Strip-searched woman plans human rights complaint

A woman who says she was thrown to the ground and strip-searched at the Ottawa International Airport on her way home from her grandmother's funeral plans to make an official human rights complaint.

Charmaine Archer, 42, was returning from a four-day trip to Jamaica on Tuesday night when customs officials pulled her aside, searched her belongings and told her she would need to be strip searched because traces of heroin had been found on her toothbrush.

Archer told the CBC that border officials threw her to the ground, knelt on her shoulder, then took her into a room to be strip-searched.

"Why did they pull me over in the first place? You know what the reason they say was? Because [of] my ticket. I only was in Jamaica for four days. I bought my ticket last-minute. … I can't go to Jamaica for four days? I have to be dealing drugs? No way."

Archer said she doesn't believe that Canada Border Service agents actually found heroin on her toothbrush.

"That toothbrush is a brand-new toothbrush that I brought from Canada and I took it out of the package in Jamaica. … I stayed at my brother's house. He is a police officer. I had my own room with an ensuite bathroom. Nobody touched my toothbrush but me."

Roshell Ayre, Charmaine Archer's cousin, travelled to Jamaica for the same funeral and was questioned about her trip upon her return to Canada. She was also sent to be searched.

"Honestly, you don't want to be judgmental, but it's happened so often with people of my colour that you do wonder."

Archer plans to make an official human rights complaint about Tuesday's incident. The Jamaican High Commission in Canada has also asked Archer to write a report on what happened to her.

A spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency told CBC News that the agency won't discuss what triggers its agents to select people for secondary searches.