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The WTF Question: Sample Fill-Up Forms

WTF...?

Guillermo Zieglers and his family emigrated from Argentina and they currently live in Ottawa. His blog, Los Zieglers En Canada, is very popular with the Spanish-speaking community. However, he must pay a price to fame: he occasionally gets what he calls the WFT questions. Non-native English speakers, note: WTF stands for “what the fuck”. And my… what the fuck indeed when I see some of the questions he gets!

Apparently, I’m also famous enough to receive my fair share of WTF questions. These questions generally revolve around immigrating to Canada, preferably using the faster and most illegal way possible. The person who asks the question or the favor typically comes out of the blue and never offers more explanations.

I don’t mind answering questions from readers, but some really make me raise my eyebrows.

And this WTF question certainly did:

Subject: SAMPLE FILL -UP FORMS

I have read your post and I would like to ask your help about applying for permanent residence in canada. Is it ok if you can give me fill up form so that I have a reference in filling up the forms for skilled worker I mean forms that already been filled out. Thanks. Hoping for your response.

Er… no, it’s not okay. Let me get that straight: you want to immigrate to Canada. Sure. Now, you have to fill out the forms. I’m following you. Yet, you can’t do it yourself and you want me to provide you my own immigration forms that I must have filled out when applying for permanent residence to help you.

This is wrong on so many levels.

First, I did not apply for permanent residence in the skilled worker category but in the family category, since my partner is Canadian. So my forms wouldn’t be much help.

Second, I did not keep a copy of the forms – yes, I know, stupid. When I applied for permanent resident in 2005, it took me a few months to gather all the paperwork I needed, such as my security clearance, emails, pictures, bank statements etc. Filling out the application forms took a while too: I wanted to do things right to make sure my application would be processed as fast as it could (turned out it was processed very fast, so maybe spending a while on the application is a good thing). Anyway, by the time I was done and everything was ready, I just wanted the big ugly file out of my sight (and off the living room table). I made a backup of all the Word files I attached to my application and I send it. I didn’t make a copy of the forms I filled out because I was in a gambling mood – all or nothing.

Finally and above all, I would never let a stranger see my permanent residence application for one very good reason: it contains all kind of personal information. An immigration application is a lengthy and thick file that includes your date of birth (nothing to be ashamed of yet, I’m “only” 27), your social insurance number (even if mine was temporary at the time), all your work and personal history, possibly banking information and medical files, copies of various IDs such as passport… I’m not being paranoid, but handing this out to someone (who requested it out of the blue via email) would be pretty dumb. Identity thief, anyone?

I still replied to the email saying basically that. I wasn’t mean and I didn’t say no out of spite, because I assume the person asked the question a bit lightly and in good faith. Yes, at one point, you must realize that immigrating is a serious matter and they are just too many scams around for a random person to give you access to such personal documents.

How about you? How would you have reacted? Ever got some WTF questions on your blog?

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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