by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

One day in November 2002, as Pierre Charade was about to fly to Florida from Dorval, the airport's American border authority asked him, "What about what happened in February?"

"Nothing happened in February, I was in Cuba," replied Charade.

"No. I mean February 1966," he recalls the guard responding. "‘You're a criminal and you're not welcome in the USA.'"

Since that day, Charade has had plenty of time to remember the seemingly banal episode that he had since overlooked. "I was 20 and working as a bartender in Toronto," he says. "Me and a colleague went to this health club after work. It was supposed to be open, so we rang the bell and knocked. We were a little drunk so we shook the door, a bit too hard and it broke. We didn't go in. We tried to explain to the police but couldn't speak much English at the time." He says he forgot about the episode after the duo spent the rest of night in jail and were fined $100 in the morning.

His career producing sports programming for Réseau des Sports has since brought him "a couple of hundred times since" to the States. "Nobody ever asked about this and I always said I had no criminal record."

But since reminded of the obscure misadventure, Charade has been unable to travel to the U.S. without applying for an annual waiver at the cost of $500.

Charade says that the guard pointed out an even more obscure run-in on Charade's file. "When I was 13 a bunch of guys and I stole a toolbox in Chicoutimi as a joke. And he had that right there in front of him," he says.

Only reluctantly was the rest of his production team allowed to board the plane to Fort Lauderdale - without him - to complete the production of his weekly Golf Mag TV show.

The problem, according to Michael Ashby, director of the National Pardon Centre, a Montreal-based organization that arranges pardons for Canadians with criminal records, is that many people aren't even aware that their minor run-ins have landed them with the criminal label. "Even if you think it's a small DUI or shoplifting and think it's so old that it won't be a problem at the border, the rule is that as soon as a border guard sees a criminal record under your name, they have the right to refuse you.

"It's almost impossible to know the rules," he says. "Even we as professionals in this field are not even 100 per cent sure. I have clients who have gone to the border and the guard asks, ‘Have you ever tried marijuana?' and they think honesty is the best policy and answer yes. Then the guard refuses to let them enter. I hear these things all the time."

Last week Charade's problem was happily resolved when he received a letter from American authorities announcing he'd be allowed to travel to the States without waiver, as his crime wasn't of a serious nature.

"It shows how incompetent the INS and border guards are," he says. "And they have way too much discretion."