But this one should be a shorter one, and also with some more direct information for those looking for advice or insight on making the move. This is the bread and butter, folks--the fascinating world of insurance and taxes. Without further ado, here is how I spent my first 30 days as a PR in the Great White North!
Before Day 1: Fact-finding
- Landing, in the context of immigration, means when you show up at a Port of Entry to claim your Permanent Resident status. It is also referred to as "activating" your permanent residence. It is essentially just a formality that acknowledges you have accepted the conditions of Permanent Residence (that you intend to move to and stay in the country, that you are afforded the protection of the Canadian Constitution, that you agree to not do crimes, etc.)
- Settlement is physically moving to Canada, meaning that when you show up, you intend to stay in the country and live there for at least 12 months. If you have personal possessions (which most people do, I think), then you are allowed to bring those without having to pay import tax when you are settling.
But as it turns out, this does not have to be the case. In fact, it is quite common to land without settling, or, essentially just showing up at the Port of Entry to have your paperwork signed, and then bringing your personal effects to settle at a different date. This is what I did, and it is referred to as a "soft landing."
Day 1: Landing
Rather, I treated it like any old Saturday morning. Got up, filled up the gas tank, and drove my (t)rusty alien green Kia Soul an hour and a half north over the Thousand Islands Bridge, and pulled up to the booth at the Lansdowne Port of Entry, as I have done every few weeks for years now. The officer, an unremarkably unenthused gentlemen asked me where I was going and for how long. I told him I was just headed to Kingston for the weekend, but:
"While I'm here, can I complete my landing process for PR?"
"Do you have your Confirmation document with you?" (Yes)
"Are you planning on moving to Canada today?" (No)
"What's your license plate number?" (Not really sure why he asked this one)
I waited in the lobby of the Port of Entry building, whose architecture I would describe as "bureaucratic boho" and "soulless chic" on a rather dull and uneventful Saturday morning. Two guys in line in front of me: one a hunter having his credentials and permits searched before bringing a long gun into the country, the other being refused entry for having an assault charge. Pretty standard episode of Border Security fodder. During my 15-minute wait I stared at the vending machine and wondered what a pain in the rear it must be to deliver Reese's Pieces to a secure federal government facility on the literal outskirts of the country.
The officer called my name up, this time a more lively and polite gentleman, but not by much. He asked to see my COPR and passport and I slid both to him under the makeshift Covid shield on the counter. The COPR document, if you don't remember, basically just has my name, date of birth, and immigration application info on it. It's not very, erm, official-looking. But on it there are two questions, asking if I've ever been convicted of any crimes, and if I have any dependents (both no). He looked at the paper then looked at me, and asked me the same questions (still no to both). When I said no, he wrote "no" next to them. Riveting stuff. He then had me initial next to where he wrote "no" and then sign the document at the bottom.
After asking me to write down on a sticky note what address I wanted my green card mailed to (it's not green in Canada, it's red and white, but I write to an American audience folks), he rather unceremoniously signed the paper himself and then tossed it on the counter behind him like it was a bag of groceries he didn't want to put away. He then dug around underneath his desk and pulled out a little stamper, pressed it to the visa page of my passport, and handed it back to me.
"Congratulations and welcome to Canada."
(The rest of that day, by the way, was spent at the mall, where I ordered a poutine and bought a Tragically Hip album at the record store, as a real Canadian would.)
Day 2: The Troubles
Unfortunately, since it had only been one day since accepting my PR, I hadn't filed any of my healthcare paperwork yet. It was also Sunday and a statutory holiday, so there was no chance of getting it filed, either. Desperate to be seen, I pulled out my credit card and began calling around. Because it was a holiday, there were no urgent cares or walk-in clinics open, leaving me with only the emergency room. When I called the local ER, the staff were less than helpful, sorry to say, annoyed that I would ask about what kind of wait time I was working with since I had heard some horror stories about Ontario ER wait times, and as much disappointed when I confided in them that I didn't have my Ontario health insurance yet and would need to be seen as an American, for which they quoted me the low, low price of $1,050 CAD ($770 USD) for a visit.
