Landing experience May-2014

[srid_a]

I have landed in Toronto last Friday (may 16th). It went very smooth. I spent lot of time preparing for it. That much preparation is probably not required.

There are two queues at the first stage where they verified the passports. I was told to enter visitor queue. They checked the passports and wrote on our disembarkation card that we are immigrants and asked us to go to immigration counter. At this counter they asked us few questions and directed us to Service canada counter.

At Service Canada counter, we filled a form for SIN number. We got SIN numbers there. From there we moved to "welcome to Canada" counter where we got lot of useful literature about settling in Canada.

After this we collected our bags. I did not have change and the travel card was not working. One of the guys there gave me the change. The trolley machine only takes 10$ and under. I had only $20 notes.

After collecting our bags we walked over to customs. Here they have asked us for proof of funds, goods to be followed, and if are carrying any food items.

For POF, I had some $ in cash, some in travel card, and some already transferred to my account in Scotia bank. I had no goods following list, and I have taken the pictures of gold items that we are carrying with us. He stamped the photos, and asked us to sign on B4 and B4A forms. About food, I told him I was carrying Indian spices. He has no problem with that.

We walked out and met our friend. We stayed at our friend's place and moved into our own place couple of days later. He has been great help we would have struggled without him.

I see lot of Sri Lankans, Indians and Chinese here in Markham. Our neighbours are white people and they are very nice. The whole place is very beautiful. We saw rabbits in the backyard and weather has become very pleasant (16 - 20deg C). Planning to take driving test and buy a car next week. For now we are using the bus to move around. I already feel I am home ;-)

The other day, we three are waiting for the bus and one white teenager driving on the other side of the road lowered her window and yelled at us. She seem to have used the N word and was angry at us. It took a while for me to understand what she was saying and she is gone before I got angry and could give it back to her. I guess you need to be little bit careful when you are alone on the streets. Fight for your rights don't let some punk ruin your day.

Started my work from home for the same employer in India. I have something in hand and I am thankful for that. Got new mobile phone and connection with it from FIDO. It costs around $39/month. It looks like you need to pay around half dollar per minute even for local calls if you cross free local minutes (incoming or outgoing).

Few suggestions on landing:

1) Use one disembarkation card (that card they give you in the flight) for all family members. the funds you are carrying includes travel cards, cash and money you have already transferred to your account in Canada. If the funds are more than $10K per head, please mention that. I said yes to foods carrying and circled the wooden gifts, etc.

2) If you are using travel card, make sure you use that in an ATM before using it in the stores. Travel cards give you low conversion rates but pain to use.

3) Every thing is expensive here (even the bus ticket here costs around $4) . Make sure you bring as much as possible with you so you can lower your startup costs.

4) When you take phone connection, make sure you understand the terms and conditions. If you don't pay attention to these details, you may end up paying huge phone bills. Explore using VoIP service for India calls.


Goodluck with your landing and settling down.

 

[future_canadian]

Sounds great, good luck to you in Canada. Sorry you ran into a racist. Canadians are mostly nice. Don't bother fighting, just shrug it off.

 

[Mani8585]

I have landed in Toronto last Friday (may 16th). It went very smooth. I spent lot of time preparing for it. That much preparation is probably not required.

There are two queues at the first stage where they verified the passports. I was told to enter visitor queue. They checked the passports and wrote on our disembarkation card that we are immigrants and asked us to go to immigration counter. At this counter they asked us few questions and directed us to Service canada counter.

At Service Canada counter, we filled a form for SIN number. We got SIN numbers there. From there we moved to "welcome to Canada" counter where we got lot of useful literature about settling in Canada.

After this we collected our bags. I did not have change and the travel card was not working. One of the guys there gave me the change. The trolley machine only takes 10$ and under. I had only $20 notes.

After collecting our bags we walked over to customs. Here they have asked us for proof of funds, goods to be followed, and if are carrying any food items.

For POF, I had some $ in cash, some in travel card, and some already transferred to my account in Scotia bank. I had no goods following list, and I have taken the pictures of gold items that we are carrying with us. He stamped the photos, and asked us to sign on B4 and B4A forms. About food, I told him I was carrying Indian spices. He has no problem with that.

We walked out and met our friend. We stayed at our friend's place and moved into our own place couple of days later. He has been great help we would have struggled without him.

