A Traveller Accuses Vancouver Airport Border Agents of Racial Profiling

Brian Keith Leonard Jr. was excited to catch his next flight from Vancouver International Airport to Japan.

Leonard, a Black man from Sacramento, California, had cleared Canadian customs earlier and just left the American Express lounge to make his way to join a friend on the next stage of their journey to Japan on Jan. 21.

But at his gate Leonard noticed a border services officer staring at him. He decided to look back.

“If you’re gonna look at me, I'm gonna look at you, right, and see what type of intentions you have,” he said.

That led to an interaction that left Leonard feeling racially targeted and to his decision to file a complaint with the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.

The results of the complaint, which he received March 31, were another disappointment. The six-page letter stated that his claims of being racially targeted are unsupported.

The incident took about 10 minutes, most of which Leonard recorded, and ended with him being released just before his flight left.

The Canada Border Services Agency officer, whose ID is pictured briefly in the video of the incident that Leonard recorded and uploaded to TikTok, started asking him questions.

“He turned around and started questioning me,” Leonard said. “I looked at him like I need to record this, because I’ve never experienced this before and, out of all people, why did you come to me.”

The officer asked when his ticket was booked and explained that he does “export checks for currency” and that if Leonard had over $10,000 in Canadian currency, he had to report it.

Leonard didn’t have any cash. When he told the officer this, the agent took the questions in a new direction. He asked Leonard how long he would be in Japan, “specifically where” he would be spending his time and what sight he wanted to see, while flipping through his passport.

Finally, after asking about Leonard’s baggage, the officer said he was just going to verify his declaration, telling him, “Just come with me.”

When he got to the interrogation room, the first officer was joined by two others: one male CBSA officer who joined in the questioning and one female CBSA officer who Leonard recalls stood to the side, observing.

Leonard put his phone down on a table in the room. Just as he steadied it so the camera had him in frame, an officer’s gloved hand can be seen reaching towards it and turning it over.

Throughout the rest of the video and interrogation, the male officers search through his baggage, asking him a series of questions, including whether he had any marijuana in his possession and whether he smoked cannabis.

A few weeks later Leonard filed a complaint with the CBSA.

The “letter of disposition” he received said the CBSA considered the case closed and it did not find any evidence of racial discrimination. Two of the officers were identified through the letter of disposition as Supt. Sanjit Dhillon and border services officer Tyler O’Malley.

The investigation was conducted by Chief Bryce McRae and signed off on by the Canada Border Services Agency director for the Vancouver International Airport, Nicole Goodman.

According to the letter, the questions both Dhillon and O’Malley posed about cannabis were valid under the CBSA’s mandate.

“In addition to currency, officers may examine a traveller to identify any goods, including narcotics, the exportation of which is prohibited, controlled or regulated under any Act of Parliament.”

It adds that it was within their legislative authority to escort Leonard to a separate room for verification. The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act states an officer may search any person who has arrived in Canada or is about to leave Canada on the basis of “reasonable grounds,” though it’s not clear what counts as “reasonable.”

And the report rejects the claim Leonard was singled out based on race, noting the officer said he had already approached other passengers.

Meghan McDermott, who works for the BC Civil Liberties Association as policy director, pointed out several red flags in the interaction.

“If I saw this gentleman being singled out and then walked to an examination room I probably would have followed and I would have recorded, as is my right.”

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of expression, which has been interpreted by courts to include recording information about government officials performing public duties.

McDermott said border officers have broad authority to manage the inspection process, like directing travellers where to stand or what to do with their belongings.

But there is no law that creates a blanket prohibition on recording CBSA officers in an airport, including in controlled areas, McDermott said.

If an individual filming at a border inspection area gets in the way of an examination, refuses lawful direction or disrupts the process, that could lead to enforcement action. But McDermott said in an email to The Tyee that “filming by itself is not illegal.”

In 2020, the CBSA surveyed frontline employees and found that one in four border officers had witnessed colleagues discriminating against travellers.

