I went for my flagpole landing on June 13th 2017 (timeline in signature). I decided to go for Peace Bridge because I didn't see a lot of people going there and I hoped there wouldn't be a lot of people going for landing there.
I drove straight to the US border from Toronto with my wife. I arrived to the border at around 8:45 PM. Upon arriving there, I told the Border office that I am here for flagpole as part of my landing as a permanent resident. The officer knew right away what flagpoling was. The officer asked me some questions like what job do you do to me and my wife? finally deciding to stay here ha? You like Canada that much? I think he was just being funny and at the same time checking our passports and looking for something suspicious (as part of their routine inspection I think). Then he told me turn the hazard lights on for my car and instructed me to go to the building on the right side with officers continuously following me. Then I was told to go inside door # 2 of that building. There were 2 more families sitting there but the office was pretty much empty with officers just chatting with each other. I waited around 15 minutes and then the officer called me, told me to get back in the car and follow him. Then he showed me the way to go back to Canada, handed me my passport and the white flagpole slip. Our names, date of birth, citizenship country and date, etc. were written on the paper with pen and flagpole with big letters on the bottom with the current date, etc. We then drove back to Canada. The whole US flagpoling process took around 20 minutes.
Upon arriving to the Canadian side at around 9:20 PM, we were greeted with a nice officer. We told him we are here to do our landing as a permanent resident. He asked did you go to the US and get rejected (flagpoled) which I said yes to.
He checked our passports quickly. and then told us to park and go the building on the left side and handed us our passports and a yellow slip. We went inside the building and handed over the yellow slip. He told us to take a seat and wait for us to be called. The office was empty with just 2 more people there for something else and nobody was there to do their landing. We were the first ones.
After some time, an officer called my name and we got there. He was looking at our passports. The CBSA officer was super nice (probably the nicest CBSA officer I have ever seen). The officer asked for our COPRs. We gave it to them. He then gave a piece of paper and pen asked me to write my address on it. (No address proof asked). He asked the following questions if I remember correctly.
He then told us to have a seat while he prepares our passport (stapled it with the COPR). In maybe 5 minutes, he called us again. He asked us to sign us on the COPRs and write down the answers to the questions he asked before (dependents, crime, etc) and initial it. We signed the COPRs.
Then he said those obligatory Permanent resident lines which every officer says to everybody landing so I am not going to repeat it. And that's it. The whole process took less than 15 minutes on the Canadian side and 45 minutes overall. We were out of the office by 9:35 PM.
Keep $4 in change. There is a toll after peace bridge where you will be asked for it.
My suggestions:
I drove straight to the US border from Toronto with my wife. I arrived to the border at around 8:45 PM. Upon arriving there, I told the Border office that I am here for flagpole as part of my landing as a permanent resident. The officer knew right away what flagpoling was. The officer asked me some questions like what job do you do to me and my wife? finally deciding to stay here ha? You like Canada that much? I think he was just being funny and at the same time checking our passports and looking for something suspicious (as part of their routine inspection I think). Then he told me turn the hazard lights on for my car and instructed me to go to the building on the right side with officers continuously following me. Then I was told to go inside door # 2 of that building. There were 2 more families sitting there but the office was pretty much empty with officers just chatting with each other. I waited around 15 minutes and then the officer called me, told me to get back in the car and follow him. Then he showed me the way to go back to Canada, handed me my passport and the white flagpole slip. Our names, date of birth, citizenship country and date, etc. were written on the paper with pen and flagpole with big letters on the bottom with the current date, etc. We then drove back to Canada. The whole US flagpoling process took around 20 minutes.
Upon arriving to the Canadian side at around 9:20 PM, we were greeted with a nice officer. We told him we are here to do our landing as a permanent resident. He asked did you go to the US and get rejected (flagpoled) which I said yes to.
He checked our passports quickly. and then told us to park and go the building on the left side and handed us our passports and a yellow slip. We went inside the building and handed over the yellow slip. He told us to take a seat and wait for us to be called. The office was empty with just 2 more people there for something else and nobody was there to do their landing. We were the first ones.
After some time, an officer called my name and we got there. He was looking at our passports. The CBSA officer was super nice (probably the nicest CBSA officer I have ever seen). The officer asked for our COPRs. We gave it to them. He then gave a piece of paper and pen asked me to write my address on it. (No address proof asked). He asked the following questions if I remember correctly.
- Who is the primary applicant?
- Did you have any changes in the number of dependents/ Are there any dependents that I have outside us two?
- Did we ever commit any crime, etc?
He then told us to have a seat while he prepares our passport (stapled it with the COPR). In maybe 5 minutes, he called us again. He asked us to sign us on the COPRs and write down the answers to the questions he asked before (dependents, crime, etc) and initial it. We signed the COPRs.
Then he said those obligatory Permanent resident lines which every officer says to everybody landing so I am not going to repeat it. And that's it. The whole process took less than 15 minutes on the Canadian side and 45 minutes overall. We were out of the office by 9:35 PM.
Keep $4 in change. There is a toll after peace bridge where you will be asked for it.
My suggestions:
- Go to the peace bridge if you can drive. Its less busy over there.
- Keep some change money. You will need it on either of the Niagara bridges.
- Go during some odd times. I went on a Tuesday at around 8:30 PM.
- Avoid Rainbow bridge as they are only going to be allowing landing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (no weekends) starting next week which means more rush. (I have confirmed this with CBSA customer service).
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