My landing experience
I thought to share my landing experience.
After a very long 21-month journey (story shared here:
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/november-2020-aor-join-here.708612/page-229) my husband and I received our COPR in the month of May 2021. With the hotel quarantine requirement still in place, we decided to put off immediate traveling to Canada. However, in the month of June, we were glad to know that vaccinated travelers will be exempted from this requirement starting from the 5th of July. We booked our tickets to Toronto (although, Alberta is our province of settlement). In preparation for the landing procedure, we filled the CBSA forms (BSF186 and BSF186A) for declaring the goods we were coming with and goods to follow. A day before our travel, we kept in our details on the ARRIVECAN app. To make the process easy and straightforward, we printed out the code gotten from the ARRIVECAN app after check-in, our COVID test, vaccination records, and the completed CSBSA forms. We also printed out our bank statements with the minimum required funds for a family of two, we also had our marriage certificate with us.
On the day of our travel, we got to to the airport 3 hours before our departure time. Check-in with Air Canada was very smooth. We landed after 1 hour in Toronto where we were directed to check-in electronically. Afterward, we were directed towards the immigration section. We presented our immigrant visa, COPR, COVID result, and ARRIVECAN code after which we proceeded to complete our landing procedure. In the area designated for landing, we were attended to by a very nice lady who asked for our visas and COPR nothing more. We were asked for an address we would like our PRC card to be mailed to us. We provided an address in Manitoba. We were congratulated for becoming permanent residents and then proceeded for our on-arrival COVID test. It was a very smooth process. We had initially opened a SWITCH HEALTH account (even if we had not, there was provision for opening an account either online by yourself, or one of the persons in charge of the testing would gladly help with it). After the test, we proceeded to customs declaration. We were asked for photos of the pieces of jewelry we were planning to bring in later on. We never had this and so, the officer told us to come back later to complete the declaration process. We were a little shocked by this as we were of the opinion that this has to be done on the day of landing to avoid tax later on. We were told to go to the customs section once we have the pictures with 2 copies of each of the BSF186 forms. We then proceeded to claim our baggage and headed to our AIRBNB reservation. We received our negative test in the night and were cleared from any quarantine requirements.
The next day, we went to one of the Service Canada locations to obtain our social insurance number. It was a very easy process. We needed a Canadian telephone number and so, we used the number we had gotten from the textnow app. Our SIN was issued and we went ahead to register for a SIM card. We put off registering for our health card as our final destination of settlement was somewhat dependent on where we get employed. Two weeks later, we went back to the airport to declare our good to follow. It was a very smooth and easy process. We were given some documents that we will need to present when the goods are brought into Canada.
On the day of arrival, we had linked our PR card application to our CIC account and we kept monitoring it for any updates. A week later, we got a ghost update on the application. We called the customer service line and were told by the agent that our cards were sent for production. Two weeks later, we received an email stating that we have a message in our account. We logged in and saw our status as approved. Our cards were mailed to us!!
We had begun interviewing for jobs prior to us arriving in Canada and we were happy to secure a position within 1 week of arrival. Canada is a beautiful place with very nice people.
It's been a journey. I wish everyone success in their immigration journey. Thank you all for all the support so far.