Leonard’s experience came less than two months after the CBSA’s first annual misconduct and wrongdoing report was published on Dec. 18, showing that CBSA employees had been involved in 259 founded misconduct cases in 2024-25.

It said the agency completed 364 investigations of alleged misconduct in the fiscal year, involving five executives, 30 managers and 332 other employees.

Of these investigations, 259 cases of misconduct were found. The corrective measures include 14 cases where “employee left agency,” 24 cases where there was no discipline due to “mitigating factors,” 59 cases of written reprimand and only four cases of termination. Four cases were pending resolution.

Within these total 259 cases of founded misconduct, 21 are cases of harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination and violence in the workplace, and 203 are misconduct in “accountability and professional conduct,” which include instances of providing false statements and interfering in immigration processing as well as the use of a personal cellphone while the officer is on duty.

The civil liberties association’s McDermott considers cases like Leonard’s to be profiling.

“It’s really disappointing that we don’t have a third-party impartial agency that investigates these complaints. You actually do have to go through the CBSA itself. And their process is not transparent. Sometimes they’ll report out on some complaints at the end of the year, but for the most part, it’s just like a kind of black box.”

She explained that the BC Civil Liberties Association, alongside many other organizations, has been lobbying to have a third party or some kind of review board to look into how the CBSA would resolve complaints like this.

The organization had hope when Bill C-20, legislation that would have created an independent review body for the agency, was announced in 2024.

“So, the law was passed, but it’s one of those laws that doesn’t come into force until cabinet makes it come into force. It’s really up to the prime minister and his cabinet ministers,” McDermott said.

“At any time, they could do that. But, unless and until they do that, somebody like this gentleman is going to have to submit a complaint into the black hole of CBSA and there’s no timeline about when you’ll hear back.”

On Oct. 17 Prime Minister Mark Carney announced new measures to “keep Canadians safe,” including hiring 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency officers, increasing CBSA’s recruit stipend from $125 to $525 per week and adding some additional benefits for officers.

There was no update on the establishment of an independent review body for the CBSA.

CBSA representative Luke Reimer, when asked why an officer turned Leonard’s phone over, told The Tyee that they do not comment on travellers’ interactions with the Canada Border Services Agency.

Reimer also told The Tyee that the CBSA has an “accessible and centralized process by which the public is able to submit a complaint.”

When asked why Leonard was taken aside for 10 minutes of private questioning, Reimer responded that when requested by an officer, travellers leaving Canada must answer any questions truthfully and that it is “an offence under the Customs Act for a traveller leaving Canada to be carrying goods that are prohibited by law.”

The officers never found Leonard to be violating the currency rules or with any prohibited goods.

Leonard said he was respectful and asked the first officer questions when he was first pulled aside. He asked if he could call his friend to let her know what was happening.

The officer told him he would prefer Leonard not call her and that if he did, the exam would not continue until the call ended, adding, “You might miss your flight then.” When Leonard asked the officer if there was any reason he was being targeted, the recording shows the officer responding. “Did you see me work the flight earlier? You didn’t see me work the rest of the flight, so you can’t assume I’m just targeting you, right?”

Leonard said the tone was condescending and disrespectful.

“He was looking for a motive, some type of angle to arrest me or keep me from getting on this flight. That’s exactly how I felt in that moment,” Leonard said. When he said he felt targeted, the officer told him he couldn’t help how Leonard felt.

The entire interaction wasn’t based on any evidence or facts, Leonard said.

CBSA media relations responded to an earlier inquiry from The Tyee by saying the agency “has an accessible and centralized process by which the public is able to submit a complaint” and complaints “are taken seriously and are handled in an efficient, professional, and impartial manner.”

Leonard has some options. He could choose to take legal action or file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

McDermott of the BC Civil Liberties Association said it’s rare for bodies like the border services agency not to have an independent appeals process.

The RCMP has the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, and municipal police departments in British Columbia have the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.

“We don’t have enough transparency about what the law enforcement bodies are doing in our name, and then we just have to take their word for it,” said McDermott.