Finally! Appointment to pick up PR card

Well, after my ranty post the other day, I got home yesterday to a letter from CIC with my rescheduled appointment to get my PR card. And even better, the appointment is actually when I’m off work for the festive season, so I won’t even have to take time off.

It was a pretty scary looking letter though – printed on red paper and basically looking like the bailiffs were after me.

For the first time, it doesn’t have my client number written on it. I’m definitely going to ask about that when I go in – do I have my own number or am I correct in using the number I’ve always used, which is on all of their correspondence to me, but the call centre has said is actually Tim’s?

And it was sent to our house, so I think that might be everything away from Tim’s sister’s address now.

Once I've got the PR card, I'll be able to get my BC Services Card (without being cheeky and using my driver's license as ID), then the next thing is to get a card with my married name on it.

Full text of the letter:

Blog time

Just in case you were wondering why all my earlier posts were written really early in the morning – I’ve changed the blog’s timezone to Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8), but it’s changed all the old posts too :)

First 100 days - part two

Okay, so technically the title should be 110 days now!

PR card

• To be honest, I’m pretty p*ssed off about the whole PR card thing – I still don’t have it!
• I really wish that I hadn’t bothered giving them an address back in 2011 and had just applied for my card when we arrived in August, as the current processing times mean they’d have sent the card by now!
• So the last update was that I was given an appointment to pick up my card from the CIC, but I wasn’t in the country then. The CIC call centre said that the appointment would be rescheduled automatically and suggested that I fax the office if I wanted to tell them when I was arriving etc.
• As expected – no response! When we arrived in Vancouver, I phoned the call centre again and was told again to just wait for a rescheduled appointment. We even went to the office where the appointment would be to see if they could give me a new date, but the receptionist just said I had to wait.
• 180 days passed and I phoned the call centre again, as the original letter said that my card would be destroyed if not picked up by this time. They checked my file and said that there was no note of the card being destroyed, but this time the guy said he would put a note on the system for the PR card office, to explain the situation.
• I have to phone them again in a month to see if the office has responded to the note. Unfortunately, the “month” falls right in the middle of the festive period, so I predict a LONG wait on the lovely hold music :(
• Additionally, we’re actually going back to Scotland in February for a wedding, so if the next phone call doesn’t work, I’m giving up on my original card and doing the urgent processing procedure instead.
• I was at least able to give them my new address, so there shouldn’t be any more confusion about delivery (Tim is working from home, so there’s always someone in!).
• I’m slightly concerned that they couldn’t find me on the system to begin with. I gave the client number that is on all of their correspondence and that they’ve always accepted, but this guy said that it was Tim’s client number, not mine. I wonder if this is maybe part of the problem?

Driving license

• In happier news, it's really easy to swap your UK license for a BC one! You just turn up at an ICBC office, take a number and wait for a free member of staff. They ask a few questions about what you want to do, confirm your identity, do a vision test, take payment, then ask you some simple safety questions.
• Note that the safety questions are done after the payment and the woman that served me even said “don’t worry, you can’t fail these”! Basically, they just want to highlight a couple of key issues, like not overtaking a school bus.
• They also take your photo, which is used for both your driver’s license and your healthcare card.
• The only issue I had was that their list of accepted identification doesn't allow anything international as "primary" ID. This meant I could only get a temporary paper driver’s license until my PR card came through.
• When this temporary license expired after a month, I went to another ICBC branch and explained the situation. The woman there was very helpful and issued me a temporary license that wouldn’t expire until January, so I wouldn’t have to keep coming back.
• As I explained above, I still don’t have my PR card, but I think the helpful woman must have pressed the wrong button on her computer, as my proper driver’s license appeared in the post a few days later!

