Hi Dpenabill and other respected senior
Just one more question. I drove a friend for flag polling at US/Canada border to extend his visa.
Do I need also need to record that day on the physical presence day?
thank you
Every applicant needs to read and follow the instructions, and apply them to his or her particular circumstances as best and honestly as he or she can.
If you left Canada, the instructions say to report the date you exited Canada. And to report the date you re-entered Canada.
In another topic, for an example I referred to a half hour jaunt into Lewiston, NY, crossing the Queenston Heights bridge to go get cheap gas at Smokin Joes, a
day trip which obviously needs to be reported. Indeed, if that was a late evening jaunt and instead of a half hour it took longer, getting stuck in traffic on the bridge the way back, so that it was five minutes after midnight before getting through the Canadian PoE, the date of exit to report is the date the bridge into NY was crossed and the date of return is the next day, because it is the next day on the calendar.
If you went through the Canadian PoE to re-enter Canada, that's a big clue, you exited, you re-entered . . . gone for five minutes or five hours or five days, the instructions say to report the date of all exits and the date of all entries. No equations in quantum physics necessary.
How do you describe your purpose? Please excuse my lapse if, contrary to what I say about not giving personal advice, I offer some advice: not a good idea to mention flag-poling. In many contexts flag-poling is legal, sometimes even incidental (a quarter century ago one could use both bridges in Niagara Falls, and we would sometimes spend a day riding bicycles in the area and actually go back and forth across the bridges multiple times in a day . . . different world back then, when we were almost never asked to show ID going either direction). But "flag-poling" nonetheless inherently evokes connotations of manipulating the system.
By the way, flag-poling means different things to different people in variable contexts. Last time (a good while ago) I crossed the Peace Bridge from Fort Erie, Ontario to Buffalo, NY, for example, there was an exit after passing the PoE but before going onto the bridge itself, which was OK to use to literally re-enter Canada without actually leaving Canada, without actually entering the U.S. Some called that flag-poling.
At most of the land crossing sites I am familiar with, a person must go through the PoE into the U.S. in order to turn around and re-enter Canada. At some it is physically possible to do a U-turn in between, literally passing the flag pole and turning to go back before reaching the other country's PoE booths. But it is prohibited and tends to lead to serious drama if one tries to do this.
