Morning all,
I thought I'd just share my husband's experience of doing a soft landing back in June. I sponsored my husband on a spouse visa.
We landed in Halifax airport from London on a direct flight. We managed to do our landing cards on the electronic kiosks they had.
When we got to the immigration officer we mentioned that my husband was landing in Canada for the first time and she directed us to the immigration desk around the corner. Once we were through the first immigration point (passport check) we found the immigration desk. There was no queue so we were called up immediately. This is where they checked the letter he was sent when his visa was approved. She only asked a few questions - had he ever been deported, had he ever been refused entry to Canada, has he been convicted of any crimes. His answers were all no so it was pretty straight forward.
I had brought proof of funds and birth certificates, our son's proof of citizenship, marriage certificate but she didn't ask for any of it. She was only worried about my husband and his visa. I gave her my parents address - both PO Box and street address which we had written down. We had told her that this was a soft landing and she was fine about it.
We were then directed to customs where again, we were the only people waiting. They asked us if we were bringing anything in to the country on this trip that we would be leaving here (we weren't) and then took my list of belongings and their values. They were super friendly and took a copy of it so I could keep one.
One thing I would mention. I put all the values in £ and not CAD. They totalled them up at the end and did a rough exchange. It would probably be really helpful to them and save a lot of time if you're going through a busy airport if you put the values in Canadian dollars and total them up at the end.
And that was it. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes longer than it would normally take just getting our passport stamped. Everyone was super friendly and welcomed my husband to Canada. The people in the customs section even chatted to our toddler.
It was all very positive.
I know I was looking for soft landing experiences before I went over so I hope this will be useful to someone.
I thought I'd just share my husband's experience of doing a soft landing back in June. I sponsored my husband on a spouse visa.
We landed in Halifax airport from London on a direct flight. We managed to do our landing cards on the electronic kiosks they had.
When we got to the immigration officer we mentioned that my husband was landing in Canada for the first time and she directed us to the immigration desk around the corner. Once we were through the first immigration point (passport check) we found the immigration desk. There was no queue so we were called up immediately. This is where they checked the letter he was sent when his visa was approved. She only asked a few questions - had he ever been deported, had he ever been refused entry to Canada, has he been convicted of any crimes. His answers were all no so it was pretty straight forward.
I had brought proof of funds and birth certificates, our son's proof of citizenship, marriage certificate but she didn't ask for any of it. She was only worried about my husband and his visa. I gave her my parents address - both PO Box and street address which we had written down. We had told her that this was a soft landing and she was fine about it.
We were then directed to customs where again, we were the only people waiting. They asked us if we were bringing anything in to the country on this trip that we would be leaving here (we weren't) and then took my list of belongings and their values. They were super friendly and took a copy of it so I could keep one.
One thing I would mention. I put all the values in £ and not CAD. They totalled them up at the end and did a rough exchange. It would probably be really helpful to them and save a lot of time if you're going through a busy airport if you put the values in Canadian dollars and total them up at the end.
And that was it. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes longer than it would normally take just getting our passport stamped. Everyone was super friendly and welcomed my husband to Canada. The people in the customs section even chatted to our toddler.
It was all very positive.
I know I was looking for soft landing experiences before I went over so I hope this will be useful to someone.