Healthcare

• Canada is better than the US, but not as awesome as the NHS – you have to pay for the Medical Services Plan, but it’s not much and employers often cover the costs.
• However, coverage doesn’t start until three months of residence, so we got 90 day migrant insurance from CanadaSure to cover us.
• Now, I say three months, but it’s actually two months, plus the remainder of the month that you apply in. We got the form completed and sent off on August 29th, so our coverage started on November 1st.
• But your BC Services Card is tied into the driver’s license process, so I can’t get my card until I show ICBC my PR card. However, I’ve got my driver’s license now(!), so I phoned BC Services to see if they’ll release my card. Wonderfully, they can’t even find me in the system and they asked me for a slip that ICBC should have given me, with a “client code” on it. I don’t think I’ll get the “slip” until I’ve proved my ID (even though I’ve been sent my driver’s license!), so I’m technically without healthcare.
• I can just pay for stuff if I need it though – I was ill when we were living downtown and just went to a walk-in clinic. I could have claimed the money back from CanadaSure, but it was only $5 or so over my deductible, so seemed a bit pointless! I do worry that I’m going to end up in a car crash and Tim has to fight for the coverage that we’re already paying for.

First 100 days - part one

Well, we've now been living in Vancouver for 100 days, so it's well past time for a bit of an update! It seems like only yesterday that we were packing up our life and flying over here, but, weirdly, it also feels like we've been here a lot longer.

We actually blasted through a lot of the admin-type tasks in the first week, while others are still ongoing - the joys of CIC bureaucracy.

So, list time!

Flight

• We flew with Canadian Affair - so much cheaper than the other options, even with upgrading to a Club seat.
• I'm glad that I got the Travel Document, as I was asked if I had one when our passports were checked in Glasgow. Whether not having one would have caused a problem, I don't know, but I was very pleased to just be able to flash it at them, then head through to security :)

Apartment

• We rented an AirBnB apartment for our first month - right downtown so we could walk everywhere. I highly recommend doing this, rather than being in a hotel. I felt that we were starting to actually live here, rather than being on vacation. And even though my first few trips to the supermarket totally freaked me out, I did like being able to cook in my own kitchen.
• The only issues we had were that the apartment was really set up for people on much shorter stays. For example, the cupboards were pretty much all full, so there was nowhere for our stuff to go! If you were staying for a fortnight, no problem - and the pantry essentials would have been handy. For two people with three suitcases each, who wanted to be able to do a proper shop, not so much!
• Also, while the late summer weather was gorgeous, the apartment got roastingly hot. Luckily, there was a balcony to sit out on and we took advantage of the seawall being so nearby.
• And I'm glad that we spent some time living the downtown life - it confirmed that we wanted somewhere a bit larger and much quieter!

Mobile phone

• Pretty much the first thing we did was to get our mobile phones organised. We were planning to just get Canadian SIM cards, but my iPhone was too old for the network we chose, so I ended up with a new Android (it's a hard life!).
• We got a really good package with all inclusive phone, texts and data. Voicemail is a bit weird though, as it's treated like a fancy extra, rather than as a standard thing.
• Tim also set us up with our own UK VOIP numbers, so friends and family can call a local Aberdeen number and it goes straight to our phones.

SIN

• Getting a Social Insurance Number (i.e. the Canadian equivalent of National Insurance, required for getting a job) was probably the simplest thing I had to do.
• Walk in to a Service Canada office with your identification documents, ask for a SIN, complete some forms and walk out with your number!
• The plastic card was posted out a week or so later.

Bank account / credit card

• Setting up bank accounts and credit cards was fairly simple too - helped by the fact that Tim's sister works for a bank over here and was able to speak to the new account people for us initially :)
• However, as we didn't have credit scores in Canada, we did have to put down security deposits for everything, but we'll get the money released in a year.
• The Canadians really don't do free banking, but the accounts we've got are actually only $7 a month and that's just if your balance drops below a certain amount - I think I can cope with that.
• There was quite a lot of "right, so how does that work then?" when we were setting up the accounts, as they do things very different here! Like being able to access your account in a branch by just telling the cashier your account number and your password - no bank card required!

We've done a lot more, but that'll do for now!

I should add that it really helped us to be able to use Tim's sister's address and phone number for everything - it was like we had a "permanent" address immediately and were able to sign up for stuff straight away, then update our details later. If we didn't have her, I guess we'd have had to use the rented apartment address, but we would have had to explain to the owner, get access to the mailbox while we were there, then get him to forward things on once we left.

Also, I filled a decent-sized travel wallet with all of our important documents (passports, my COPR form, our marriage certificate etc) and took it out every time we went to do something else. It may have seemed like overkill, but there were some times that it helped to be able to just lay everything out on the desk. For example, rather than having to explain "okay, we applied for sponsorship when we were just living together but we've since got married so my surname has changed, my PR card hasn't arrived yet, my first names are too long for the space on the COPR" etc!

Travel Document – received

Well, that was okay!

Sat 20th – Posted
Mon 22nd – Delivered to VAC
Tues 23rd – VAC emails / phonecalls
Tues 30th – Email saying processed and dispatched
Weds 31st – Delivered to me

So a week and a half in total – seven working days from the VAC receiving my documents to them dispatching everything.

I’m really glad I applied for the Travel Document now – a bit of money and effort for peace of mind on our one-way journey. It also means that I’m now “in the system” with my married name, which hopefully means that getting a PR card with my new name should be okay too.

The Travel Document itself is a visa stuck into your passport, like the one used for activating my permanent residency back in 2011. The date of issue is 26th August (i.e. when the High Commission got it) and it expires in January 2014, so I’ve got five months to use it – more than enough, considering our flight is already booked for the end of August!

And I can relax now that we’ve got Tim’s passport and our marriage certificate back in one piece too.

Full text of the enclosed letter below:

Travel Document – processed

Email received today:

From: visaapplicationalert@vfshelpline.com

Dear Applicant,

We would like to inform you that your processed passport has been dispatched from the Canada Visa Office, on 23 Jul 2013 to the Canada Visa Application Centre.
You can track the status of your application through our website mentioned below using your tracking number.
Tracking Number: [number]
http://www.vfsglobal.ca/canada

Best Regards,
Canada Visa Application Centre,London
LONDON

Could that be everything done and my Travel Document (and related documents) is on its way?

Packing and painting

We’re planning to rent the flat out part-furnished for a while – at least until we know we’re settled in Vancouver and to allow the market to pick up a bit more (Tim bought the flat basically a week before the crash!).

We’ve been getting rid of stuff and reorganising for the past wee while, then spent this weekend ferrying stuff to and from our storage unit, the tip, charity shops and my parent’s house (my sister has just bought a flat and will be getting various bits of our furniture for it).

Yesterday, we got the British Heart Foundation to pick up some large bits of furniture that otherwise would have gone to the tip (sofabed, bookshelves etc). If you’re getting rid of furniture in Aberdeen, I would highly recommend the BHF collection service – booked online on Friday, phone call confirmation on Saturday, two guys in a van on Monday (after phoning my mobile when they were 30 minutes away, so I could get home from work), done in 10 minutes! Instant Neighbour were booked up all this week and Barnardo’s could only manage on Wednesday.

Tim’s parents very generously offered to come up to Aberdeen for a few days and paint everything, so we spent last night moving things away from the walls and generally making things easier to shift around.

So 29 days to go and the flat is looking bare.

In happier news, Miss 604 has just published the list of events for August and it’s really weird to realise that we’ll be actually in the city for some of them!

Busy day!

So first, I was a numpty and didn’t sign one section of the Family Information Sheet, so VAC emailed me to get me to do it.

