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Moving to Canada

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Coda

March 5, 2023 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

When I wrote a post recently raising a cheer for the culmination of the long process towards adding Canadian citizenship (and a matching passport) to my existing British variants of both – I assumed that that was the last I would hear of the process. Indeed – what else could there be to say?

Imagine my surprise, then, when an important and most official looking package arrived for me just the other day in the post. The envelope indicated that it had originated in the Canadian House of Commons – the Canadian parliament – and when I extracted this rather swish folder from within the impression was confirmed.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
What could the Canadian government want with me? Was I in trouble already? Did they want their citizenship back?

I need not have feared…

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
The folder contained a rather splendid certificate, signed by our local MP – Elizabeth May – welcoming me as a new Canadian citizen.

How splendid!

Now – I don’t want to draw comparisons, but when The Girl was awarded her British citizenship back in 2012, no-one from the UK parliament sent her an equivalent welcoming memento.

Hmmmm!

Elizabeth May is a resident of our local town – Sidney by the Sea – and is (joint) leader of the Green Party. She has long served the peninsula and the Gulf Islands as member of parliament and is one of the few Green Party representatives there. We like her!

Even more so now…

 

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Finally!

February 3, 2023 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Clearly a day to celebrate!

Back in May 2012 The Girl was about to pay a visit to the UK so that she could attend her citizenship ceremony…

Those who have not been following this saga since I started blogging back in January 2012 may start scratching their heads at this point and wondering about the chronology… Actually, it is all quite simple. The Girl came to Victoria in March that year to take up a job opportunity that was (or appeared to be) too good to miss out on. I remained in the UK and the plan was that I would retire early in the summer of 2013 and join her in Canada at that point. Quite apart from the fact that living – er! – apart, was actually itself a very silly idea – as it turned out so was her taking the job. Later in the year it all went spectacularly tits-up and we ended up back in England for another couple of years.

However, back in May 2012 she had already applied for – and been granted – British Citizenship. The ceremony at the end of May was the end of that little chapter in this long and complex story.

The reason that I mention it at all is because her citizenship ceremony provided me with a suitable trigger to initiate my first attempt at applying for Permanent Residency for Canada – an essential prerequisite to moving here. How that process – and the whole move itself – panned out is the very basis for this online journal. Safe to say that it turned out to be quite a saga. If the details are of interest (perhaps you are contemplating such a move yourself) then searching the archive for posts in the category ‘Moving to Canada’ will reveal all – and then some!

Two rounds of PR applications (her return to the UK put the first attempt on hold) – retirement and the move to British Columbia in 2015 – a five year period living here before I could apply for citizenship – that lengthy process itself, culminating in my Citizenship Ceremony in the fall of last year – and finally, the slightly bumpy ride of applying for a Canadian passport to add to my UK one. All this has taken somewhat more than a decade to come to fruition, but today… today…!

…my passport was finally delivered!

Whooo-hoo!!

There it is at the top of the page, nestling up to my British passport. So – we are now both fully ‘citizened’ up and documented to travel…

…of which more in the next post!

 

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Changing the ending

January 10, 2023 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending”

C. S. Lewis

Well – 2023 has started somewhat shakily – in all sorts of ways. That on which I will particularly focus here concerns the ‘small’ matter of a Canadian passport.

Back in October last year I wrote – in a post entitled “A pat on the head” – about the really most exciting and unexpectedly rapid arrival of my Canadian Citizenship Certificate – following my Citizen Ceremony but a few short weeks beforehand. One significance of this happy occurrence was that I could then crack on with my application for a Canadian passport – without which I would be able to leave – but not return to – the country.

This I duly did!

So, I was somewhat disappointed when – in the middle of last week – I received by registered post a form from the passport office detailing a rejection of my application.

WT actual F!

So – it seems that the Canadian passport office had objected to the item of identification that I had provided – I thought as per the guidance. For clarification, this is what the instructions on the application form actually say:

“You need to provide at least one (1) document to support your identity. The identification document (ID) must be valid and be issued by a federal, provincial, territorial government authority (or local equivalent abroad). The ID must include your name, date of birth, signature and photo“.

I had sent them an appropriately witnessed copy of my British passport!

