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.

Visiting Vancouver – after landing, but before moving!

This time last week, we were waking up and having breakfast on our flight home from Vancouver.

Jetlag hit us pretty hard for the first couple of nights back at home, but we’ve also had to deal with how much we miss being in Vancouver. To be honest, the possibility of moving had taken a bit of a back seat – both of our jobs are going really well, we’re planning the wedding etc. However, this trip seems to have reignited our motivation and we’re now properly planning again.

Obviously, there are some important practicalities to deal with – the biggest one being saving up enough money to have a safety net. Even though we hope we’d be able to get decent jobs in Vancouver, we’d like to have the resources to be able to live without salaries for a few months, as well as actually having the cash to pay for moving!

Unfortunately, my PR card didn’t arrive while we were out there – I’m going to give the CIC a couple of weeks, then phone them again.

When we arrived at Vancouver Airport, we headed for the “Canadian Residents” line, just like the immigration officer told me in November. However, the guy at the desk said that I actually should have applied for a travel document, as I don’t have a PR card yet. I cringed a bit and waited for him to tell us off and/or send us back into the HUGE immigration line for international passports, but he just waved us through. I don’t think they’d do that in Britain or America!