On guard for thee

>> Down and dirty at Canada Customs

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: André Belize

Age: 38

Occupation: Canadian Customs Inspector (Dorval Airport)

Salary: $42,000 per annum

Bio: This elegant peace officer has been sniffing through travellers' dirty socks and underwear at Dorval airport for slightly over four years. He has a law degree from McGill but prefers the action of the airport over the tedium of a law office any day. André is something of an enigma because he has an education and still chooses to live in Côte St-Paul.

Best part of the job: Busting really nasty folks--like the guy he caught who was importing Indian children to work in the glamorous and fiercely competitive Canadian sex trade, taking jobs away from Canadian kids and basically just being unsavoury. People who traffic in children, be it for the sex trade, to put to work in sweatshops or to later sell as domestics down in the U.S. of A, really rub André the wrong way. Go figure.

Worst part of the job: Hassling regular people for minor offences like smuggling small amounts of tobacco and alcohol into the country.

Part of the job that you think would be a lot of fun but apparently isn't so great: Strip searches. Contrary to information disseminated in certain Internet chat groups, strip searches are not as erotic as most people imagine. "It's important that everyone involved be comfortable when you're conducting a strip search. At that point you're fucking with the intimate life of a person. So it's not something we do lightly or just for fun. There's really nothing very fun about it."

Some of the things he's found hidden in people's underwear: The severed and blood-soaked hand of a gorilla that one animal lover intended on stuffing and converting into an ashtray, the rotting head of a goat that some ne'erdowell had chopped off in a ritualistic ceremony back in the old country and was smuggling into Canada for good luck, several headless chickens, a live scorpion that crawled out of one woman's sock and more pot than you can wave a bong at.

How he describes his position: "I am not a security guard--which a lot of people don't seem to understand. Customs inspectors are peace officers with powers of arrest who play a protective role. It's my job to keep the peace and to make sure that people entering into Canada want to keep the peace as well. We are the thin blue line at the Canadian border who exist to screen out criminal elements, communicable diseases like Mad Cow, foot and mouth etc, and to uphold treaty obligations like NAFTA and NATO--but I am not a security guard!"

What he does for fun on his off-time: Swims. Hangs out and plays sports with an informal association of gay police/peace officers.

Last book read: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, by Sei Shonagon.

Favourite recent film: The Matrix

Personal philosophy: "Live and let live."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca