Landing story and additional post-landing bureaucracy:
So I packed up my few worldly possessions, counted, inventoried and filled out my B-4 forms. I rented a car for the journey, as I was going from Connecticut to Toronto and we don't have a vehicle. I had more stuff than I wanted to ship or check for a flight.
I crossed at the Rainbow bridge at about 5 pm on Saturday, August 30 and it was very busy. I got up to the first border guard, happily said, I'm moving here and gave him my COPR and passport. He grumpily directed me to an area to park and go inside. The first guard took my passport and COPR and made me wait in another room for about 5 minutes. I was then called up for processing, which took about 2 minutes. I had to sign my COPR and she stamped my passport and wrote my immigration number in there.
Then they passed me on to customs to examine my B-4 forms. The first person did not know how to process a landing and I was shuffled to two other people. The guy looked at my forms, asked if I had a car, to which I replied "no" and then handed my forms back to me. I asked "should you stamp them or something?" and he said "well I trust that everything in that rental is what you have on this list and I'm not going to go out there and search through it all." and he told me I could go.
That was that. Very painless and so much more anti-climactic than I thought it would be.
Since then I've gone to Service Ontario to apply for my OHIP. There was no line at all and they required my proof of address (lease), my COPR and my passport. They snapped my photo and told me it should come in the mail in a few weeks, but I can't use it for 3 months.
Today, I went to Service Canada to get my SIN. The wait was about 30 minutes and all they needed was my COPR, passport and some personal information. Also, the weirdest question ever "were you a single child or a twin?" not sure how that data is relevant for my SIN, but oh well!
I've now got my SIN, so I plan to get put on my husband's bank account and open a secured credit card to start building my Canadian credit.
Last stop will be Service Ontario again for sorting out a driver's license. I don't really want to give up my Connecticut driver's license, but the website implies that I will have to surrender it.