It seems that was not what they had in mind – in spite of the fact that the instructions seem to me explicitly to allow this.

Now – I could grumble here about how we all still (currently!) share the same monarch… ties to the Commonwealth, etc, etc… but as we are dealing with the powers that be this would just be a waste of time. Rather than just posting off a second attempt I thought I might visit one of the Service Canada offices at which one can deal with such matters. I drove 40 minutes over to Langford and waited in a queue for more than 10 minutes just to speak to the receptionist. She entered me into the long queue that was waiting for the main event, but warned that it might take an hour and a half or so to reach the front of it. She also pointed out that the office closed in a couple of hours time.

“So” – I ventured – “I could wait here for a couple of hours and still get booted out without being seen?“.

She agreed that that was entirely possible. She also very kindly looked over my application and checked that all was now likely to be acceptable, before I gave up and returned home.

So – the application has now gone into the post for a second time – and I await once again with all body parts firmly crossed.

Sigh!

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A pat on the head

October 24, 2022 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

“Certification from one source or another seems to be the most important thing to people all over the world. A piece of paper from a school that says you’re smart, a pat on the head from your parents that says you’re good or some reinforcement from your peers that makes you think what you’re doing is worthwhile. People are just waiting around to get certified.” 

Frank Zappa

Well – Frank may be right in general, but in my case at least I am no longer ‘waiting around’.

A couple of posts ago I detailed my online Citizenship Ceremony, the which I ‘attended’ on Zoom about a week and a half back. It was a delight to finally have achieved Canadian citizenship and to be welcomed into the community.

As I explained in that post: as part of the ceremony I was obliged to cut up the Permanent Resident card which until then had enabled me to return to the country should I have to leave it for any reason. I now need to apply for a Canadian passport, so that I can once again come and go without let nor hindrance.

Before that could be done, however, there was one more occurrence for which to wait – the arrival of the all important Citizenship Certificate. Prior to the pandemic – when the Citizenship ceremonies had been conducted face to face – the certificates were presented as soon as the oath had been taken. Now that the ceremony is carried out online the certificate is send via Canada Post subsequent to the event – and one is warned that it may take two to four weeks to arrive.

Considering how long the whole process had taken to that point you can imagine my surprise when last Wednesday – just six days after the ceremony – my certificate and other documentation popped into our post box.

This has been by far the quickest part of the whole process which – considering that Canada Post are involved – is nothing short of a miracle!

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A momentous day

October 15, 2022 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Yesterday was a momentous day – and not just because the tory government that has afflicted the UK for longer than I have been keeping this journal appears finally to have plunged itself into a death spiral… though that is indeed a very splendid thing!

Should – incidentally – you want chapter and verse on just how momentously this epochal event will undoubtedly go down in the annals of history once the dust settles, I commend to you Jonathan Freedland’s excellent piece in the Guardian, the which can be found here. Freedland draws the connection all the way from the Suez crisis in 1956, through the joining of the Common Market, the decline of Britain through the 70s, 80s and 90s, to Brexit and on to the current attempts by the free-market zealots from the right wing who have taken over the nasty party… to buck the very markets that they espouse!

I did but a single unit in economics at college way back in the very early 70s – but even I could see that this was never going to work.

Anyway – exciting as this all undoubtedly is, for The Girl and I (yes – I know… ‘me’!) the day had a different import. Finally – at the end of a process that has taken nearly as long as the unraveling of the tory project in the UK – I have become a Citizen of Canada (as trailed in this previous posting)… the which I proudly add to my treasured British citizenship.

Hooray indeed!

The citizenship Oath Taking ceremony itself was carried out – as in the way in these frangible times – on Zoom. This naturally lent proceedings a slightly strange atmosphere though – as with most things Zoom related – it all seemed work out reasonably well without ever coming close to that which a proper face to face ceremony would have afforded. The slightly unreal symbolic cutting up of my Permanent Residency card (rendering me temporarily unable to return to Canada should I have to leave it for any reason) and the strange twist of having to swear allegiance to the monarch (something that as a Brit I have never been called upon to do – as is also the case for native Canadians) was followed by the somewhat forced singing by the massed Zoom ranks of ‘O Canada‘ in a mixture of English and French.

