Originally Posted by ipevo

Won't you have a problem returning if you haven't got your PR card? Or did you stay long enough before returning to have it sent to you?

Originally Posted by Yes-can-do

Congratulations on you all landing safely and receiving a very good welcome to Canada.

I take it your are back home to sell up and will hopefully be back on Canadian soil very soon.

Originally Posted by Tam Kilmarnock

Hi Everyone,

Just returned back to Kilmarnock after landing at a freezing cold Toronto, here is how we fared........

Our flight was initialy delayed 2.5 hours (Zoom Airlines from Glasgow) and our baby son decided to have an off day and cried most of the flight, you can imagine what the other passengers thought of us and our stress levels when we actualy landed in Toronto.

So with Passports, IMM5292's and Proof of Funds at the ready we waited in the queue at passport control. The lady customs officer waived us forward and asked what the purpose of our visit was. I told her that we were landing as immigrants and she smiled and said "good for you". She scanned our passports and waved us through after directing us to the immigration department.

The department was busy and I recognised only one other person from our flight. We were beckoned forward immediately and an immigration officer asked if we were landing as immigrants, as soon as I spoke he made fun of my accent and said "Ah your from Scotland" he took some details from our IM5292's and typed them into his PC. Then in a fake Scots accent he told me to go to a waitng area to the left of the booth.

There was about a dozen and a half poeple there of all nationalities, and we took seats at the back. I thought we would be there for a while but we had no sooner sat down when an immigration officer waived us over into his booth, I reckon we were sat there less than one minute. We had to walk around past all the other immigrants who were waiting and I felt kinda guilty that we were being seen straight away. Seated in the front row were three men and one elderly lady, who were getting a severe grilling from two uniformed officers and one plain clothed officer. We were left alone in the booth for a few minutes and had nothing to do but listen to the verbal lashing that the folks in the front row were recieving. The wife and I just looked at each other and I swear I broke out into a sweat. I just managed to hear the unlucky four being told that they were being detained until their status could be confirmed when the immigration officer returned to the booth.

He asked for our IM5292's , typed the details into his PC checked them against our visa's and never even asked for our proof of funds let alone look at them. This kinda peed me off at the time because we had went to a lot of trouble to raise the funds, selling a car etc. But I guess if we didn't have the funds then he would have asked for them......such is life. We signed the IM5292'S were given the bottom copy and in no more than 20 mins we were directed to another booth to pick up our Welcome to Canada packs and SIN application forms. From there we went to pick up our luggage.

Zoom airlines managed to lose one of our cases, so it took a while to get to customs. We were waived forward and I presented our Goods Accompianing and Goods to Follow lists, all typed up as per little -beauty's and doozy's [/B]templates (thanks guys). The customs guy was amazed and said that he had never seen them typed out before and so it was with a big big grin that he typed the details into his PC. I told him one of the cases and contents was missing and that no one was at the ZOOM desk to enquire about it. He said that was not acceptable and really bad service and offered to take me back to baggage collection to try and find it he even had ZOOM airlines paged over the PA system but to no avail. Anyway he apologised for the inconvenience and then went to the Cashiers office, returning soon after with a blue/white Casual Goods Accounting Document (B15) stapled stamped copies of our B4 forms and a cover form to it and with a big smile shook my hand and said those magic words "Welcome to Canada and Good Luck"

In all the process took less than an hour. Without exception the customs/immigration officers were polite and freindly and the guy we had almost took it personaly that we had lost our case. I would urge everyone to use the B4A and B4E templates, it made a huge difference to the attitude of the customs officer towards us and are well worth the effort.

Now then .......anyone want to buy a house???