madhusivan

I just can’t believe that it’s two and a half months since we have landed in Winnipeg. A special thanks to everybody contributing their valuable inputs to this site. Here goes our story:

July 11th: Started from Philadelphia, US early morning and landed in Winnipeg Airport around 4pm local time. The flight was 20 min before time.

Immigration and customs formalities went on real smooth. As we did not have a permanent address we had to call the PR office for notification of the same after finding an apartment. The customs official accepted the hotel address. We had prepared the necessary forms before hand. (1.B4 – Goods to follow, B4A – Goods importing while landing, 3. E677 – As we were carrying more than $10,000 Canadian dollars together in currency, travellers cheques and bank draft. This form is available in pdf form in the customs website.) The form is self explanatory, wherein details of the currency, serial nos. of the travelers checks has to be mentioned with the approximate Canadian conversion rate.

Winnipeg welcomed us with few showers. We rode in a limo to the hotel, as we had a lot of baggage with us. Moreover it was economical. The regular taxi fare was $25 and for the limo it was $35.

July 12th. (1) Went to the SIN office with the filled application forms for both my husband and myself. The staff was very courteous and the process was completed within few minutes. As my husband had a job offer, it was told that his application will be processed on an “emergency” basis. Again here also we gave the hotel address only. We were asked to give a call on July 14th to get his number. (We went and collected the SIN card from the hotel the next week)

(2) From there went to the Manitoba Health office to get the card. Here we had a small hitch. In our COPR the place of landing was “Ontario”, so the staff was a bit hesitant in issuing a card immediately. She was telling that people come here (Manitoba) for insurance purpose as it starts right from the first day of landing and they later move to some other province (within a year or so) once their medical needs are complied with. Moreover we did not have anybody here or a permanent address. So she asked us to come back after finding a house and with the lease agreement. Then after some persuasion she gave us the card with the hotel address on it with a condition that we will be required to be present in person in their office during the following 6 months whenever they call for us. We were insisting in getting the card immediately because I was 8 months pregnant then.

(3) Finding a doctor. We just went enquiring around places and found a walk-in clinic and the doctor referred me to an ob-gyn the same day. We went to the clinic as soon as getting the health card and we did not pay a cent. This is to mention that the coverage starts right from day one.

(4) Getting a mobile phone. The walk in clinic was in a mall (Portage Place). We found a phone company (MTS)store in the same mall. Got a mobile and the connection was activated within few minutes. There was a $300 deposit to be paid and we were informed that it will be credited back after 6 months.

July 15th: Moved to the apartment from the hotel. Finding an apartment was a tougher task then we thought. Actually we did a good amount of homework while in US, going through a lot of websites, finding rental agencies, phone nos., list of prospective openings etc. But everything was a complete waste of time. Everybody whom we called gave us the same reply “nothing available until August/September”, “there is a 2 years waiting list” and so on and so forth. We felt that the rental websites are not being updated at all. Even the listings in the home renter’s guide did not turn out positive. We were told that the rental agencies place the ads on a yearly contract basis. So the ads will appear in each and every month’s apartment guide whether they actually rent or not. This was really misleading.

Finally we found an apartment in the third floor, with no elevator. We had to settle for that because we did not want to spend money in the hotel, my husband had to start working and we needed a permanent address as soon as possible. My husband had a tough time getting our luggages to the third floor. We got a reference letter from our previous landlord in US, stating our authenticity, but it was not necessary at all.

July 16th: Called the phone company (MTS) to get a phone line and internet connection for the residence. Everything was done over the phone itself. We got the number immediately and we were told that we would be getting the connection on the 21st and the internet on 23rd. But there was some delay. But there was no credit check, payment of deposit etc.

July 18th: Applied for the PR card over phone. My husband received the card on Aug17th and I received mine on Aug 18th.

Opening a bank account: SIN card was required to open the account. So we waited until then. As mentioned in a lot of other posts, the draft we deposited was put on hold for 30 days. So we were managing with the traveler’s cheques, credit card etc. (We did not close the bank account in the US. We had some balance left in that account so that we could use the credit card. This came handy in a lot of occasions.)

Reg. cashing the TC, there is a list of banks/agents (in each and every city) available in the American express website, who cash them without charging commission.

I’ll post the second part shortly.

Thank You

gabics

Thank you for sharing your experience madhusivan. I really enjoyed reading your post.
We are also in similar situation. Moving from Chicago to possibly Calgary. So we will have to go through the same process… I just wish I could get a job ahead of time like your husband.

I wish you a happy and healthy baby!

I can’t wait for Part II!
Gabics.

Chipotle

Thanks for sharing your story, I also enjoyed it very much. Best of luck with baby and dont forget to post part II as promised!

Chipotle