Mercredi dernier je présentais la situation de Black Cobra, ce duo Doom/Metal de San Francisco qui s’est fait empêcher l’entrée au Canada pour leur tournée d’une vingtaine de dates. Dans ce texte, je reprenais les explications que Earsplit présentait suite à cette mésaventure. J’ai cependant fait une erreur en ne présentant pas tous les côtés du problème et c’est quasiment impossible que les douaniers empêchent un band d’entrer au pays si tous les papiers sont conformes. Il doit y avoir quelque chose qui ne fonctionne pas.
Bien que le témoignage des douaniers ne pourra jamais être entendu, voici ce que le band m’a fait parvenir suite à mes questions. Ils désirent que je vous présente leur message intégralement et c’est ce que je fais ici. Rappelez-vous que ce n’est qu’un côté de l’histoire, mais c’est quand même une situation qui fait réfléchir.
Merci à Black Cobra pour leur collaboration.
Hello Dave. Thanks for writing to us. As you know the border patrol has been a pain the ass for quite some time now. This isn’t the first time it’s happened to us .It pretty much depends on who you get. If the officer is a ball busting prick, he’ll come up with a reason for denying you entrance and they don’t have to give you an explanation. There’s not much you can do. They can detain you if they want to, if they think you are some sort of threat.
Truth is, there are a lot of politics involved in it too. You can have all your paper work in line and they’ll find anything to send you back, speeding tickets , whatever. Apparently the first guy that denied us entrance was sending a bunch of other bands back. The festival in Calgary saw what this guy was doing and they are filing a formal complaint against him for hurting the business of the festival. A lot of it has to do with money. Border patrol is a government job which relies on taxes. Since we are not Canadian citizens we are tax exempt from any income we generate in canada , we still have to pay taxes here in the US, but canada sees none of it. So in a way their attitude is ‘ you want to come to my beautiful canada and take my people’s money, from which I will gain nothing, and you are taking our money to benefit America? I don’t think so.
They’ve been tightening their screws on this matter more and more every year. The officer even told me, if you are not contributing to the welfare of Canada or we are not benefitting from you, there’s no reason for you to be here . Those were his exact words. This particular officer obviously thought that us bringing American metal, entertaining Canadian audiences, and having a good time throwing a kick ass show up there had absolutely no contribution to their welfare. I don’t even want to know what that guy does for fun. I can’t imagine what those people at border patrol are like in bed. If they would get properly laid once in a while they wouldn’t be so uptight and try to have a little solidarity with their neighbors. With all the fucked up shit going in in the world, we need more unity with one another, not separation. Their department of foreign relations obviously doesn’t share the same sentiment. We’re not trying to change or impose anything on Canada. We want to share a part of American culture, but that’s not ok with the border patrol. Are they trying to preserve Canadian heritage and us playing there may ruin that ? That clearly seems to be their attitude.
Another thing that happened was the following: After having denied us entry they proceeded to do a thorough inspection of the van. They wanted to pin something on us. They personally searched the both of us and since they found nothing to bust us for, they took the van into a warehouse, closed the door and tore up the inside trying to find something to make their glorious bust. They cleaner we were, the more pissed they would get. They were sweating us hard making us feel like criminals. If they were just trying to scare us and keep us away from Canada then they’ve done did it because the chances of us going back to canada are about as good a chance as Creed and Nickleback making a formal apology to the world for what they’ve done. Even if the Canadian government would legally swear that Elisha Cuthbert would give me a 30 min. blow job after every show in Canada , I would still never step foot in that country for the way the border patrol at Sweetgrass treated us.
Thank you Canada for Rush, Voivod, and Wolverine. And in conclusion as a message to the Canadian border patrol, may god one day forgive and be with you because no one else on this planet will. Rafa / Black Cobra USA Forever
