Choice of landing - Question: "Should I Land in the City mentioned in my Application/COPR, or can go to another Canadian city"?
Guys / Gals,
VOs have come back into action as can be seen with a flurry of PER,MR and visa stampings!! All very good...
Equally important is to know your rights in terms of where in Canada, you can land. Here is a quick summary of some information i gathered from online resources.
Please be Clarified that:
As a federal skilled worker, we can chose any POE in Canada & complete our landing formalities, regardless of the destination mentionned in our Apps or the COPR, except Quebec* [details below].
Canada's immigration laws provide for a 2 step process for our visa applications:
>Step-1. The CIC/CHCs carry out stage One (read our apps processing system).
>Step-2. Carried out by an Immigration Officer at the POE.
Reg. step-1, we are already familiar. This is how we get our PR Visas. For the step-2 (at POE) however, landing is our "Right". Though not an 'automatic right', we must still satisfy the officer at the POE that our entry is permissible: A12(1), called the 'Verification of PR', outlined in Sections 19(1) & (2) of the Act. But, another thing is also involved in this step-2, called 'Completion of the Record of Landing' for admission into Canada, which is obligatory.
For this "Record of Landing", 'admissibility' is not affected by our choice of POE. All it's needed is to fill up certain forms, specifically the PR Card form (IMM 5444E), wherein we have to provide an address for card delivery. This can be anywhere, beyond the POE. This is how newcomers with COPR destination as Montreal-Quebec drive thru the POE of Sarnia, Bluewater Bridge. There are many other examples, but for brevity I just chose one.
*There is only 'one' catch though. For Quebec, although any FSW would be allowed to enter thru a Quebec POE, they cannot complete the 'Record of Landing' here. And would have to further drive/fly to another province (any) to report to its Immigration Officer for the 'completion' of record of landing. This is because Quebec needs the CSQ certificate to complete this procedure. Which only is for a Quebec PR applicant. (however, it is not vice-versa... a Quebec PR applicant can do all the formalities in any other Canadian POE).
End Note: Anyone of us FSWs can land in any Canadian POE, irrespective of what's written in our apps or the COPR.
