The Par­lia­ment of Canada, Ottawa, June 2011

It’s the end of the process and you finally received the let­ter say­ing your visa is ready to be issued. You are a soon-to-be landed immi­grant and you already have a list of all the prac­ti­cal things you must do after you arrive.

Let me add more to your plate!

Here are 5 Things to do when you land in Canada (that no one told you about)!

Start to look for a fam­ily doc­tor — As a landed immi­grant, most of your health care needs will be cov­ered by your provin­cial health care sys­tem. Some plans, such as the Ontario Health Insur­ance Plan (OHIP), have a three-month wait­ing period for new appli­cant, and not every­one is eli­gi­ble, so buy­ing expat health insur­ance is a great idea. But above all, make sure you start look­ing for a doc­tor right away! There is a short­age of fam­ily doc­tors and some spe­cial­ists in Canada. It took me six years to find a fam­ily doc­tor and I’m not even sure my cur­rent one will be able to keep me. So as soon as you land in Canada, pick up the phone book, call fam­ily doc­tors in your area one by one, and ask if you can be put on a wait­ing list, if applic­a­ble. You can also sign up with free refer­ral pro­grams, such as Health Care Con­nect, but don’t expect miracles—I join the list over 18 months ago and I still have no news. Friends and new col­leagues may also be able to let you know if their doc­tor is tak­ing new patients, so don’t be shy to ask.

Build your credit his­tory — After land­ing in Canada, you will need to choose a bank and open a check­ing account. Most Cana­di­ans do their day-to-day bank­ing online, includ­ing pay­ing bills. You will likely get a debit card for everyday’s pur­chases, plus a few cheques offered by the bank (if you want more, you must order them—and pay for them). Credit cards are very prac­ti­cal for online pur­chases but they are not eas­ily avail­able to new­com­ers who have no Cana­dian credit his­tory. This is one of the rea­sons why you must start build­ing your credit his­tory as soon as you can. First, if you are a cou­ple mov­ing to Canada, make sure both part­ners have bills and accounts in their name. Women often dis­cover that they have zero credit his­tory because they have joint credit with their spouse. Sec­ond, to build a good credit his­tory, pay your bills, rent and loans on time. Tip: if needed, you can try one of these workaround to get a credit card with­out a Cana­dian credit his­tory.

Try new local prod­ucts — The period after land­ing in a new coun­try is com­monly known as the “hon­ey­moon”. You are prob­a­bly happy to be in Canada (finally!) and every­thing is fresh and excit­ing. Make the most of the period because it doesn’t last for­ever. The “hon­ey­moon” is often fol­low by a “back to real­ity” period dur­ing which you will have to look for work, deal with some of the unpleas­ant real­i­ties of Amer­i­can life and likely face a few challenges—fear not, it will get bet­ter again after that. Mean­while, the “hon­ey­moon” is the ideal time to try to local prod­ucts, such as food, drinks, clothes etc. because you are not home­sick yet. This will do won­ders for your inte­gra­tion poten­tial and for your wal­let, as local goods are usu­ally cheaper than imported products.

Start net­work­ing — The period right after you land is the best time to start net­work­ing. You will likely be curi­ous about your new envi­ron­ment and will feel like meet­ing peo­ple. You may have more time on your hands too because most new­com­ers don’t find a job right away. Make the most of this period by going out, sign­ing up for new activ­i­ties and meet­ing new peo­ple, estab­lished immi­grants or Cana­di­ans. I met some of my best friends in Canada right after they landed and trust me, years later you will look back and be happy to have such a long his­tory together.

Record your time out of Canada — Finally, a prac­ti­cal tip you prob­a­bly won’t think about! When you land, the immi­gra­tion offi­cer will prob­a­bly inform you that, three years for now, you could be eli­gi­ble to become a Cana­dian cit­i­zen. At the time, I shrugged it off because three years had seemed a long time from now. One of the require­ments for cit­i­zen­ship is to have com­pleted 1095 days of phys­i­cal pres­ence in Canada. If you exit and re-enter the coun­try after becom­ing a per­ma­nent res­i­dent, do record your trips abroad! You won’t always get a stamp when you leave the coun­try and three years from now, you’ll be scram­bling to remem­ber when and where you were absent from Canada in order to sub­tract these trips from your days of phys­i­cal present. So sim­ply keep a sheet of paper in your pass­port and record your time out of Canada to make your future appli­ca­tion for cit­i­zen­ship much easier.

Related arti­cles:

1. Arriv­ing In Canada With The Per­ma­nent Res­i­dence (7÷10)
2. Dear Canada, Thank you For Your Health Care System
3. How To Bank in Canada (4÷10)
4. Abo­rig­i­nal Per­spec­tives (9÷10)
5. First Steps As A Per­ma­nent Res­i­dent (9÷10)
6. A Nation Under Debt