Ed.: Please do not take idle chatter about individual experiences as evidence that things have changed. We often hear what we want to hear and that doesn’t always reflect the rules as they are written. Here is an excerpt from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website; today: Visitor visas are nonimmigrant visas for persons who want to enter the United States temporarily for business (visa category B-1), for tourism (visa category B-2), or for a combination of both purposes (B-1/B-2). During your visit to the United States, you may visit Canada or Mexico for up to 30 days and re-enter the United States, if you re-enter within the timeframe indicated on the Form I-94 that you received when you first entered. For instance, if you arrived in the United States on July 10th with a B2 visitor visa, and on or after December 10th you decide you want to visit Canada or Mexico, you must keep in mind that the six-month period is up on January 10 and you will have to depart from the United States on that same day to avoid an “overstay” (unless you applied for an extension of stay). If you enter the United States with a B2 visitor visa for six months and return to Canada or visit Mexico during that six-month period for fewer than 30 days, the end date of your six-month period hasn’t changed! It is still based on six months from the date of your initial entry. Border guards may interpret or apply rules a little differently, allowing visitors a little grace from time to time. We are guiding you by the rules as they are written in order to avoid grief when heading south. Bird Talk Featuring the letters & concerns of our members SEND YOUR LETTERS TO Bird Talk, c/o CSANews 180 Lesmill Road Toronto, Ontario M3B 2T5 Online at www.snowbirds.org/bird-talk or by e-mail: csawriteus@snowbirds.org Bird Talk Dear Bird Talk, Good Day, CSA!!! I am a CSA member and have been for several years. I can assure you that I certainly appreciate the continued support to retirees and to Canada’s snowbirds. CSA News is always a welcome source of updated information. Fight on! I have chatted recently with several military and RCMP retirees about the change of healthcare providers, from Sun Life to Canada Life. There is yet much confusion and frustration regarding the overall transition. First of all, it is not widely known that the 01 July, 2023 health-care transition only applies to the Public Service Health Care Plan (PSHCP), not to the Public Service Dental Care Plan (PSDCP)! Ergo, Canada Life, as of 01 July, 2023 is the provider for only our health-care plan, PSHCP claims, while Sun Life remains the provider for our dental-care plan, PSDCP claims, until 01 July, 2024. This information needs to be circulated far better than it has been, thus I decided to send an email to Bird Talk, where help will undoubtedly be found. Secondly, the Canada Life (cost-saving) declaration of “going green,” hence no cards will be provided, is equally not well understood, especially by the elder PSHCP population. Many retirees do not have computers, nor smart phones and are not necessarily electronically gifted...count me in! This situation needs to be remedied, I’d guess by Canada Life, with the issue of new client cards. Again, thank you for your continued support and for your excellence in pursuing the matters that have become so important to the overall Public Service community. Per Ardua Ad Astra! Glen Buchanan RCAF Retired Winnipeg, MB Ed.: We hope that publishing this information helps keep the confusion to a minimum for our retired servicemen and servicewomen. We believe that Canada Life should rethink their position and services. The quote above means ”Through Adversity to the Stars” and was the motto of the RCAF prior to 1968. Dear Bird Talk, In your summer 2023 response to the question posed by Leslie Bailey, you indicated that it has been made quite clear to the CSA by the USCBP Agency that short trips out of the U.S. (including visits home for the holidays) should not be deducted from days spent in the U.S. for immigration purposes. In the past two years, we have heard multiple reports from fellow snowbirds that USCBP officers at the Calgary airport have clearly indicated that the USCBP Agency no longer follows this policy. With the free exchange of travel data between Canadian and U.S. authorities, USCBP officers need simply look at their computer screens to see the exact number of actual days spent in the U.S. (i.e., they no longer have to do the math themselves). I recall that many years ago, the CSA obtained a letter from the U.S. authorities advising that snowbirds returning home for fewer than 30 days were still required to count these days as time spent in the U.S. With the advent of information sharing and real-time computer systems, this would no longer seem to make any sense. Further, the repeated advice of these Calgary airport USCBP officers would seem to confirm that this policy is no longer being followed. Can the CSA obtain an update on the current policy of the USCBP Agency on this matter? James M. Thibault Haliburton, ON CSANews | FALL 2023 | 9
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