This forum was really helpful in preparing for our landing trip and I would like to share my experience.
Our landing experience was very good and went very smoothly.
We reached Montreal from US and got in the line for the immigration - there are 2 lines, 1 for visitors and the other for residents - you will need to stand in the visitors line.
We told the immigration officer that we are new immigrants here for our landing trip and she said we needed to go down, collect our bags and just before we exit there will be a customs officer we need to tell him/her we are here for landing and they will guide you.
We went there and we were sent to a separate room (used for secondary inspections and immigration) then one officer called us and collected all our documents including the CSQ and put them in a file and asked us to sit and wait for our name to be called.
After waiting for 30 minutes a lady officer called out our names and said she will be assisting us with the immigration formalities. She was very nice and looked at all our documents, asked us basic questions and made us sign our CoPR and took our address for the PR cards.
Also, she did not accept our B4 forms and said we can bring an updated form when we move for good later this year and marked the CoPR stating B4 forms to follow. The entire process took 30-45 minutes.
She congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents and we were on cloud 9!!
Then we were sent to the Welcome to Quebec office - Another sweet lady worked with us over there. Asked us about our French level and gave us information about french classes, SIN etc. She recommended not applying for the health insurance right now and wait till we come back and have a permanent address. (took around 20-25 minutes).
Next day we went to the Service Canada office with our CoPR, passports and CSQ and got our SIN - you will need to give your Quebec address here too. This process is very similar to the SSN process in the US with the only difference being that you go in the office of the SIN agent rather than talking through a window.
We opened an account in TD bank - they have new immigrant packages with options to keep your money in USD or CAD.
I hope this helps.
Our landing experience was very good and went very smoothly.
We reached Montreal from US and got in the line for the immigration - there are 2 lines, 1 for visitors and the other for residents - you will need to stand in the visitors line.
We told the immigration officer that we are new immigrants here for our landing trip and she said we needed to go down, collect our bags and just before we exit there will be a customs officer we need to tell him/her we are here for landing and they will guide you.
We went there and we were sent to a separate room (used for secondary inspections and immigration) then one officer called us and collected all our documents including the CSQ and put them in a file and asked us to sit and wait for our name to be called.
After waiting for 30 minutes a lady officer called out our names and said she will be assisting us with the immigration formalities. She was very nice and looked at all our documents, asked us basic questions and made us sign our CoPR and took our address for the PR cards.
Also, she did not accept our B4 forms and said we can bring an updated form when we move for good later this year and marked the CoPR stating B4 forms to follow. The entire process took 30-45 minutes.
She congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents and we were on cloud 9!!
Then we were sent to the Welcome to Quebec office - Another sweet lady worked with us over there. Asked us about our French level and gave us information about french classes, SIN etc. She recommended not applying for the health insurance right now and wait till we come back and have a permanent address. (took around 20-25 minutes).
Next day we went to the Service Canada office with our CoPR, passports and CSQ and got our SIN - you will need to give your Quebec address here too. This process is very similar to the SSN process in the US with the only difference being that you go in the office of the SIN agent rather than talking through a window.
We opened an account in TD bank - they have new immigrant packages with options to keep your money in USD or CAD.
I hope this helps.