Name: What to expect landing in Canada as a new immigrant - Canada for Newbies
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What to expect landing in Canada as a new immigrant - Canada for Newbies

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Skip to contentIt can seem a little daunting when you read the official IRCC guidance of what to expect when you arrive in Canada as a new immigrant; it talks about a Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) immigration interview to make the ultimate decision about whether to grant you entry! Yikes!But don’t worry – in reality the process is pretty much a breeze. I’ll cover the full process in this article from our experience when we landed as new permanent residents.Keep in mind the process described below was pre-COVID-19 so there would now be COVID testing requirements to be included in the steps outlined. You can read more about the relaxation of the border restrictions here.WHAT TO EXPECTOnce you leave the plane you follow the normal arrivals route to immigration.Along with all other passengers crossing the border, the first thing you’ll be met with is an electronic kiosk to verify your identity and do a customs declaration (the kiosks are now at all the major international airports).You can do one declaration per family (up to 5 people) all together at one machine.Firstly it’ll ask you to scan you passport and it’ll take a photo of you.Next you’ll have to answer a series of questions, nothing complicated (confirm that you’re not bringing in prohibited items, that you’ve got less than $10k in cash on you, that kind of thing).You’ll lastly give your fingerprint to “sign” your declaration as true and then the machine will print out your declaration receipt.You then take your receipt and line up to see a Canada Border Service Agent with all the other international arrivals.So-far the same as arriving as a visitor.But once you get up to the border agent you tell them that you’re landing as a new permanent resident (or whatever work/study visa you’re on) and at this point they’ll direct you where to go for your immigration interview.We were directed to an office with a waiting room off to the side where we had to take a paper ticket to join the queue to be seen by a border agent.We waited for about 10 minutes until our number was called and headed up to the desk to speak to the border agent. Obviously each interview will &nbsp;be slightly different but essentially there’s a set list of things they need to go through with you:And that’s it, you’re now a Permanent Resident of Canada!All that you then have to do is go and collect your baggage from baggage reclaim and hand that declaration receipt you got from the electronic kiosk to the customs agent as you leave the baggage area (along with all the other regular international arrivals).We were a bit concerned before we flew to Canada that our initial Port of Entry into Canada was in Quebec (from where we were travelling on to our final destination in Ontario). As a landing Permanent Resident, if you plan to settle in Quebec you must have a Certificat de Sélection du Quebec (CSQ), we obviously didn’t have this and weren’t planning to settle in Quebec but thought the immigration officer might make an issue of it. As it turned out, it was fine, we told the immigration officer that we were going to be living in Ontario and she was totally fine with that. We did have a copy of a train reservation to Ontario and a copy of our Airbnb reservation but she didn’t ask to see this – but it’s probably sensible to have something like this.Quebec selects its own skilled workers through a different program to the federal program. If your intention is to live in the province of Quebec then you need to apply through the Quebec-selected skilled workers program. That said however, once you’re a permanent resident of Canada you can live in any province you want – including Quebec!

Skip to contentIt can seem a little daunting when you read the official IRCC guidance of what to expect when you arrive in Canada as a new immigrant; it talks about a Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) immigration interview to make the ultimate decision about whether to grant you entry! Yikes!But don’t worry – in reality the process is pretty much a breeze. I’ll cover the full process in this article from our experience when we landed as new permanent residents.Keep in mind the process described below was pre-COVID-19 so there would now be COVID testing requirements to be included in the...

What to expect landing in Canada as a new immigrant - Canada for Newbies

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