Fear of flying to Canada

Although CYQG is closer than many airports in Illinois, pilots are afraid to fly into Canada. Our flight was 2 hours and 19 minutes in duration. Longer than most $200 hamburger runs, but not long enough to really challenge your bladder.
We all know why general aviation pilots do not fly from Chicago to Canada. It is the paperwork. Blah blah blah rules. Blah blah blah regulations. All frustrating our desire to aviate far and wide.
I will tell you that the Canadians are less intense than the Americans when it comes to having the correct paperwork.
No one asked to see my FCC radio license. I even brought two life jackets in case they considered Lake St. Clair too large to glide over.
Air traffic control at South Bend Approach gave us direct to Windsor, Ontario, as soon as we got on their frequency, so no complaints there. Chicago Approach had turned us east as soon as we cleared Midway Airport’s traffic area. That helped us avoid some rain showers. We still got a moderate rain shower near Midway, although the air was relatively smooth.
Detroit Approach control took us directly over the top of Metropolitan Airport as we angled toward the city on the south side of the Detroit River. Windsor tower asked us to report when we were turning base leg. In my mind, Windsor is east of Detroit, but it is more south than east. This threw me off a little bit as I was scanning the runways at Windsor. But Runway 25 is the bigger runway, so we figured it out quickly. It must have been hard to see us from the tower due to the high humidity. That is why he asked us to report turning base.
Runway 25 is huge. It must be built for very large cargo planes (like a Boeing 747). Our little Piper Warrior did not need much of that runway, so we landed long to reduce our taxi time.
We pulled into Gateway aviation and there were few airplanes parked on their new, well-maintained ramp area. There was about five business jets parked to one side. They all had Canadian tail numbers, so those might have been Gateway’s charter fleet. There was two Cessnas near us on the ramp who were probabl visitors like us and they had US registrations.
After we shut down, one of the Gateway employees told us that Customs would not object if we cracked open the airplane door. This was appreciated as the July sun was heating the Piper Warrior like a greenhouse. We called the Canadian customs number to report our arrival. We were put on hold. While we waited, I crawled into the back of the plane to gather the window shades. While we waited on hold, we squeezed the shades into place on the windows. Another Cessna had pulled into the Gateway ramp just after us. He received approval from customs for his arrival before we did and was walking around the ramp as we waited for our arrival approval so we could exit our aircraft.
We only waited 10 minutes before customs got back on the phone and cleared us into Canada. Not bad.
Gateway granted us a crew car and we drove to Tim Hortons for breakfast.