Day 3: I left
For my American friends, if you weren't able to tell by the name, Social Insurance is...Social Security. And as the Social Security Number naturally follows and dominates nearly every facet of American life for financial identification purposes, so too does the Social Insurance Number for Canadian Social Insurance. It's how one files their taxes, applies for jobs, runs credit checks, and collects public benefits, including Social Insurance itself upon retirement. When you become a Permanent Resident, the Social Insurance Number is the the first thing I recommend you do, since it makes the process for all the other things (taxes, driver's license, etc.) much easier when you have it.
And it's very easy to do, too. All one needs to qualify for a SIN (as they're unfortunately called) is a document confirming immigration status. I uploaded my signed COPR document on the web form and clicked submit, and had a SIN number about two weeks later, sent by mail.
Day 4-20: Recovery Time
We had a friendly (and free) conversation, but as I somewhat expected, she was not much help to someone like me, just an average American Joe looking for a home and a job in Southeastern Ontario. Relocation specialists often assist corporate clients for steep costs, basically helping big-wigs from across the pond settle in and make Canada home when their company in Shanghai or Dubai sends them to their Toronto office. The specialist was, however, kind enough to put me in touch with a local real estate agent, who has been helping Sydney and I find a home this spring ever since. (Apparently, the services of real estate agents in Ontario are free, since they make commissions from home sellers and landlords, which some of you may find helpful). I plan to make a full post about our moving experience when it is actually done.
But in the meantime, after I recovered I decided to enjoy the smaller pleasures. So I also took this time to order a toque and a scarf to get in the spirit for...
Day 21-22: My first hockey game!
Like most Canadians, we don't have NHL ticket money. Who wants to see the Leafs anyway? So we decided for the more humble approach of going to a "junior hockey" game, which is apparently a whole, er, system of hockey for young men out of high school that I didn't even know existed. This league, the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), is the largest and most popular junior hockey league in the country, and Niagara's team is the Niagara IceDogs, who play in the nearby city of St. Catharines at the spacious and accessible Meridian Centre.
These guys. Let's just say tonight wasn't their night. Nor is any other night--they're on their third losing season. But I'm going to leave it at that, because I'd like to say...
Reader, I was wrong. A while back, I wrote an award-winning post about how Americans seem to have a weird obsession with college sports, and how that kind of fervor is not quite present in Canada. I also commented that I found it kind of weird to critique and rank kids and teens on their athletic ability anyway. Well, unfortunately for me, Canadians seem to do the same thing, not in college, but with these young college-age men who apparently pursue a hockey-only career during or after high school, joining these professional junior hockey leagues hoping to one day make it big.
All of this to say, I don't really feel comfortable commenting too much on the talents of these kids, some of whom are 16, 17 years old. The fact that they are teenagers getting paid to play professional hockey in front of a crowd of thousands is a far more impressive feat than I've ever had, so I don't feel it's my place to knock them for getting absolutely decimated by the Kingston Frontenacs.
Anyway, the game was a really nice experience. It's a fun, energetic sport to watch, a great way to get the pulse on a community, and a quick way to drop $50 on beer and nachos.
While in the area for the weekend, we also spent some time in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, where we went to a nice farmer's market, and midtown Toronto, where we went to a not-nice Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Toronto...oy, vey...Anybody who has told you Toronto is the best place to visit in Canada has never been anywhere but Toronto.
Day 23: Running errands
Every province is different, but in Ontario, the DMV is sort of wrapped into a DMV Plus™ package that also includes services related to your universal healthcare, and is called ServiceOntario. In practice, it is more or less the same as what Americans will know as one of the worst parts of their day, though personally I didn't find it that bad, nor have I really ever had that many issues at the New York DMV, either.
The whole trip took about a half hour, and the reason for it was to sign up for my healthcare. Please consult the government website if you are an immigrant looking to sign up for Ontario health insurance, but I needed:
- ID (they accepted my American passport)
- Proof of address (I used my Canadian bank statement. For some reason, the lady was very upset that I had printed my bank statement out and would not accept it, and wanted me to show it to her the bank website on my phone instead. I found this very bizarre, because in New York, it is literally the opposite: you would never be allowed to show your phone as ID and instead would need to print everything out. She also would not accept any of my immigration paperwork as proof of address, despite it being official documents from the federal government, Very curious.)
