Dear Canada

I appreciate your concern for the wellbeing of your citizens and your desire to run a tight ship on your border, I really do. However, if, in your eagerness to protect your territorial integrity, you might have forgotten to employ actual hominids, allow me to give you this gentle reminder.

Even in dirty, rotten, corrupt kleptocracies like Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, the border guards have the courtesy of asking you to show them your luggage. They will ask you to open anything that may be closed. In America, that country so often reviled for harsh border controls, they will only open your luggage and go through it while you personally view the proceedings.

Imagine then my surprise when, upon crossing your border Friday morning some miles north of Detroit, I was met by two young specimens I can only describe as being of a simian disposition. Not only were they inquisitive bordering (ahaha) upon the insane, they also went through my personal belongings like a group of chimps looking for bananas.

First, I was ordered sternly to the front of the car while these two baboons wearing the proud maple leaf went through my luggage without me having any way of controlling what they were doing. They checked the contents of my camera without asking and without any regard for my privacy. They went through my luggage in the trunk, without bothering to put stuff back where it belonged or to close the various suitcases and bags whence they had been removed. They did this without informing me about what they'd done, so that I only discovered the carnage that was my luggage upon arrival in Toronto, several hours later.

At no point during this ordeal did I have the opportunity to see what they were up to, so that theoretically they could have stuffed whatever they so whished into my luggage. Both as a matter of judicial principle and of privacy, this is completely out of line for any border authority, especially one in a civilized country with a reputation for courtesy and friendliness such as Canada.

Yours disappointedly,

Ghost

PS: You need to add about ten lanes - each way - to the ON 401 going through Toronto, so as not to have infernal traffic jams on weekends. Might I suggest a small nuclear device? I'm sure nobody in Toronto would notice.