I see lot of Sri Lankans, Indians and Chinese here in Markham. Our neighbours are white people and they are very nice. The whole place is very beautiful. We saw rabbits in the backyard and weather has become very pleasant (16 - 20deg C). Planning to take driving test and buy a car next week. For now we are using the bus to move around. I already feel I am home ;-)

The other day, we three are waiting for the bus and one white teenager driving on the other side of the road lowered her window and yelled at us. She seem to have used the N word and was angry at us. It took a while for me to understand what she was saying and she is gone before I got angry and could give it back to her. I guess you need to be little bit careful when you are alone on the streets. Fight for your rights don't let some punk ruin your day.

Started my work from home for the same employer in India. I have something in hand and I am thankful for that. Got new mobile phone and connection with it from FIDO. It costs around $39/month. It looks like you need to pay around half dollar per minute even for local calls if you cross free local minutes (incoming or outgoing).

Few suggestions on landing:

1) Use one disembarkation card (that card they give you in the flight) for all family members. the funds you are carrying includes travel cards, cash and money you have already transferred to your account in Canada. If the funds are more than $10K per head, please mention that. I said yes to foods carrying and circled the wooden gifts, etc.

2) If you are using travel card, make sure you use that in an ATM before using it in the stores. Travel cards give you low conversion rates but pain to use.

3) Every thing is expensive here (even the bus ticket here costs around $4) . Make sure you bring as much as possible with you so you can lower your startup costs.

4) When you take phone connection, make sure you understand the terms and conditions. If you don't pay attention to these details, you may end up paying huge phone bills. Explore using VoIP service for India calls.


Goodluck with your landing and settling down.

Hi Srid,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Can you please give us more details. Your landing experience is most recent and I am planning to land in a month at Toronto airport so it will be very helpful for me to learn from your experience. Please break it down by steps if you have spare time.

Thanks

 

[johnson.i2000]

Good, useful write up and thanks for it.

can you elaborate how did you open a canadian bank a/c before landing, just curious.

Regards

I have landed in Toronto last Friday (may 16th). It went very smooth. I spent lot of time preparing for it. That much preparation is probably not required.

There are two queues at the first stage where they verified the passports. I was told to enter visitor queue. They checked the passports and wrote on our disembarkation card that we are immigrants and asked us to go to immigration counter. At this counter they asked us few questions and directed us to Service canada counter.

At Service Canada counter, we filled a form for SIN number. We got SIN numbers there. From there we moved to "welcome to Canada" counter where we got lot of useful literature about settling in Canada.

After this we collected our bags. I did not have change and the travel card was not working. One of the guys there gave me the change. The trolley machine only takes 10$ and under. I had only $20 notes.

After collecting our bags we walked over to customs. Here they have asked us for proof of funds, goods to be followed, and if are carrying any food items.

For POF, I had some $ in cash, some in travel card, and some already transferred to my account in Scotia bank. I had no goods following list, and I have taken the pictures of gold items that we are carrying with us. He stamped the photos, and asked us to sign on B4 and B4A forms. About food, I told him I was carrying Indian spices. He has no problem with that.

We walked out and met our friend. We stayed at our friend's place and moved into our own place couple of days later. He has been great help we would have struggled without him.

I see lot of Sri Lankans, Indians and Chinese here in Markham. Our neighbours are white people and they are very nice. The whole place is very beautiful. We saw rabbits in the backyard and weather has become very pleasant (16 - 20deg C). Planning to take driving test and buy a car next week. For now we are using the bus to move around. I already feel I am home ;-)

The other day, we three are waiting for the bus and one white teenager driving on the other side of the road lowered her window and yelled at us. She seem to have used the N word and was angry at us. It took a while for me to understand what she was saying and she is gone before I got angry and could give it back to her. I guess you need to be little bit careful when you are alone on the streets. Fight for your rights don't let some punk ruin your day.

Started my work from home for the same employer in India. I have something in hand and I am thankful for that. Got new mobile phone and connection with it from FIDO. It costs around $39/month. It looks like you need to pay around half dollar per minute even for local calls if you cross free local minutes (incoming or outgoing).

Few suggestions on landing:

1) Use one disembarkation card (that card they give you in the flight) for all family members. the funds you are carrying includes travel cards, cash and money you have already transferred to your account in Canada. If the funds are more than $10K per head, please mention that. I said yes to foods carrying and circled the wooden gifts, etc.

2) If you are using travel card, make sure you use that in an ATM before using it in the stores. Travel cards give you low conversion rates but pain to use.

3) Every thing is expensive here (even the bus ticket here costs around $4) . Make sure you bring as much as possible with you so you can lower your startup costs.

