Hello to everyone!
I would like to share my landing experience in hope that someone might find it helpful.
Background: I’m a Saskatchewan PNP applicant with COPR received before March 18th. You can see my timeline in the signature if you like.
I’m from Moscow, Russia. Unfortunately, Russia doesn’t have any direct flights with Canada, so I had to take connection flight. My route was Moscow - New York - Toronto - Saskatoon and it took me 48 hours since I left my home to get to my AirBnB place in Saskatoon.
Travel to New York on September 15th was smooth and nice. However, due to COVID-19 many flights are cancelled and it was impossible to get flights to Saskatoon without overnight stopover in either New York or Toronto. So I chose New York. My flight arrived on time at 17:30, I was let in the US without any question. Well, actually, two questions were asked at the border: ‘how long are you going to stay in the US’ and ‘why are you leaving so fast’ when answered that I was there just for one night.
Flight from Moscow arrived to JFK, but since the flight to Canada was from LGA I had a hotel room booked near LaGuardia airport. Took a taxi, checked in and then went for a long walk around Manhattan.
In the morning I went to the airport a bit early, just in case I would have any questions about my documents. But no, everything went smoothly, Air Canada representative checked my visa and COOR, tagged my baggage to Saskatoon and issued the boarding passes.
Flight to Toronto was short. Flight attendants handed out the customs declaration forms and forms to be filled with the information about you and your quarantine place.
We arrived at Toronto Pearson Terminal 1 just on time. I was sitting in the first half of the plane (Embraer 175, which is quite a small aircraft) and I was only the second person in the queue for immigration as most of the other passengers who left the plane before me had Canadian passports and queued in different line.
So I handed over to the immigration officer my passport, COPR and the customs declaration. He checked everything, wrote something on the declaration in pink marker and told me to go to an immigration office on the left.
The office was empty, a dozen of immigration officers were sitting there looking bored. I was called out immoderately, came to the counter number 6, handed all my documents over to the officer and the process started!
I felt shivers all over my spine at the moment as this landing procedure about which I read so much during the last 1.5 years was happening to me!
Almost everything went absolutely as it was described by many others before: same questions, same actions. However, there were two rare exceptions:
1. The first thing the officer asked me when she had seen my COPR was when I was going to go to Saskatoon. I told her that I was going there the same date and she asked me to show her a ticket or a boarding pass. I showed her the boarding pass and after that she looked satisfied and started the paperwork.
I know that some officers do ask to show the proof that you’re going to reach your province of destination, so I was surprised to hear that request. So, this is exception is not so rare, but the second exception is something of completely different degree.
2. After she asked me to sign the COPR and to wait in the waiting area for some time (it was like just 2 minutes of wait after all), the officer called my name handed me over all my documents, as usual explained me the procedure for PR card obtaining, the importance of keeping COPR safe and my permanent resident obligation. After which she added that since I am a provincial nomination I might have some other obligations to my province. She said that I need to read the contract which I signed with province carefully and that I might be obliged to live in the province for 12 or 24 months. Failure to do so might jeopardize my future applications.
And this was a very strange thing. I remember reading here on this forum that someone else was told by an immigration officer something like that, but the was only once. Maybe it was even the same officer, I don’t know. But I also remember that applying for SINP I signed a document that I have an intention to settle in Saskatchewan, which is quite common wording. There is nothing about my obligation to live there for 6, 12 or 24 months. Obviously, the officer was either frightening me or just didn’t really know that the Constitution Act protects my right to move and to live anywhere in Canada.
Anyway, as all this was over, I’ve moved on to the customs where I had declared my goods to follow. I had just a short list of 6 items I was planning to bring later, among which the most interesting was an item I called ‘collection of CDs, DVDs and merchandise’. I was too lazy to write everything down piece by piece, so I just put it like that into the declaration and just in case made a picture of my shelf with all the stuff on it. The officer smiled and said that he has nothing against CDs and DVDs and stamped everything including the picture.
And that was it! I went out of the arrivals area and only then I had realized that the form with my quarantine information was still in my hand! Nobody asked for it, nobody took it from me! I went to the Air Canada representative and asked her what should I do. She looked extremely surprised and told me that at the very first point, at the immigration, they should’ve taken this form from me. But now it was too late, I could go back. So she offered me the only possible solution - to go to CBSA office in the first floor of the terminal and ask them what to do.
So I went there, the office was empty and only one officer was there talking by phone. I had to wait for about 5-10 minutes until he finished his phone call and called me. I showed him the paper, explained that I had just came from the US and that nobody took this form from me. He looked surprised and even a bit angry. And he did sound annoyed. He saw the address I wrote on the form and started to ask why was I going to Saskatoon, was it my address or not, was I living there. All these questions were really annoying and irrelevant to my problem. After he had finished the interrogation, he finally said that he would take this form from me and would pass it the right office. After that he also added that if the information there is incorrect or if I do not comply with the quarantine rules I might be subjected to a fine of up to 10 000 CAD. This comment seems also absolutely inappropriate to me as I wasn’t doing anything wrong and was trying to fix their mistake of letting me out without taking this form. Anyway I hope he didn’t forget to pass this form and I will not have any troubles.
All in all, I think that everything went really good. After 7 hours in Toronto airport I took the connecting flight to Saskatoon and late in the evening arrived to my AirBnB where I am sitting right now in quarantine. This is a basement suite with a very nice host whom I haven’t met yet (of course), but who warmly greeted me with a very nice postcard, left some groceries in the fridge to help me to hold on until my first order arrived and even passed me some soup she had cooked yesterday.
