Matthew Montano wrote: >It's a weird legal no-mans land past the pre-clearance areas. > >While you've been pre-cleared to enter the US, you are still very much >in Canada (legally speaking.) > There's a sign at the entrance to the Dorval/Trudeau preclearance area that was added sometime between February '03 and January '04 saying something to the effect of "until you are being interviewed, you may leave the preclearance area at any time." I think it also might have said something that you could only be detained before reaching the US officer for violations of Canadian law (and there are always 2 City of Montreal police officers on duty in the preclearance room. I was always piqued a little bit that I still had to pay GST/QST while in the transborder finger. I had "left" Canada, and I could have shopped duty-free, yet the newsstand beyond Customs was still going to tack on 15.025% to my copy of The Economist. >I think reasonable common sense has always prevailed, and this has >never been tested. > I don't know if any case law has come up (although I'm sure it has), but the most recent law regarding preclearance is 1999's Preclearance Act, which clarifies a number of things laid out in the original 1974 agreement. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/1999/20/2689.html Matthew :) EWR/YUL/DCA - what year is it again?