4) When you take phone connection, make sure you understand the terms and conditions. If you don't pay attention to these details, you may end up paying huge phone bills. Explore using VoIP service for India calls.


Goodluck with your landing and settling down.

 

[srid_a]

Good, useful write up and thanks for it.

can you elaborate how did you open a canadian bank a/c before landing, just curious.

Regards

All the banks have new comer programs. I opened a Scotia bank account in India. You can open the new comer account through Kotak Mahindra or Scotia bank local branches in India. I opened the account at Scotia bank branch in Hyderabad.

They will create a Canadian account for me and they will provide a temp India account. I need to do RTGS (money Xfer) to this temp account and go to Scotia bank. They will ask me to fill in a form (as required by RBI) and then convert this amount to Candain $ and deposit into my account. They give me a receipt and statement for this transaction. This can be used as POF at the entry.

Once I land in Canada, I need to go to the Scotia Bank branch where my account was created and activate it. They will give me the debit card, credit card, etc. and get me started.

 

[TO DREAMLAND]

I have landed in Toronto last Friday (may 16th). It went very smooth. I spent lot of time preparing for it. That much preparation is probably not required.

There are two queues at the first stage where they verified the passports. I was told to enter visitor queue. They checked the passports and wrote on our disembarkation card that we are immigrants and asked us to go to immigration counter. At this counter they asked us few questions and directed us to Service canada counter.

At Service Canada counter, we filled a form for SIN number. We got SIN numbers there. From there we moved to "welcome to Canada" counter where we got lot of useful literature about settling in Canada.

After this we collected our bags. I did not have change and the travel card was not working. One of the guys there gave me the change. The trolley machine only takes 10$ and under. I had only $20 notes.

After collecting our bags we walked over to customs. Here they have asked us for proof of funds, goods to be followed, and if are carrying any food items.

For POF, I had some $ in cash, some in travel card, and some already transferred to my account in Scotia bank. I had no goods following list, and I have taken the pictures of gold items that we are carrying with us. He stamped the photos, and asked us to sign on B4 and B4A forms. About food, I told him I was carrying Indian spices. He has no problem with that.

We walked out and met our friend. We stayed at our friend's place and moved into our own place couple of days later. He has been great help we would have struggled without him.

I see lot of Sri Lankans, Indians and Chinese here in Markham. Our neighbours are white people and they are very nice. The whole place is very beautiful. We saw rabbits in the backyard and weather has become very pleasant (16 - 20deg C). Planning to take driving test and buy a car next week. For now we are using the bus to move around. I already feel I am home ;-)

The other day, we three are waiting for the bus and one white teenager driving on the other side of the road lowered her window and yelled at us. She seem to have used the N word and was angry at us. It took a while for me to understand what she was saying and she is gone before I got angry and could give it back to her. I guess you need to be little bit careful when you are alone on the streets. Fight for your rights don't let some punk ruin your day.

Started my work from home for the same employer in India. I have something in hand and I am thankful for that. Got new mobile phone and connection with it from FIDO. It costs around $39/month. It looks like you need to pay around half dollar per minute even for local calls if you cross free local minutes (incoming or outgoing).

Few suggestions on landing:

1) Use one disembarkation card (that card they give you in the flight) for all family members. the funds you are carrying includes travel cards, cash and money you have already transferred to your account in Canada. If the funds are more than $10K per head, please mention that. I said yes to foods carrying and circled the wooden gifts, etc.

2) If you are using travel card, make sure you use that in an ATM before using it in the stores. Travel cards give you low conversion rates but pain to use.

3) Every thing is expensive here (even the bus ticket here costs around $4) . Make sure you bring as much as possible with you so you can lower your startup costs.

4) When you take phone connection, make sure you understand the terms and conditions. If you don't pay attention to these details, you may end up paying huge phone bills. Explore using VoIP service for India calls.


Goodluck with your landing and settling down.

Thanks srid-a for sharing your landing experience. I am to follow you by the end of July. All the best, td

 

[arun786]

Dear Friend

please tell what kind of question they asked

 

[darpaje]

Very informative post, please explain the details procedure of how to take jewelry to Canada

 

[TO DREAMLAND]

Very informative post, please explain the details procedure of how to take jewelry to Canada

Hi, photograph the jewellery one by one and attach the cash bill in duplicate. Also state it in the goods followed list with value in Canadian equivalency. that's all ,td

 

[iblessed]

Hello srid_a welcome to Canada, there are good and bad people everywhere but over all majority of Canadians are lovely kind and very helpful people don't let the bad apples get to you. All the best to you and your family.

