Scudrunners

They sure do! Last year in Toronto, they descended on us with 5 inspectors...1 for the flight deck, two for the cabin and two for the ramp...took 30  minutes, and they had a good hard look at everything. Dates of life jackets, fire prevention items, log books, licences...you name it, they wanted to see it. Overall a pretty efficient and professional check, they can't delay you and there is a right to kick em off in order to leave on time, but as we are a foreign carrier they can make it a little harder to operate in and out of Canadian airports and airspace. (It was a B777, so that's why there was a team.)

As a foreign carrier, that sounds like part of the EASA Ramp Inspection program.  There are a number of countries that are involved,  including Canada:

[Url=https://www.easa.europa.eu/easa-and-you ... -safa-saca][u]Ramp Inspection Program [/u][/Url]

Sounds similar, had the CASA bunch jump aboard in Sydney a few years ago and that check was pretty thorough, including a look through the maintenance pages in the FMC...not sure what that accomplished, but they went away happy. Pretty sure Foreign Operators Specs (Canadian) allow for a good look once in a while.

Anyone experienced an FAA vs TC ramp checks?

I actually have more FAA and European ramp checks than TC - Very similar, was never asked to piss in the bottle but was prepared to do so south of 49. In Europe they were mostly chasing to see if we had stage 3 noise and ac documents, never asked for pilot certificates.