I would like to share my landing experience in hope that someone might find it helpful.
Background: I’m a Saskatchewan PNP applicant with COPR received before March 18th. You can see my timeline in the signature if you like.
I’m from Moscow, Russia. Unfortunately, Russia doesn’t have any direct flights with Canada, so I had to take connection flight. My route was Moscow - New York - Toronto - Saskatoon and it took me 48 hours since I left my home to get to my AirBnB place in Saskatoon.
Travel to New York on September 15th was smooth and nice. However, due to COVID-19 many flights are cancelled and it was impossible to get flights to Saskatoon without overnight stopover in either New York or Toronto. So I chose New York. My flight arrived on time at 17:30, I was let in the US without any question. Well, actually, two questions were asked at the border: ‘how long are you going to stay in the US’ and ‘why are you leaving so fast’ when answered that I was there just for one night.
Flight from Moscow arrived to JFK, but since the flight to Canada was from LGA I had a hotel room booked near LaGuardia airport. Took a taxi, checked in and then went for a long walk around Manhattan.
In the morning I went to the airport a bit early, just in case I would have any questions about my documents. But no, everything went smoothly, Air Canada representative checked my visa and COOR, tagged my baggage to Saskatoon and issued the boarding passes.
Flight to Toronto was short. Flight attendants handed out the customs declaration forms and forms to be filled with the information about you and your quarantine place.
We arrived at Toronto Pearson Terminal 1 just on time. I was sitting in the first half of the plane (Embraer 175, which is quite a small aircraft) and I was only the second person in the queue for immigration as most of the other passengers who left the plane before me had Canadian passports and queued in different line.
So I handed over to the immigration officer my passport, COPR and the customs declaration. He checked everything, wrote something on the declaration in pink marker and told me to go to an immigration office on the left.
The office was empty, a dozen of immigration officers were sitting there looking bored. I was called out immoderately, came to the counter number 6, handed all my documents over to the officer and the process started!
I felt shivers all over my spine at the moment as this landing procedure about which I read so much during the last 1.5 years was happening to me!
Almost everything went absolutely as it was described by many others before: same questions, same actions. However, there were two rare exceptions:
1. The first thing the officer asked me when she had seen my COPR was when I was going to go to Saskatoon. I told her that I was going there the same date and she asked me to show her a ticket or a boarding pass. I showed her the boarding pass and after that she looked satisfied and started the paperwork.
I know that some officers do ask to show the proof that you’re going to reach your province of destination, so I was surprised to hear that request. So, this is exception is not so rare, but the second exception is something of completely different degree.
2. After she asked me to sign the COPR and to wait in the waiting area for some time (it was like just 2 minutes of wait after all), the officer called my name handed me over all my documents, as usual explained me the procedure for PR card obtaining, the importance of keeping COPR safe and my permanent resident obligation. After which she added that since I am a provincial nomination I might have some other obligations to my province. She said that I need to read the contract which I signed with province carefully and that I might be obliged to live in the province for 12 or 24 months. Failure to do so might jeopardize my future applications.
And this was a very strange thing. I remember reading here on this forum that someone else was told by an immigration officer something like that, but the was only once. Maybe it was even the same officer, I don’t know. But I also remember that applying for SINP I signed a document that I have an intention to settle in Saskatchewan, which is quite common wording. There is nothing about my obligation to live there for 6, 12 or 24 months. Obviously, the officer was either frightening me or just didn’t really know that the Constitution Act protects my right to move and to live anywhere in Canada.
Anyway, as all this was over, I’ve moved on to the customs where I had declared my goods to follow. I had just a short list of 6 items I was planning to bring later, among which the most interesting was an item I called ‘collection of CDs, DVDs and merchandise’. I was too lazy to write everything down piece by piece, so I just put it like that into the declaration and just in case made a picture of my shelf with all the stuff on it. The officer smiled and said that he has nothing against CDs and DVDs and stamped everything including the picture.
And that was it! I went out of the arrivals area and only then I had realized that the form with my quarantine information was still in my hand! Nobody asked for it, nobody took it from me! I went to the Air Canada representative and asked her what should I do. She looked extremely surprised and told me that at the very first point, at the immigration, they should’ve taken this form from me. But now it was too late, I could go back. So she offered me the only possible solution - to go to CBSA office in the first floor of the terminal and ask them what to do.
So I went there, the office was empty and only one officer was there talking by phone. I had to wait for about 5-10 minutes until he finished his phone call and called me. I showed him the paper, explained that I had just came from the US and that nobody took this form from me. He looked surprised and even a bit angry. And he did sound annoyed. He saw the address I wrote on the form and started to ask why was I going to Saskatoon, was it my address or not, was I living there. All these questions were really annoying and irrelevant to my problem. After he had finished the interrogation, he finally said that he would take this form from me and would pass it the right office. After that he also added that if the information there is incorrect or if I do not comply with the quarantine rules I might be subjected to a fine of up to 10 000 CAD. This comment seems also absolutely inappropriate to me as I wasn’t doing anything wrong and was trying to fix their mistake of letting me out without taking this form. Anyway I hope he didn’t forget to pass this form and I will not have any troubles.
All in all, I think that everything went really good. After 7 hours in Toronto airport I took the connecting flight to Saskatoon and late in the evening arrived to my AirBnB where I am sitting right now in quarantine. This is a basement suite with a very nice host whom I haven’t met yet (of course), but who warmly greeted me with a very nice postcard, left some groceries in the fridge to help me to hold on until my first order arrived and even passed me some soup she had cooked yesterday.
