Oh man, they have ballsed up the International/US terminal something wicked at YYC. What the heck were they thinking when they designed this mess? Were they trying to make Heathrow Jr? That's what it looks like with the ridiculously long winding hallway from the domestic to international area (a full 15 minute walk) and the forced march through duty free. I wonder how much money they spent on the electric cart infrastructure - sure it's cute, but a bit foolhardy, especially given the pedestrian walkway crosses the cart pathway at least twice. Just why!
As others have noted, if you have an hour to make the move from domestic to international, you will probably be screwed. We had just over an hour and a half, and it was still tight. The main issue other than the distance is there is one security line, which took forever to trevas on a Friday morning. In the security line, they've installed scanner conveyor belts I've only ever seen in LAX (a bad sign) which allow several people to put their items on the belt at the same time. That'd be great except that while four people can load up their items, the body scanner is single file, which in practice means that the luggage order does not end up corresponding with the people popping out of the body scanner. This makes for a mass of people at the end either waiting for their items to come through, or, more likely, trying to find their container that has been (hopefully) sitting and waiting for them. This makes your carry-on less secure in my opinion, and necessitates a security agent hollering at people to get their items and move out of the line so more people can get through the backed up scanner. This device does not speed things up as anticipated, quite the opposite in fact. I'll let you in on a secret: at LAX, they have these multi-load devices alongside the traditional single-loaders. Always go to the line with the latter, it inevitably moves much faster.
Once the security gauntlet is done, travellers get to mill around the departure gates like cattle awaiting the slaughter. For reasons known only to the architect, the departure gates are all clumped together under one sign, which creates one big mosh pit of anxiety for travellers. There's not even a semblance of order. The space is huge and utterly wasted. The seating, cafeteria area and even the washrooms are a significant distance from the gates, again adding to the chaos and frustration. A clear indication of the stress induced by this design was the presence of at least 7 comfort dogs for people to pet. I mean yay puppies! but that can't possibly address the major design flaws, and honestly a barky labradoodle does not help the environment.
I'm a seasoned traveller and have been in airports all over the world, so I know a hot mess when I see one. YYC international will now be on my list of airports to avoid if possible, right below Heathrow and LAX. Such a shame, and a massive waste of money. A huge white elephant.