 

[srid_a]

Hi, photograph the jewellery one by one and attach the cash bill in duplicate. Also state it in the goods followed list with value in Canadian equivalency. that's all ,td

Hi td,
Thanks for the clarification. What I did was to categorize and take one photo for each category. For example, I took one photo for all rings, one for all ear rings, necklaces, etc. I then loaded the picture into MS Paint and typed labels there. For example, I typed R1, R2, etc. text next to each ring and entered their approximate value in the B4/B4A form. All this may not be required. You can probably say combined value of rings is $XYZ. I have got 2 copies printed for each MS Paint photos.

I also did not have any receipts. Hope this helps,
srid_a

 

[srid_a]

Hello srid_a welcome to Canada, there are good and bad people everywhere but over all majority of Canadians are lovely kind and very helpful people don't let the bad apples get to you. All the best to you and your family.

Thanks iblessed! Yes. I completely agree on good & bad people.

Went to CN tower yesterday. The food at the revolving restaurant and walking on the glass ceiling is an out of the world experience!

 

[darpaje]

Hi, photograph the jewellery one by one and attach the cash bill in duplicate. Also state it in the goods followed list with value in Canadian equivalency. that's all ,td

Thanks for your valuable reply

 

[fahadkalis]

I have landed in Toronto last Friday (may 16th). It went very smooth. I spent lot of time preparing for it. That much preparation is probably not required.

There are two queues at the first stage where they verified the passports. I was told to enter visitor queue. They checked the passports and wrote on our disembarkation card that we are immigrants and asked us to go to immigration counter. At this counter they asked us few questions and directed us to Service canada counter.

At Service Canada counter, we filled a form for SIN number. We got SIN numbers there. From there we moved to "welcome to Canada" counter where we got lot of useful literature about settling in Canada.

After this we collected our bags. I did not have change and the travel card was not working. One of the guys there gave me the change. The trolley machine only takes 10$ and under. I had only $20 notes.

After collecting our bags we walked over to customs. Here they have asked us for proof of funds, goods to be followed, and if are carrying any food items.

For POF, I had some $ in cash, some in travel card, and some already transferred to my account in Scotia bank. I had no goods following list, and I have taken the pictures of gold items that we are carrying with us. He stamped the photos, and asked us to sign on B4 and B4A forms. About food, I told him I was carrying Indian spices. He has no problem with that.

We walked out and met our friend. We stayed at our friend's place and moved into our own place couple of days later. He has been great help we would have struggled without him.

I see lot of Sri Lankans, Indians and Chinese here in Markham. Our neighbours are white people and they are very nice. The whole place is very beautiful. We saw rabbits in the backyard and weather has become very pleasant (16 - 20deg C). Planning to take driving test and buy a car next week. For now we are using the bus to move around. I already feel I am home ;-)

The other day, we three are waiting for the bus and one white teenager driving on the other side of the road lowered her window and yelled at us. She seem to have used the N word and was angry at us. It took a while for me to understand what she was saying and she is gone before I got angry and could give it back to her. I guess you need to be little bit careful when you are alone on the streets. Fight for your rights don't let some punk ruin your day.

Started my work from home for the same employer in India. I have something in hand and I am thankful for that. Got new mobile phone and connection with it from FIDO. It costs around $39/month. It looks like you need to pay around half dollar per minute even for local calls if you cross free local minutes (incoming or outgoing).

Few suggestions on landing:

1) Use one disembarkation card (that card they give you in the flight) for all family members. the funds you are carrying includes travel cards, cash and money you have already transferred to your account in Canada. If the funds are more than $10K per head, please mention that. I said yes to foods carrying and circled the wooden gifts, etc.

2) If you are using travel card, make sure you use that in an ATM before using it in the stores. Travel cards give you low conversion rates but pain to use.

3) Every thing is expensive here (even the bus ticket here costs around $4) . Make sure you bring as much as possible with you so you can lower your startup costs.

4) When you take phone connection, make sure you understand the terms and conditions. If you don't pay attention to these details, you may end up paying huge phone bills. Explore using VoIP service for India calls.


Goodluck with your landing and settling down.

Very useful information, specially bank one which is count as before landing experience as well.
Thank you

 

[ptv7425]

Thanks iblessed! Yes. I completely agree on good & bad people.

Went to CN tower yesterday. The food at the revolving restaurant and walking on the glass ceiling is an out of the world experience!

Congrats Srid!