Home » My Immigration Story and Useful Resources

My Immigration Story and Useful Resources

This is my own immi­gra­tion story, plus some resources for all your immi­gra­tion needs. Here is the sum­mary, just click on the link to access the sec­tion directly:

Just a few basic rules to start. I’m always happy to answer ques­tions about life in Canada or immi­gra­tion to Canada. I’m not an immi­gra­tion expert, so don’t expect me to have an answer for every­thing! Please note that I only know the Cana­dian immi­gra­tion sys­tem, not the Amer­i­can one. Yes, believe it or not, Canada and the U.S.A. are two sep­a­rate countries.

I am always happy to answer ques­tions about life in Canada or the immi­gra­tion process in gen­eral. How­ever, I am not an immi­gra­tion consultant/lawyer, so don’t expect me to have an answer to every­thing! Please note that:

  • I am only famil­iar with the Cana­dian immi­gra­tion sys­tem, not the Amer­i­can “green card” process. Yes, believe it or not, Canada and the U.S.A. are two dif­fer­ent countries.
  • I immi­grated to Canada in 2005 and the per­ma­nent res­i­dence process changed quite a bit since then. I am not always up-to-date with the lat­est regulations.

Obvi­ously, I don’t charge for advice or tips—again, I am not an immi­gra­tion lawyer. The only thing I am sell­ing on this blog is my pho­tog­ra­phy. I am a human being, not a sophis­ti­cated com­puter pro­gram, there­for I appre­ci­ate when you acknowl­edge my email. I tend to find it frus­trat­ing when peo­ple ask very detailed ques­tions, get their answers and never email back. To put it sim­ply, it doesn’t encour­age me to be helpful.

Note that I am not per­fect: a few emails or com­ments occa­sion­ally slip through or get blocked. Don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact me directly using this form. If I don’t reply within a few days, try again or leave a com­ment below. Emails occa­sion­ally end up in the spam folder (and I know you are not this obnox­ious spammer!).

For more guid­ance, don’t for­get to read How To NOT ask for help.

This page is updated very often with new resources, so stay tuned!

Why I moved to Canada

I “dis­cov­ered” Canada in Feb­ru­ary 2002, at the end of a three-month long back­pack­ing trip from Mex­ico to Brazil (yes, by bus). A stop in Canada wasn’t part of my orig­i­nal travel plan—it was a last-minute deci­sion because I got a good deal on a one-way ticket from Rio de Janeiro to Toronto. So I fol­lowed Feng, my Cana­dian travel-partner-turned-partner-turned-spouse, to Ottawa, and got a glimpse of the coun­try before even­tu­ally fly­ing back home to France a few weeks later.

I stopped over once again in 2003, before head­ing to Cen­tral Amer­ica for yet another back­pack­ing trip with Feng. In Feb­ru­ary 2004 we flew back from Guatemala City to Toronto, broke and tired. I had been given a six-month “tourist” stamp upon land­ing in Canada, so I decided to stay in Ottawa for a bit to see if I actu­ally wanted to move there. For the fol­low­ing few months, I worked on my Eng­lish skills (I didn’t speak much Eng­lish back then), scouted the job mar­ket and had a lot of snow­ball fights.

Turned out that I liked Canada. I started to research how to obtain a work visa and the famous “per­ma­nent res­i­dent” status.

In Sep­tem­ber 2004, I trav­eled to France and applied for a Work­ing Hol­i­day Visa (WHV). Canada wasn’t such a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion back then—the WHV was free (!) and the yearly quota wasn’t even close to being filled. I showed up at the Cana­dian embassy in Paris and stepped out of it a cou­ple of hours later with the pre­cious WHV sta­pled in my passport.

I flew back to Canada in Novem­ber 2004 and started work­ing right away while com­plet­ing my uni­ver­sity degree in France (yes, it was chal­leng­ing). By mid-2005, I was ready to apply for per­ma­nent residence.

I decided to apply in the spon­sor­ship cat­e­gory since Feng was my main rea­son for stay­ing in Canada.

For more info and anec­dotes about my immi­gra­tion process, you can check out the inter­views in the Press Review page.

My immi­gra­tion timeline

  • March to April 2005: Pre­pared the appli­ca­tion and gath­ered all the documents.
  • April 19, 2005: Took the med­ical exam in Ottawa at the CIC-approved Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa Health Ser­vices (with Dr. Vin­cent F.G. Nadon).
  • May 19, 2005: Sent the appli­ca­tion to Mis­sis­sauga, Ontario.
  • June 13, 2005: The appli­ca­tion was sent back because it wasn’t clear whether I was liv­ing in Canada or in France. Gee, it wasn’t even clear to me!
  • June 18, 2005: Amended my appli­ca­tion and sent it back.
  • July 7, 2005: Sent our mar­riage cer­tifi­cate that was orig­i­nally miss­ing (get­ting it from Thun­der Bay took months!).
  • June 30, 2005: Received the first acknowl­edge­ment let­ter: Feng is eli­gi­ble to spon­sor me.
  • August 5, 2008: My appli­ca­tion is for­warded to the Cana­dian embassy in Paris.
  • Sep­tem­ber 27, 2005: The Cana­dian embassy in Paris acknowl­edges receipt of my application.
  • Octo­ber 20, 2005: “Deci­sion made”, my appli­ca­tion is approved and I am granted per­ma­nent res­i­dent status.
  • Novem­ber 17, 2005: Five days before the expi­ra­tion of my one-year Work­ing Hol­i­day Visa, I became a landed immi­grant. I had to travel to Prescott, U.S.A. in order to become a landed immigrant.
  • August 5, 2008: I am eli­gi­ble to apply for cit­i­zen­ship. I sent my appli­ca­tion.
  • Novem­ber 12, 2008: I receive the acknowl­edge­ment letter.
  • June 11, 2009: I took the cit­i­zen­ship test in Ottawa.
  • July 3, 2009: I took the oath of cit­i­zen­ship and became Cana­dian around 12:30 p.m.

Look­ing for immi­gra­tion info…?

If you are look­ing for info on how to immi­grate to Canada, be sure to check the series How To… Immi­grate To Canada. The Immi­gra­tion cat­e­gory also has a lot of first-hand infor­ma­tion on how to set­tle in Canada, how to deal with immi­gra­tion issues etc. To know more about Canada in gen­eral, you can read arti­cles in the Cana­dian Life category.

Don’t for­get to check out my inter­views of immi­grants to Canada: Ten Immi­grants, Ten Inter­views and Ten More Immi­grants for Ten More Inter­views.

Look­ing for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship info?

For info on how to apply for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship, check out these arti­cles.

You can read about my expe­ri­ence fill­ing out the cit­i­zen­ship appli­ca­tion, about my cit­i­zen­ship exam in Ottawa and about the oath cer­e­mony.

Look­ing for a job in Canada?

I wrote a ten-post series, How to Look For a Job In Canada, which cov­ers the hir­ing process, work cul­ture tips and how to tackle poten­tial challenges.

For first-hand expe­ri­ence, check out the posts tagged Work­ing World.

Look­ing for info about Ottawa?

If you are con­sid­er­ing set­tling in Ottawa, you’ve come to the right place—this is where I have been liv­ing since I came to Canada! You can find a lot of picture-based arti­cles in the Snap­shots of Ottawa cat­e­gory, and gen­eral infor­ma­tion on many top­ics in the Cana­dian News and Trends category.

Immi­gra­tion resources and use­ful web­sites about Canada

The fol­low­ing is a list of use­ful resources you may want to check out:

Good luck with your immi­gra­tion project!