Then they gave me a tracking number:

From: visaapplicationalert@vfshelpline.com 

Dear Applicant, 

We would like to inform you that your application has been processed in our office on 23 Jul 2013 

You can track the status of your application through our website mentioned below using your tracking number.
Tracking Number: [number]
http://www.vfsglobal.ca/canada  

Best Regards,
Canada Visa Application Centre, London

Then they phoned to ask if Tim needed his passport back quickly or if they should just return it with the rest. I said returning it in one bundle would be fine, so then they emailed me again to confirm:

From: interpost.canuk@vfshelpline.com 

Dear Applicant,

Your application has been processed and this is your tracking id: [number]

Your application will be forwarded to the High Commission of Canada

You can track your application at the website below

The 6-digit auth. code number for the telephonic card transaction; [number]

The royal mail tracking number is [number]

Please note: the centre confirms the reciept of the applicant’s husband’s original Canadian passport, and as confirmed with the applicant over the phone. It will be returned along with the other document and/paspport with the finalized outcome.

For further information please visit our website www.vfsglobal.ca/Canada/UnitedKingdom or contact our call centre on  0203 608 6880.

Kind Regards,

--------
Service Desk for Applications via International Post
--------
VFS GLOBAL
EST. 2001 | Partnering Governments. Providing Solutions.

Canada Visa Application Centre
1st Floor, The Battleship Building, 179 Harrow Road, London, W2 6NB
--------
[BTW, this is just copied and pasted from their email, so they’re not my spelling mistakes!]

Now I understand what and why VFS are doing – they’re basically the clearing house for the High Commission. They do all the admin and chasing up forms and payments, so that the High Commission just receives full files, ready to process.

Anyway, my application is on its way now, so fingers crossed!

Travel Document – missing things

Well, I checked the Royal Mail tracking site this morning and my application had been received by the VAC. However, I’ve just received an email from them, saying that I’m missing a form and payment of the VFS fee – I’ve paid the visa fee, just not their fee for processing it.

Although I’m cross that I missed these bits, I’m really pleased by the response time from the VAC:

• Sat 20th – Posted for delivery on Monday before 1pm
• Mon 22nd – Tracked as delivered
• 10.03am, Tues 23rd – VAC emailed 
• 10.35am – I replied with the scanned form and my phone number
• 10.46am – VAC phoned for payment

Also, I appreciate that they emailed me, I was able to email them a scanned copy of the form, and they phoned me for payment by credit card. If they’d sent a letter returning everything and I’d had to get another postal order, I would not have been happy!

However, although I realise now that the VFS fee was listed on their website, I still don’t see where I was asked for the Family Information Form!

Full text of the email is below:

Travel Document

I’m a permanent resident of Canada, but I don’t have a PR card as the CIC haven’t been able to deliver it to our postal address in Canada and I wasn’t in the country for my appointment to pick it up.

A Travel Document is a single-use visa that gets stuck in your passport and allows you to enter Canada without a PR card and it’s mainly used by the citizens of countries that need a visa to enter Canada. However, I’m a British citizen with a passport, so I don’t need a visa to enter Canada (for visiting, anyway). People on the British Expats forum say “if you’re British and think you need a Travel Document, you really don’t” and there are various personal experiences of people not requiring it or confusing immigration officials by being British and having one.

However, if we’re being technical, all returning permanent residents without PR cards do require a Travel Document. There can also be issues with airlines not allowing people to board their flight if they hold a one-way ticket but don’t have a PR card. The airline could face big costs if they have to send you back to the UK as Canada haven’t let you in.

Also, in our personal experience, the last time we visited Vancouver (after I had landed and activated my PR status, but we were just over for a holiday), the immigration officer at the “returning residents” line said that I should have got one.

Bearing all that in mind, I decided to get a Travel Document just to be on the safe side!

As usual, the form is on the CIC website – it’s fairly self-explanatory, although I had the additional step of explaining my new married name and passport number. Two bits were rather irritating though – I needed new passport photos taken and they wanted the originals of various important documents to be sent!

After thinking I had been so clever in getting extra photos the last time, this form requires a very slight difference in measurements:

We also needed to send our actual passports and marriage certificate – seems a bit silly when the actual permanent residency application just needed photocopies of things.

