dont even ask the question on a North American bound flight... Transport Canada has very strict guidelines about who is authorized on a flight deck and these are pretty much modeled after the FARs.
Internally, if you show your licence, medical, etc you
may get on the flight deck if you work for the airline and you have a good reason for being there - but you can thank the good ol' blowing buddy friends of Osama Bin Laden for closing off the flight deck. It's not the industry's fault these morons are morons.
However, I cannot in good faith blame it all on him. It's also the stupid 8 year old kids of the world who want to come up front, ask what "this button does" as they touch it. I'd rather not have to write to my DFO why we scared a whack of people because the kid turned of a generator, pulled a power lever to flight idle or pulled a bunch of circuit breakers causing the autopilot (or other more important system) to disconnect (or worse)
BTW - If you are not sure that you want to be a pilot and need a ride along to convince you - then don't bother, because the road is too expensive, too long and too hard to the top if you don't know right now - but if you still want to play that card, then find one of those synthetic corner simulator jobs, ask them to do a full package including a 6 hour cruise section - that'll tell ya!
