Hi All,
I recently completed my soft-landing; finally after years of struggle I am so delighted to be a Canadian resident.
Posting my recent landing experience here:
I travelled from Melbourne, Australia to Toronto. The flight journey was quite hectic; we had stopovers in Sydney and San Francisco.
Australian passport holders are visa exempt & everything is electronic. I wasn't sure if the airline staff would be very friendly and understanding, going by previous experiences other people posted here. So I applied for an eTA (electronic Travel Authorisation), just in case the airline staff wouldn’t accept my CoPR. Anyhow the airline staff didn’t ask for the CoPR or the eTA and boarding was very easy.
We were only asked for the ArriveCan barcode at San Francisco before departure to Toronto. Ensure the ArriveCan is done before leaving (72 hours prior).
Landing at Toronto airport on a Friday evening was a nightmare. We sat in the plane for almost 1.5 hour since there was a long queue at immigrations and they were trying to clear passengers.
When we eventually got off I could see the long queue of people, and was dreading not to get caught in the middle with two young children. Fortunately there was a separate line for families which was way shorter.
First were kiosks which you mainly have to use for customs declaration (e.g carrying dutiable items etc); It will also take your photos including children and each passenger gets a receipt. You have to repeat it multiple times for each person in your family which is annoying.
Don’t understand why more of these kiosks are placed everywhere along the corridors leading to immigrations, to reduce the queue, like in Australia. Many people found it difficult to use it and I even overheard an immigrations officer say "Im tired of this! I just want to go home. Im leaving this place as soon as my shift is over. I don’t care anymore".
Soon after the kiosks you have to go to the immigrations officer and provide the receipt, passport and CoPR. Let the officer know you're doing the PR landing. He will mark the kiosk receipt and also place a sticker on your passport for covid testing. In my case it was green which meant I didn’t have to do a covid test.
Soon after immigrations you show the receipt to the next officer; he will know you're a landed immigrant and will direct you to a room on the right. This was the worst part of the whole process; there was another queue for the PR landing process in this room/hall. Only 7-10 counters of the 30 were manned by CBSA officers; other were just empty. There's a long queue with all kinds of visa applicants such as students, CoPR, work visa etc. We spent approx. 2 hours standing in the queue. Fortunately they let the women and children take a seat while the men stood in the queue.
Once the CBSA officer called me I just went over to the counter and provided my passport and CoPR. The officer asked us to wait again for 5mins. She then called us back and asked us to sign the CoPR. She kept one copy (the one with the photo) and gave the other. She asked for an address in Canada for the PR card and asked a bunch of questions like "have you ever been convicted previously" etc. The paperwork with the officer was very easy and took about 5-10mins in total. I showed her the goods to follow form and she told me to show these at customs.
We exited the hall went down the escalator to claim the baggage. Our baggage was circulating the carousel lonely, given we just spent 2hrs waiting in queue. We went to customs and showed the B4/B4A forms to the customs officer. He said we'll need to show this form only when we move permanently and have the goods actually shipped by the shipping company. He also asked for serial numbers of electronic devices like phones and laptops to be included. He also informed us that the shipping manifest will be good to have.
Once that was over, we just left the airport, caught a cab and went to the hotel. No other Covid specific issues like quarantine or testing was required. Stayed in Toronto for 5 days and then moved to the next destination.
Will make another post for the SIN. Hope this helps; happy to answer any questions if I can.
All the best!!
I recently completed my soft-landing; finally after years of struggle I am so delighted to be a Canadian resident.
Posting my recent landing experience here:
I travelled from Melbourne, Australia to Toronto. The flight journey was quite hectic; we had stopovers in Sydney and San Francisco.
Australian passport holders are visa exempt & everything is electronic. I wasn't sure if the airline staff would be very friendly and understanding, going by previous experiences other people posted here. So I applied for an eTA (electronic Travel Authorisation), just in case the airline staff wouldn’t accept my CoPR. Anyhow the airline staff didn’t ask for the CoPR or the eTA and boarding was very easy.
We were only asked for the ArriveCan barcode at San Francisco before departure to Toronto. Ensure the ArriveCan is done before leaving (72 hours prior).
Landing at Toronto airport on a Friday evening was a nightmare. We sat in the plane for almost 1.5 hour since there was a long queue at immigrations and they were trying to clear passengers.
When we eventually got off I could see the long queue of people, and was dreading not to get caught in the middle with two young children. Fortunately there was a separate line for families which was way shorter.
First were kiosks which you mainly have to use for customs declaration (e.g carrying dutiable items etc); It will also take your photos including children and each passenger gets a receipt. You have to repeat it multiple times for each person in your family which is annoying.
Don’t understand why more of these kiosks are placed everywhere along the corridors leading to immigrations, to reduce the queue, like in Australia. Many people found it difficult to use it and I even overheard an immigrations officer say "Im tired of this! I just want to go home. Im leaving this place as soon as my shift is over. I don’t care anymore".
Soon after the kiosks you have to go to the immigrations officer and provide the receipt, passport and CoPR. Let the officer know you're doing the PR landing. He will mark the kiosk receipt and also place a sticker on your passport for covid testing. In my case it was green which meant I didn’t have to do a covid test.
Soon after immigrations you show the receipt to the next officer; he will know you're a landed immigrant and will direct you to a room on the right. This was the worst part of the whole process; there was another queue for the PR landing process in this room/hall. Only 7-10 counters of the 30 were manned by CBSA officers; other were just empty. There's a long queue with all kinds of visa applicants such as students, CoPR, work visa etc. We spent approx. 2 hours standing in the queue. Fortunately they let the women and children take a seat while the men stood in the queue.
Once the CBSA officer called me I just went over to the counter and provided my passport and CoPR. The officer asked us to wait again for 5mins. She then called us back and asked us to sign the CoPR. She kept one copy (the one with the photo) and gave the other. She asked for an address in Canada for the PR card and asked a bunch of questions like "have you ever been convicted previously" etc. The paperwork with the officer was very easy and took about 5-10mins in total. I showed her the goods to follow form and she told me to show these at customs.
We exited the hall went down the escalator to claim the baggage. Our baggage was circulating the carousel lonely, given we just spent 2hrs waiting in queue. We went to customs and showed the B4/B4A forms to the customs officer. He said we'll need to show this form only when we move permanently and have the goods actually shipped by the shipping company. He also asked for serial numbers of electronic devices like phones and laptops to be included. He also informed us that the shipping manifest will be good to have.
Once that was over, we just left the airport, caught a cab and went to the hotel. No other Covid specific issues like quarantine or testing was required. Stayed in Toronto for 5 days and then moved to the next destination.
Will make another post for the SIN. Hope this helps; happy to answer any questions if I can.
All the best!!