Since I applied for permanent residency, a new Canadian Visa Application Centre has opened in London and it does all the processing of applications. This added an extra form, so you consent to a third party dealing with your stuff. The Travel Document application cost £32, which was only payable by postal order (I suspect this may be the only time in my life I have to get a one!), plus they needed a pre-paid self-addressed Special Delivery Envelope.

So with fees and photos, the whole application has cost around £50 – if it all goes through okay, that’s a cheap price for peace of mind. On the other hand, I do now have seven working days of stressing about VFS losing our passports or marriage certificate!

It’s official – I’ve handed in my notice at work

My contract says I only have to give one month’s notice, but I wanted to tell them earlier – mainly so they had plenty of time to hire my replacement. Now I can openly talk about the move and it feels really weird!

This is a big step and means that we can start actually planning things properly. My last day at work will be about 10 days before we actually leave, so I can be doing all the things that have to be left to the last minute (e.g. cleaning, getting rid of my car, dealing with the removal men).

Anyway, between now and then, there’s plenty to be doing. Our next couple of weekends are pretty busy, but then we have to start dealing with the flat. We’re planning to rent it out, so we need to arrange a company to manage it for us, plus doing all the repainting and fixing wee things that you have to do before a move.

71 days to go.

Rescheduling – nothing is ever simple

Using the cheeky redirection from before, I phoned the CIC Call Centre and spoke to a very nice guy about rescheduling my appointment to pick up my PR card. After putting me on hold to check, he said that he wasn’t able to reschedule my appointment himself. If I missed the appointment, the CIC would just send me another appointment letter – usually within six months.

Alternatively, I could try faxing the Vancouver Permanent Resident Card Centre (fax number 604-666-6168) with all of my details and explain that I wouldn’t make the appointment and could they reschedule for after our moving date. So this is what I’ve done – let’s see if they acknowledge my fax or just send a new letter or completely ignore everything and just send another letter after June!

And now, because I won’t have my PR card by the time we move, but we don’t want any issues with taking a one-way flight without the card, plus we want to go through the Canadian Residents line, but without being told off, I’ll be applying for a travel document.

I looked into this a few months ago, when it first looked like I wouldn’t have the PR card in time, but a new Visa Application Centre has opened up in London, so I need to check the process to follow.

The future

Big news first – we got married! So, common-law no more :)

We’ve also set a moving date (end of August) and have our flights and first months’ rental booked. We’ll do some research before we go, but the plan is to use September to sort out jobs and a more permanent place to rent.

Tim’s sister received a letter for me from the CIC last week. Unfortunately, not the long-awaited PR card itself, but an appointment to pick it up in person. I really don’t understand how they can manage to post a letter to the address, but don’t seem able to deliver the card – or at least leave a ‘missed delivery’ note for it! Anyway, I’ll be phoning them this week to reschedule the appointment for when I’m in the country.

Full text of the letter:

Over a year and no PR card!

No sign of my PR card at Tim’s sister’s house yet, so I phoned CIC again.

Even using VOIP, I couldn’t get through on +1-888-242‑2100 this time, but we discovered that calling the Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade on +1-613-944-4000 and selecting the immigration option actually transfers you to the CIC call centre!

If you don’t get through to an agent immediately, try again. The first time I rang them, I got right through the menu options, before being told that they were too busy. The second time, I got through to an agent, but my mobile signal was rubbish, so I gave up. The third time was too busy again. The fourth time, I got an automatic message saying that the toll free number wasn’t available in my area. The fifth time, I got through!

The agent checked my file and said that the card had been returned again. He triple checked my address details – “are you sure there isn’t an apartment number or anything?” – then put in a request to have the card sent out again.

He said it would take six weeks, which is less than the current CIC processing time of 58 days. I’ve got a reminder on my calendar to chase them immediately!

If the card doesn’t get delivered again, I guess my next option is giving them Tim’s cousin’s address or just waiting until we have our apartment rental in September and using that.

If I don’t get my PR card before we move, it’s not the end of the world, but it would make getting through immigration quicker and I’d like to be able to show it to any landlords / employers that ask.