My laptop is being sent somewhere for “determination.”
This is not the first time I’ve been targetted. About 20 years ago, every time I returned from the U.S., I was pulled aside and my luggage searched. I was advised by a government agent after I’d spoken to the National Alliance in the U.S. that I would be subjected to such a search every time. Sometimes the results were nearly comical.One eagle-eyed border agent in Nighthawk, B.C. seized a copy of Irish Fairy Tales as potential “hate literature.” I eventually got it back. After a few years the persecution eased off.
Then, in June this year, I was returning from St. Pierre. I was the only one of some 60 passengers, most of them foreigners, pulled aside for secondary inspection in Halifax. The CBSA employees laboriously pawed their way through my newspaper clippings, most, ironically, from the super-Zionist National Post. One observant officer remarked: “You must like reading.” After about 20 minutes, I was allowed to leave. At the time, I thought the search strange. Was it just my unlucky day or was it the opening round of a new pattern of persecution?
Today’s demeaning ordeal answered the question. CBSA is required to make a determination within 30 days, although in the past they often take much longer. Some years ago, a Canada Customs official, with no sense of irony, answered my question about what happens to literature that is deemed to be “hate”. The answer: “It is burned.”
Why the renewed persecution. Is it because I’m running for Mayor of Hamilton? Hard to tell.
