Just wanted to give y'all a quick thank you for all your help throughout the process!
Also, I guess I can add something which might possibly be more useful to people... just a note or two about the landing process for me. Now, being outland like the rest of us in this thread, but already being in Canada (east side of Toronto) on a tourist visa waiver, I had the option of calling the CIC phone bank and arranging an interview, or going down to Niagara and flagpoling. After some consideration of each option (for flagpoling, the negatives included cost and time of travel, as well as dealing with TSA; for the interview, the negatives were mainly the unknown of how long it'd take to get an interview spot) I decided to go with the interview option. Called up their phone bank on the Thursday before the Easter break, and after probably 30-40 minutes of being on hold and being transferred to different departments, I eventually spoke with someone who could help - initially he took down my postal code and wanted to send me to Kitchener based on that (about 75 miles from me), but I argued that it'd be easier for me to just flagpole in that case, and that surely the Etobicoke office would be my closest one (about 15 miles from me, and easily accessible via the TTC). He had to put me on hold to discuss this with someone, but relented when he came back on, telling me that "it should only take them two weeks to book in Etobicoke, whereas it takes Kitchener four weeks". He then told me that they'd give me a call to book it - I asked whether they could email instead, as I don't have my own number here, but he insisted that calling was just what they did, and so I passed on my wife's number.
So, I didn't have very high expectations regarding their speed, and was very pleasantly surprised when I got an *email* from them on the Tuesday afternoon following the Easter break (i.e. the next business day), asking me to come to the Etobicoke office the following Tuesday, between 1-3pm, bringing my CoPR, my passport, and two recent photos to their specifications (I'm sure you're all familiar with those!) - I was surprised by the photo request, since I'd already sent some off with the PPR request and had one attached to one of the two CoPR letters on returning. No matter though, I got some more taken, and the following Tuesday I took all of my documents to the Etobicoke office.
I got there maybe 20 minutes early, and once I found the CIC office (you go inside the building, and pass a coffee shop and a Service Canada office on the left before you reach CIC), I showed my letter of invitation to the security working at the front desk, they marked me down, gave me a number and instructed me to watch the board for it to get called. Maybe 25-30 minutes passed, then my number was called and I went to the counter, where I was asked to hand over both copies of my CoPR and my passport, and asked a few simple questions which the CIC representative needs to fill in on the CoPRs:
1. When was your first entry into Canada?
2. When was your most recent entry into Canada?
3. Where was your most recent port of entry into Canada?
4. Do you have any children/dependents?
5. Have you ever been deported from Canada or any other country?
6. Have you ever been convicted of a crime in Canada or any other country?
After I answered those not-too-hard questions, she filled them in, asked me to initial them, then we both signed the bottom of the CoPRs, and she gave me a warm "Congratulations, welcome to Canada", handed me a short one-page form to fill out and told me that I could get my Social Insurance Number (SIN) at the same time at the window to the right - didn't even have to go next door to Service Canada for it! That took about another 10 minutes wait before my name was called, and the guy at that desk pretty much just copied down the details that I gave him (while double-checking that I'm not a twin or a triplet!) and gave me a bit of paper with my SIN on it, and then there was nothing else to do but go to Tim Hortons to celebrate!