Next stop that day was the...other DMV?
A reader once told me that Canada is a lot like the looking glass. There are some things in Canada that make a lot of sense or seem the same upon first glance, but upon further inspection, they become curious-er. One of these is the fact that every government service in Ontario is neatly contained in one place, except getting your driver's license.
For whatever reason, licensing specifically is done off-site from the DMV at another location called the DriveTest Centre, which specializes in only road tests for teenagers and giving licenses to new drivers (license renewals take place at the regular ServiceOntario). A staff member who was younger than me and took her job extremely seriously took my paperwork and literally examined it with a magnifying glass. For an Ontario driver's license, I needed:
- My New York license
- My New York driving record
- ID (my passport was accepted)
After making sure I don't do crimes, I was allowed to pay a $90 CAD ($66 USD) fee, and received an Ontario driver's license (a temporary one valid for 90 days, and the real one came in the mail).
Last errand of the day was the bank, where I decided to press my luck with my brand-new Social Insurance Number and apply for a credit card, an important step in establishing credit in the country, since your home country's credit history and score do not come with you as an immigrant, making it difficult to finance life's big purchases: a car, a home, etc.
A lot of Canadian institutions really struggle to understand when you tell them you work for an American company and have American income but live in Canada, though I'm not really sure why, because it's perfectly legal and quite a popular thing for Americans living abroad to do. But alas. After thoroughly explaining to the nice young lady at the bank that I have an American job but am legally a Canadian resident, she was able to get me approved for a surprisingly good amount of credit (I thought) which I was able to use immediately using my bank app (card came in the mail in about a week and a half). This process was made a lot easier by the fact that I already had a Canadian bank account which I had opened several months in advance, so I was only there for about 20 minutes.
Day 30: New phone who dis
So, to avoid running into any snags with this, as well as to make myself more marketable to jobs in the area we are moving to, to feel more like a local, and to get six free months of Disney+ (not a sponsor), I decided it was time to change my phone number. Like the United States, Canada has their own "big three" phone carriers, all of whom have a somewhat poorer reputation than their American counterparts as price-gouging and opportunistic monopolies. I won't say which one I went with, but I will say it was the one that I had viewed as the least of three evils. The price and included goodies of the phone plans is pretty much identical across all three, but it's a well-known secret that if you call and haggle with their salespeople, they will give you a better deal than the ones online.
I find this process nerve-racking and irritating, and I don't see it going away any time soon. But it worked. I got a decent deal--a notably better one than the online listed prices. Canadian phone plans have a reputation for being some of the most expensive in the world without good reason, though when compared to per-line price for the major American carriers, I only found it to be a few dollars more. I hope to do a side-by-side comparison in a future post.
The SIM card (soon to be a thing of the past) came in about four days, and so far I have no complaints about the service or my new number--while I won't say what it is, I will say I picked a number that is somewhat reminiscent of the MI6 identifier of a certain secret agent, for good luck.
Final thoughts
Things tend to have a domino effect. Think of finding housing, for example. What landlord is going to rent to you (or bank going to lend a mortgage to you) when you have no credit history, no Canadian job, no Canadian ID, no bank account? How can you even get a Canadian job or Canadian ID when you haven't filled out your Social Insurance paperwork yet? What if you're face deep in a pretzel and get hit with a puck at your local hockey game? (Almost happened to me by the way, terrifying) How do you plan to get treated with no insurance?
My point is, it's better to be prepared. To have all this boring, obnoxious stuff out of the way before we move, so that I'm not trying to juggle moving costs, starting a new job, learning a new city, all while waiting in line at not one but TWO DMVs? I feel much better knowing that when moving day finally comes, I can unload that couch out of the U-Haul and worry about nothing else while I watch my IceDogs get absolutely obliterated by the Mississauga Steelheads.
Have you ever moved to a new city, state/province, even a new country? What was your first month like? Hectic? Serene? Somewhere in between? Any advice you'd like to give? I'd love to hear from you!