070707 - Entry Day!

This is the day that we chose to land in Canada, exactly 18 months after our wedding day. Was this planned? Naah! It just fitted into our schedule perfectly well. I must tell you that it was one of the most nerve racking, brain fuzzing and emotion draining experience. We had played the experience in our minds several times and done all the research that we could to make it a smooth entry into our land of dreams.

The net result was that all our efforts and research paid us rich dividends. As we got off the plane at Pearson International Airport after an extremely long, 19 - hour journey, we hoped that everything would go off well. For starters, our plane landed 40 minutes ahead of time and the Etihad experience is something, I surely recommend.

We waited patiently at the entry into the Airport as someone had lost the key to Departure Terminal and the whole airplane load of passengers were stranded at the gate. It took them about ten minutes to fix and they were extremely apologetic about it. It was our first experience of Canadian courtesy and I can tell you, it only gets better!

We walked through to Immigration where an extremely polite lady directed us to the Border Service Agency office as we were landing as immigrants. There were quite a few families on our plane that were entering Canada for the first time, however, we were the first ones to reach the BSA officer.

He looked at our papers and asked us for an address and telephone number that he entered into his computer and then on our forms. He then told us that our Permanent Resident (PR) cards would be mailed to the address that we gave him in 4 - 6 weeks. This is the first in the long list of IDs that one requires in Canada. He then said, "Welcome to Canada". We were so happy to hear those words though it did not truly sink in at that moment.

He then directed us to another gentleman who explained the various forms that we needed to fill in order to get additional IDs and establish residency in Canada. The first piece, is the Social Insurance Number (SIN) a must have for opening a bank account, getting a job and for credit history ratings. This is followed by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). The OHIP comes into play only after establishing residency in Ontario for three months and you need proof of residence to apply for the OHIP. This gentleman then directed us to Baggage Claims and asked to proceed to Customs.

This process took about half an hour and by then our bags were on the carousel. We picked the bags and proceeded on to customs. There we submitted printed Custom Declaration forms of all the currency and goods that we were carrying. These forms are available on the Canadian Immigration website. The Customs officer was really impressed that we had all our details entered and he happily waved us through.

Please remember, if you plan your trip well and have all the details handy, you will experience the same smooth journey as we did. We were amazed about how seamless and hassle free the entire process was.