I'm can't remember if airlines look at passports at US gates at Canadian airports. You've already gone through US Immigration and Customs by then.

 

They do. It's a Transport Canada requirement.

 

But the story was that AC asked for it. So that people could not resell return tickets, back when a return ticket was much cheaper than two one way.

 

AC and AA certainly do based on my recent flights from YYZ

As I posted upthread, U.S. CBP, and security do their own thing. Airlines need photo ID for you to be able to board.

 

doesnt matter. Canadian regulations require all passengers to show a passport (some agents will accept Nexus card for transborder flights) on all international flights to/from Canada.

UA, especially on flights departing from ORD, sometimes instead used to ask folks to come up to the desk in the boarding area to check passports there, then mark the BP there to help speed up the boarding process. But at some point, maybe 2+ years ago, they stopped doing that and had to look at it as one was boarding - heard from more than one agent that they had gotten a memo from Canada saying it couldn't be checked at the desk like that prior to boarding any longer.

 

I can't believe this thread is still going on so long after the op (on the 10th) said travel was tomorrow (the 11th) and we haven't heard back as to what the resolution was.

OP..... where are you.....

 

CBSA here.

US citizen (regardless of age) can enter Canada with an expired passport at an officer's discretion. There is no legal requirement for US citizens to have a passport to enter Canada. This relates only to the interaction of a CBSA officer and a traveler: airlines, cruise ships, trains, etc, can impose their own rules.

In addition, the CBSA requires airlines to do the following:

"Passengers carried by transporters must be properly documented for travel to Canada. Transporters must not carry to Canada any person who does not hold the prescribed documents required for entry. In addition, transporters must not carry to Canada any person who is prescribed or who an officer directs not to be carried. Failure to meet these requirements can result in the assessment of an administration fee, or in exceptional circumstances, the seizure of a transporter's vehicle. Prescribed documents include:

passports and travel documents;
visas required by foreign nationals to enter Canada;
valid permanent resident cards;
travel documents issued to permanent residents abroad to facilitate their return to Canada;
single journey travel documents issued to refugees selected abroad for resettlement in Canada;
travel documents issued by Canada to persons on whom the Government of Canada has conferred protection as refugees or protected persons; and
electronic travel authorization (eTA).
Prescribed persons include:

any foreign national who is the subject of a declaration made under subsection 22.1(1) of the Act, unless they hold a temporary resident permit issued under section 24 of the Act; and
any foreign national who is not authorized under subsection 52(1) of the Act to return to Canada.
A transporter must require persons exempt from the legal requirement for a passport, visa or eTA, to present sufficient credible evidence to support all identity, citizenship and/or residency requirements.

The responsibility to ensure that a passenger is properly documented applies from the time the transporter boards the person at the final embarkation point before arrival in Canada until that person is presented for examination at a Canadian port of entry.

If there is doubt surrounding the authenticity of a travel document or whether the passenger is the rightful holder of a document, boarding should be refused and the person concerned should be referred to local control authorities."

Technically, airlines CAN choose to board US citizens (with other ID) who lack a valid passport, but it is up to the discretion of the airline. The airline can be fined 10k for boarding a passenger without proper immigration documents, so many airlines will impose stricter rules (e.g. not accept Nexus). Consider that an airline needs to train its staff on how to authenticate a passport and a visa for many different countries as well as what documents/visas are required; airlines are not training staff on specific Canadian law and whether a birth certificate and school ID from Nebraska will suffice.

So most airlines will tell OP that they are SOL. OP would be very unlikely to have a problem if they drove instead. The problem is more-so in how the airline deals with their requirement (i.e. how "safe" they want to play it) rather than Canadian immigration law.

 

.....or just walk across any point along the worlds longest undefended border

 

Because this is an information exchange for many others as well. Many of the posts in this thread contained incorrect information which might lead people to believe that, by way of example, they could fly from the US to Canada on an expired passport (they may not other than under extremely limited circumstances).

I suppose that if you rely on an anonymous internet forum for advice you get what you pay for, but there is much valuable advice and useful information here and it is important to correct the simply incorrect stuff or the off-topic material, e.g., person asks about departure by air and receives 20 responses about a land border crossing.

 

So Bruin1K, what did you end up doing?

Did you manage to get a last minute passport issued?

 

This fits with the experience I had in the opposite direction. Along the lines of even those who know better can make very big mistakes, 2 yrs ago in May dh and I were flying out of Buf to heading to Mco. We had been "over the river" for dinner a few times in March and April but no flying since Feb.
Pull up in the back of a limo and primary officer comes to the back of the limo and takes our passports, comes back a few minutes later and said to me " you do know your passport expired 2 weeks ago". I was dumbfounded and felt really really stupid....lol. I was already telling dh to take the luggage and go and I'd work on an emergency pp for the next day to meet him. Officer comes back and said" good thing you flew out of Buffalo and not Toronto" then winked . I asked him if he needed other ID, and he said no that they have everything in the system from the expired passport and knew it was authentic. No issue on rentry either and it was the only document I needed then as well. I used the passport for both flights and no one mentioned a word about it being expired.
Suffice to say I check dh's and my passport once a month now, even though we now have the 10 yr ones