Nova Scotia – Soft Landing Experience – September 2018
We completed our soft landing on 13th September 2018. Here is our experience:
We travelled as a family of 3―my spouse, our 3 year old child and I. Our flight was from Mumbai-Zurich-London-Halifax. We undertook this route to avoid landing in Toronto or any bigger airports within Canada as we didn’t want to be stuck in long immigration queues with an overtired toddler.
We reached Halifax at 1.30 in the afternoon. We were not given any immigration forms in flight as Stanfield International Airport, Halifax has electronic kiosks. As soon as we landed, we were directed to go to the kiosks. At the kiosk, we filled in our names, answered a couple of questions (pretty basic like do you have any perishable food, how much cash you are carrying, purpose of visit) and scanned our passports (all 3 passports). The kiosk then printed out a receipt that we showed to the security officer who then directed us to the immigration counter.
This airport is quite small with just 10 electronic kiosks and 4 Immigration counters. Although 3 counters were free, we waited to be called and within a couple of seconds we were asked to come forward.
At the counter, we told the Immigration Officer that we were here to complete our PR formalities. She then asked for our passports, COPR, and the receipt that was printed at the kiosk. She took a couple of minutes to go through our passports and simultaneously updating her system. All this while she kept talking to us and our son, and was quite friendly and approachable.
After she was done checking our passports, she asked us the following:
How much cash are you bringing in? – We said that we had CAD 2000, CAD 2000 in Forex Card, and the remaining (the same amount mandated by CIC for settlement) in the international debit card which was readily available if needed. She asked us to write down these details in a piece of paper that she provided.
Canadian Address for the PR Card to be mailed: We provided a friend’s address who lives in Ontario and wrote down the address in the same piece of paper.
Once she noticed that address was not of Nova Scotia, she asked if we were planning to stay. We replied that we had booked an Airbnb for a couple of days and that once we come back for good we will look out for an apartment. She looked a little concerned and asked if we intended on returning to NS and exact plans on when we were returning. She added that if she were to accept our application, she needed to be convinced that we had good intent of returning back to NS.
This was not something we expected as most of the people doing soft landing were not even asked if they were doing a soft landing. I wish we had been prepared to answer these questions as at that point we thought it could go either way and our PR could be in jeopardy.
I tried convincing her that we were coming back soon for good but she still didn’t seem convinced.
That’s when my wife stepped in and said that we have a house that we have put up in the market and we want to finish off all the transactions before we can move for good. We also have all our savings liquidated in the bank and ready to be transferred (we had a bank statement taken a day before our travel in case we were asked POF). The Immigration Officer just nodded and asked us if we knew our obligations to keep our PR active, we said yes, and she asked us what it was? We said 2 out of 5 years and she nodded again.
After this she asked us to wait in the lobby and that she would call us back. This was the most difficult waiting period that we have experienced as we were not sure if we had managed to convince her. Although she had nodded at our responses, she kept a straight face and it was difficult to read her.
After 15 minutes, which seemed like eternity, we were called back by her and she asked us to sign and initial the COPR. My wife signed hers and I signed for my son. She then smiled and said ‘Welcome to Canada’ and went on to say the normal things that are told to immigrants.
From multiple forums on Canadavisa, we gathered that many people had received a new photograph request after they had completed their landing formalities. This is only in case of people who travelled six months after receiving COPR. We had received our COPR in February 2018 and travelled in September 2018 (so our photographs were over 6 months old). Hence, we decided to carry new photographs which were taken a day before our travel. Please note that this photograph needs to meet COPR requirements.
We asked the Immigration Officer if she wanted the new photographs. She was not aware of the requirements but said that she could attach one with the COPR that would go to CIC and it was up to them to consider. We gave one photograph each nonetheless. She then cancelled our visa in our passports and handed over a receipt and our copies of COPR. We were asked to pick up our bags, which we did and then followed the directions for the exit.
We came across an Officer who asked for the receipt that the Immigration Officer had given us. He took one look at it and directed us to continue towards the exit. We went a couple of steps and realized that we would be out of the airport. So we came back to the Officer and asked him for the Customs counter which he had clearly missed. He apologized and showed us the way to the customs counter.
The Customs Counter in Halifax Airport is a separate room away from the main lobby. We waited to be called into the room. Once inside we saw two counters and a very friendly Customs Officer at one of the counters. He asked us if we had any goods to follow and we said yes. He was prepared to explain to us what that means but we told him that we had our print-outs ready. We gave him the Goods to Follow (GTF) and Goods Accompanying (GA) lists and he was highly impressed by how well -prepared we were. At this point, he was joined by another Officer and he mentioned to him that we had done our research and how that made his life easy.
For GTF & GTA: We had made separate excel sheets with broad categories and then listed down each item under those categories. We mentioned the value of each item in Indian Rupees and Canadian Dollars.
Example:
· Clothing (clothes, shoes, coats, and linens)
· Household Items (toys, toiletries, books, medicines, spectacles, stroller)
· Electronics (laptop, mobile phones, thermometer, camera, etc.)
· Jewelry (Gold and Silver):
We took printouts of our jewelry and tagged it Pic 1, Pic 2, etc. In the excel sheet, we added a column ‘Pic number’ that matched with their corresponding pictures in the printouts.
My wife mentioned to him that we were carrying dry snacks for our child and whether we are required to leave those behind. He said that it was ok as long as it had nothing perishable and that they would never take away a child’s food. After he had stamped both the Goods to Follow and Good Accompanying List, he directed us towards the exit. We asked him about the Services Canada kiosk so that we could apply for us SINs. Unfortunately, this airport doesn’t have one within the premises. We decided to visit one that was closer to our Airbnb the next day. This entire process, from the time we landed to the time we got out, took a little over an hour.
Now, we had decided to pre-book a cab from India since we had a toddler and would have required a car seat. We had approached over 8 cab agencies but never heard back from any one of them. So we decided to land and figure out if we could get a cab or a bus to our Airbnb. The airport has a transportation desk and they help you with your transportation needs. The gentleman at the counter was very friendly and once I told him that I was looking for a cab with car seat, he immediately radioed our requirement and cab was waiting outside with a car seat installed within few mins. This cab charged us CAD 65 (without tip) from the airport to downtown Halifax where we had booked our Airbnb, and even gave us a 20% discount (we had tipped him generously the first time around) on our return to the airport. The cab service is called ‘Galaxy Limousine’.
This post is quite long but I have tried to include every detail that I could think of. Hopefully this is helpful to those planning to do their landing soon.
