Hello all
New to all this Malarky but you all seem like a very warm and welcoming bunch. Questions
1.Moving money? Best way please, i get a coupla quid when i leave the Army and want not to give it to the old Taxman or even worse some oick in the currency gaffs!
2.Worth trickling some over every month? (i have an account there in Hinton)
3.Do the Canadian Military take us lot after 22 years like the Aussies and Kiwis do?
4. Will i have to go through half as much being married to a lovely Canadian? (Poor girl had to do it all coming here!)
5. Whats the best way to deal with my Army pension? Leave it here and ATM it or shift it to be paid there every month?
Thank you all very much in advance.

unfortunately i can only answer number 4. i sponsored my british husband to come back here. it takes about six months to get a spousal visa through the family class for canadian citizens living outside of canada to sponsor their spouses. best bet is to peruse this in full and get a good idea of whats involved. lots of form filling, and plenty of fees to be paid.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/sponsor/index.html

you also need to get a medical done, and assuming you both reside in the uk, i would recommend getting it done just before you send out the application. thats what we did. our timeline was:

10-01-2004: Medical done
30-01-2004: Sponsorship & Permanent Residency applications sent off
20-02-2004: Mississauga confirms receipt of applications
15-03-2004: Sponsorship application approved
25-03-2004: Case Number allocated by the Canadian High Commission in London
19-07-2004: Visa approved!
22-07-2004: Passport sent off to the Canadian High Commission in London
06-08-2004: Passport received with Permanent Residency Visa inside
06-09-2004: Flew from the UK to Ottawa, Canada - PR Card application sent off

Hope this answers question 4! good luck

Hi
with regards to your pension,you will pay tax either here or in Canada but not both so it really is up to you.If you get taxed here and it gets paid into a British bank account i would suggest perhaps opening HSBC accounts here and in Canada and then you can transfer monies as much or as little and as often as you like via the internet sites.The rate will not be fantastic but what you gain in convenience you lose with the rate.
Mike

Wow you did well from outside of Canada. I married my Canadian husband last January and we did the sponsership inland. We had a lot of problems and had to get an MP involved in it to hurry it up (my ex in the Uk and his kids with me so threats from him to take me to court if I didnt get to the Uk by Christmas!) I was told by CIC that applications from outside of Canada are taking upto 3 years now!! Our timeline is :

9th Feb 04 - Application recieved
23rd March 04 - Started working on application
15th July 04 - AIPS received
17th Nov 04 - Permanent residency granted

As for the military question, no foreigner can join the Canadian military as a permanent resident so you will have to go for citizenship 3 years after PR is granted. They will take on foreigners though.

i didnt expect it to go so quickly. i was told by an immigration consultant that they had introduced a new scheme, or intitiative, to process family class visas for canadian citizens residing outside of canada, within six months. this was at the beginning of this year... whether things have changed or not from then, i dont know!

congrats on the recent PR residency

thanks it feels great..in the Uk at the mo on an ex husband visit Went to CIC london today to get PR's finalised as I have left Canada without the official cards. After 4 hours in there we have the visas in our passports and its all done and dusted. Fantastic relief!

i know that feeling spent the better part of this year planning and stressing etc... feels weird not to have to do that now!

look at you with your shiny new visas......

Congrats, now there's no reason to hang about in the UK!!!

KH can recommend a company based in London for your money moving...Moneycorps , they've been pretty helpfull and charge a flat rate of £15 per transaction (no commission) their rate always beat our bank HSBC. They have a website.
The UK£>Can$ rate is terrible at present, back in summer we got around 2.5 rate with moneycorp.
I'd also recommend HSBC to open a Canadian bank A/c.
Cheers

No just a small issue of me spending time at my parents!lol. Off backpacking to the Isle of Wight next week...thats like Barbados to me now!!!lol

Hi Jo,

glad all went well for you at cic, now enjoy the rest of holiday. Haven't been to Isle of Wight for many years but remember having great time. Enjoy stay in UK, talk soon.

Hi Jo,

Just to let you know that those air tickets went unsold. Bu**er, we could have had a week away in the sunshine! In-laws still walking about in shorts.

Speak to you soon and don't go mad in Liz Earles shop on the IOW

Well I am walking about here without a coat on. God its warm in the Uk compared to NS at the moment!!lol