Somehow – in these strange and perplexing times – this ceremony felt not only appropriate but also unexpectedly touching. I am most happy now to add being a citizen of ‘here’ to my armoury.

The Girl is and has always been – of course – the entire reason and rationale for this long and unforeseeable journey. To her – as ever – my endless gratitude and thanks.

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All good things…

September 22, 2022 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…come to he who waits!

Well, well, well! That is certainly the case in this instance.

Just this morning – as I sipped an almond milk latte in the company of some of the other members of our regular Thursday torture fitness class – an email popped into my inbox (yes,  I check my emails all the time – particularly during term-time).

This particular email hailed from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and it contained an invitation to attend – in about three weeks time – an Oath of Citizenship Ceremony. This is effectively the final step on the road to Canadian citizenship, the which can be reasonably rapidly followed by an application for a Canadian passport.

Hoorah for that!

Having documented the Permanent Residency (PR) application process through which I went back in 2014/2015 so thoroughly, my efforts during this application for Citizenship have been lacklustre to say the least. I see from the only post on the subject to this forum – the which dates back to early October last year – that I actually submitted my application in July 2021. That October post was prompted by the acknowledgement of my application that I received from IRCC some three months subsequent to its submission.

In January of this year I received a further correspondence to the effect that I would need to make and to attend an appointment with the Commissionaires here in Victoria – for the purpose of having my fingerprints taken and certified. This I duly did, before the previous communication blackout was resumed. Today’s communique was the only other contact that I have had. The IRCC does like to keep one in the dark.

Oh well! I can’t really complain at the fifteen month wait. There has been a pandemic on. Of course, I have no idea how long it will now take to get a passport – and as I have to cut up my hard-earned PR card as part of the Oath of Citizenship ceremony (truly!) I clearly won’t be planning any overseas travel for a while.

Anyway, some celebrating will be in order pretty shortly – and I will doubtless report thereon in a future missive.

By the way – to any Brits concerned that I am selling out and abandoning my heritage by taking a Canadian passport, do rest assured that – just like The Girl – I will enjoy dual-citizenship.

I will still be a Brit – whatever that may yet be worth!

 

 

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Huzzah!

October 7, 2021 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Hmmm! Interesting!!

So – today I received an email from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). It contained the following document (which I have redacted appropriately):

This – the first acknowledgement from IRCC that I have, indeed, applied for Canadian Citizenship – is the reason for the “Huzzah!” in the title of this missive.

The “Hmmm! Interesting!!” at the head of the post comes from the realisation – reinforced by a quick scan back over previous posts – that I did not actually report to this journal the fact that I had finally submitted said application back in July.

Given that I have logged exhaustively to this channel every other little detail concerning my odyssey to the New World – including last year’s renewals of both my Permanent Resident card and my UK passport – that is remiss and should be corrected immediately.

The final process of application for citizenship – having lived in Canada as a Permanent Resident for six years – was relatively straightforward. The first thing that one does is to check that one is eligible. This entails going through a checklist of requirements – including that of having been resident in Canada for at least 1,095 days over the 5 year period leading up to the application. IRCC provides a handy online calculator (the Online Physical Presence Calculator – CIT 0407) for this part of the operation, the results of which feed forward into the application itself.

The application is effected by completing form CIT 0002 (10-2020) – the latter part of the form number being the current version number which will change from time to time. Form CIT 0007 (06-2021) is the accompanying document checklist. In my case this indicated that I should submit the following:

  • The application form itself (CIT 0002)
  • The output from the Online Presence Calculator (CIT 0407)
  • A colour photocopy of every page of my UK passport
  • Photocopies of two personal identification documents – which must include name, photo and date of birth
  • Two identical citizenship photographs
  • The fee receipt – the application fee having been paid online in advance
  • The document checklist itself (CIT 0007)

If one completes the application form online – as did I – one also generates a couple of pages of barcodes, the which should be printed and submitted as part of the application.

IRCC do not respond in any way until they actually start processing the application. In my case I posted everything off back in July and – as you see above – have only just received the acknowledgement that the application has been received.

