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Even if his passport is activated, he will still be asked to show bording card by the customs officer. What he needs to do is to fill in a blank card and sign it. He has to write 'Immigration' as his reason of crossing the customs in order to match his visa and air ticket, not a visitor to Canada or any other country.
For a brand new passport, a bording card is issued at the same time. Once used as the way it is issued, the customs officer will keep the bording card as their statics or whatever. Such a passport is activated. Whenever you want to use it later, you can easily fill in a blank form as your bording card to declare your destionation, reason, period and others.
You might do with a visitor bording card but you are taking chances. Just think what will happen if you have some problems with the customs officer. I don't recommend you to do so.
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