*** LANDING EXPERIENCE AT CALGARY CIC OFFICE - NO APPOINTMENT ****
I came in at 8:30am. The office was not open until 9am so we have to form a line outside. I was the first in line. I planned to go to the border on Saturday for landing but after reading a post on this forum a member said s/he was able to do landing at local office without appointment so I decided to try my luck here this Friday morning. The line was about 20 people even before the office is open.
When I get inside, I dealt with a male officer at the front desk, he is Filipino I guess. He's young. I explained to him I am here to do landing but I didn't have appointment because the CIC Toll free didn't pass on my request to the local office. He said that is absolutely not possible without appointment. I told him I am leaving Canada for vacation and with PR Status I can apply for travel documents. He said I have an option to go to the border (which I already knew) but I told him the weather is not good to drive hours on highway. But he still No No and No. I almost gave up and wanted to return to work, forget about the landing here and will do it at the border tomorrow. But then he said he needs to check the schedule to see if CIC passed my name on their calendar or not. I kept saying “please please please” and he kept resisting “no no no”. I said I have heard that landing wouldn't take longer than 10 mins, he said ‘no, much longer , sir' .
Few minutes later I don't know what changed his mind, he grabbed my paperworks and asked me to wait – he said he will check to see if there is any available immigration officer to do this for me but “don't hope too much”, if they do it, you're lucky, if they're busy, answer remains same. About 5 mins he came out and confirm a few more things about travel plan ( seemed to me like he didn't believe me at first), then he smiled at me, and became a totally different person LOL. He said that an IO will come out to help you right away, your request is accepted. Thanks goodness! I didn't have to go home and spent 2 hrs for nothing, best part is I won't have to drive to border in this kind of weather.
About 5 mins later an IO came out to walk me into a small private room. She was a Filipino, too and she is very friendly. I can't stop myself saying ‘sorry' and ‘thank you' to her because I know I have given them a difficult situation and they have made a very rare exception for me (based on how firm the officers were at first). She took my COPR and passport, check all the info, keyed something on her computer. She asked if I remember my first entry date to Canada I told her the approximation. She had to check my CIC Client ID again to find out the exact date. Then she asked me to confirm all the info on COPR are correct and put initials/signature on the fields her finger points to. She wanted me to surrender my Work Permit and said I now have all the rights and obligations of a PR. She congratulates me twice during the landing. I brought with me bank statement and last payslip but none was asked to show. The whole landing process with IO was less than 10 minutes with no tension at all. She told me to change my SIN and update my status with employer. She explained to me about PR Card and how to retain PR status and offer to answer my questions.
I left the office at 9:30am. mostly spent time waiting outside and waited to be called in for landing.
When I get to work I check my COPR and found out the field ‘I understand these conditions' was not signed. I was confused as I don't know if it was missing or not, IO didn't tell me to sign there and that field looks important, too. So I googled the CIC Calgary email and send them an email to inquire. About an hour later, that IO call me back (anonymous caller ID) saying everything is fine because my PR doesn't come with any conditions or restriction so no need to sign there. It was a big relief to hear that as I have heard cases where COPR must be reissued, resigned, and PR card delayed because of missing signature on COPR.
Well, so on Dec 9 2011, I became PR of Canada.