The IRCC Application Tracker – to which I can now log on – tells me that my application is ‘In Progress’ – which is good news. Even better news is that – because I am (well) over 54 years old I do not need to take (or pass) the citizenship test, or to provide proof that I can in fact speak English.

Now – following that brief flurry of excitement – it is back to the waiting game!

 

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Out with the old

December 19, 2020 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Just for completeness – and who doesn’t like a little completeness – I thought I should wrap up my thread from earlier in the year about having to apply for a new Permanent Resident card (documented here and here). Well – I finally have it – and here it is:

You will notice that I have intentionally blurred some of the detail for security reasons. My face – on the other hand – usually looks like that first thing in the morning!

This is the old and now redundant card – strangely suffering from a similar lack of focus.

It struck me – as I was manipulating these images – that there is perhaps something a little perverse in having a Permanent Resident Card that must be renewed every five years.

That seems to be a whole new definition of ‘permanent’.

The instructions that came with the new card dictated that the old one should be destroyed. Naturally I did as I was directed: herewith the proof:

Hmmm! I think one of my projects for 2021 must be to try to get my citizenship sorted out.

Onward and upward!

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Eddies…

October 18, 2020 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

“I have detected,” he said, “disturbances in the wash.”
“The wash?” said Arthur.
“The space-time wash,” said Ford.
Arthur nodded, and then cleared his throat.
“Are we talking about,” he asked cautiously, “some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?”
“Eddies,” said Ford, “in the space-time continuum.”
“Ah,” nodded Arthur, “is he? Is he?” He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
“What?” said Ford.
“Er, who,” said Arthur, “is Eddy, then, exactly?”
Ford looked angrily at him.
“Will you listen?” he snapped.
“I have been listening,” said Arthur, “but I’m not sure it’s helped.”

Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I received the other day an email from ‘Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’ (funny! – I don’t recall that title previously including the ‘refugees’ bit!) concerning my application to renew my Permanent Resident card. This missive included the paragraph:

“This confirms that your application for your Permanent Resident card has been received by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on 2020/07/08.”

Making allowance for the fact that here in Canada dates can appear in a variety of odd formats – though not in the correct one (to an Englishman at least) – I calculate that this means that my application was received by the IRCC on July 8th this year – the which would be about right.

I am – perhaps understandably – a little mystified as to why they should send me an email to advise me of this fact on October 14th.

The email also advises me that I can check the progress of my application by visiting the appropriate part of the IRCC website and entering my Unique Client Identifier (UCI). Perhaps – I muse – they have just started processing my application – which might account for their sudden correspondence.

I follow the guidelines.The IRCC website claims never to have heard of me!

I wade through the notes trying to establish why I might appear to be missing from the system. The site helpfully informs me that this is probably because my application has not yet made it to the processing stage – and until is has I officially don’t exist.

Sooooo… Three months after I submit my application IRCC randomly sends me an acknowledgement, even though they have not – and apparently have no intention of – actually looking at it anytime soon.

No – I don’t get it either. What is it about bureaucracies?

 

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Always going back

July 31, 2020 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

“It’s said that you can never go home again, and it’s true enough, of course. But the opposite is also true. You must go back, and you always go back, and you can never stop going back, no matter how hard you try.”

Gregory David Roberts, ‘Shantaram’

We find ourselves in a brief period of anniversaries – the which are as ever cause for celebration… and in these difficult times any reason so to do is to be seized upon with gratitude.

The weekend before last saw the fifth anniversary of our arrival (or re-arrival in the case of The Girl) as residents in Canada. As I have noted in other recent posts, this milestone is significant for various reasons – not least because I can now apply for Canadian citizenship to add to my British variant. It seems somehow appropriate that The Girl and I should each be a citizen of both countries, as both have been particularly good to us.

On which note – the image that accompanies this post is apt and heart-felt. I am most grateful both to Canada and to Canadians for taking me in and helping me to feel at home here. I will never forget the kindnesses that we have been shown. Canadians are – by and large – a generous, modest and gentle people (traits shown up all the more by the manners of their nearest neighbours) and have thus earned my undying respect. Thank you one and all.

We will certainly be making the journey across the water again (when the current crisis has abated) and I will naturally always be drawn there – but Vancouver Island is now my home and I am delighted at that.

Next time – yet more anniversary news…!

 

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