I received my COPR in May 2018 and in November officially landed as a Permanent Resident in Vancouver. Hurrah! It will happen to you too!!
I meant to write this post about my landing experience for a while in the hope that it will help others after me.
My fiance and I arrived around 8pm after 30+ hours of travelling (yawn) and went to the standard immigration queue, before explaining that this was a special case of landed immigrant status. I was told to collect bags first then proceed to a separate room.
Inside there was a row of about 12 official booths but only 3 officials there, and facing them rows of chairs with people who looked like they'd spent most of their lives there. aghh.
This turned out to be an informal queue, where people kept shuffling along when someone was called. The officials were quite rude to several of those ahead of us, and lots of people had piles of papers that made me nervous. I had only bought my COPR, passport (obviously), and birth certificate. I also had some copies of the documents I sent off in the original application, ie bank statements, but these would be redundant now anyway after a year. One woman was told off for not having her address in Canada where they would send her residency card. Another was having some problems remembering what she wrote on her form.
When finally called, all I was asked for was the COPR. I then went through a process where the officer tried to basically catch me out based on the info he had on his screen. For example, he said, "so that's your husband sitting over there." I corrected him no, not yet. Then he said, so you live in "Phuket", no I said, and corrected him. "You are a school teacher." "No, not even close..." and so on. This is clearly making sure what you say matches what info they took in your forms etc. Be on the ball - you should of course know this info but you will probably be tired! You are then required to explain your plan going forward. He was not too happy when I said I will be leaving again and not moving right away to Canada, but I was able to explain why. Then you provide the address to send the card to (the card reaches that address within 2 months).
You then confirm a few security questions, sign three times on your COPR, it is stamped, and then.......
that's it!
You're in! I hoped to be given a celebratory jug of maple syrup and a hockey stick but alas no. I did take a selfie with the officer though, and then stagger off for some much needed sleep. Not all experiences will be like this but this is a faithful account of an evening PR landing at YVR.
Good luck future Canadians!
I meant to write this post about my landing experience for a while in the hope that it will help others after me.
My fiance and I arrived around 8pm after 30+ hours of travelling (yawn) and went to the standard immigration queue, before explaining that this was a special case of landed immigrant status. I was told to collect bags first then proceed to a separate room.
Inside there was a row of about 12 official booths but only 3 officials there, and facing them rows of chairs with people who looked like they'd spent most of their lives there. aghh.
This turned out to be an informal queue, where people kept shuffling along when someone was called. The officials were quite rude to several of those ahead of us, and lots of people had piles of papers that made me nervous. I had only bought my COPR, passport (obviously), and birth certificate. I also had some copies of the documents I sent off in the original application, ie bank statements, but these would be redundant now anyway after a year. One woman was told off for not having her address in Canada where they would send her residency card. Another was having some problems remembering what she wrote on her form.
When finally called, all I was asked for was the COPR. I then went through a process where the officer tried to basically catch me out based on the info he had on his screen. For example, he said, "so that's your husband sitting over there." I corrected him no, not yet. Then he said, so you live in "Phuket", no I said, and corrected him. "You are a school teacher." "No, not even close..." and so on. This is clearly making sure what you say matches what info they took in your forms etc. Be on the ball - you should of course know this info but you will probably be tired! You are then required to explain your plan going forward. He was not too happy when I said I will be leaving again and not moving right away to Canada, but I was able to explain why. Then you provide the address to send the card to (the card reaches that address within 2 months).
You then confirm a few security questions, sign three times on your COPR, it is stamped, and then.......
that's it!
You're in! I hoped to be given a celebratory jug of maple syrup and a hockey stick but alas no. I did take a selfie with the officer though, and then stagger off for some much needed sleep. Not all experiences will be like this but this is a faithful account of an evening PR landing at YVR.
Good luck future Canadians!
