dgjamison

Hi I wonder is there anyone who can help me. My OH and I returned to Canada (Ontario) after 26 years and went to get our drivers licences when the strike was over. (We have been using our uk Licence up to now) When we went we were told we would have to either do 2 driving tests and 1 written or we would have to write to our embassy and get a letter stating we have been driving for over 2 years and we are "good people" that way we would only have to take one driving test, 1 written and an eye test. I was totally shocked as I thought it was just a matter of exchanging licences. Like when we first came. I actually did my test here in Canada, we are also Canadian Citizens. Has anyone else from Britain Had this problem? I understood if you could prove you have been driving in Britain the last 2 years it was just a matter of exchange. I really would like to know for sure as my insurance company has now asked for our ontario licence number. I still have our numbers from all those years ago, but am afraid to give it unless it is legal to do so HELP

iaink

The complication is the existing expired license.

"If your licence has been invalid for over ten years, you have to reapply under graduated licensing at a DriveTest centre and serve all the mandatory waiting periods."


Go to a different office and do a straight swap of your UK license. Take some sort of UK insurance document to demonstrate two years recent driving experience if necessary. Dont mention your old ontario one unless it comes up I guess?

dgjamison

Thank you, I thought it might have been something like that, I will try another office

lmartin999

Yeah. We moved back to ON. We both had expired BC licences, my wife had held an ON licence for years (swapped for the BC one etc) and we both had UK licences.

The CDN licences didnt seem to matter at all. We asked about them and it certainly didn't cause any problems and we just switched our UK ones. I think they may however have reactivated her number (or linked the records in some way).

The one place where the CDN licences did help was in getting car insurance. Having a record in Canada definitely made a difference (more so than any UK history we found). With my wife they were able to find all kinds of stuff from when she drove her parents car and was named on the policy etc from over 20 years ago. We found putting the policy in her name much cheaper so might be worth giving the insurance company the full story.

dgjamison

Thanks I will go tomorrow and see if I can get it exchanged, the thought of 2 driving tests at my age daunting, and my husband would have to as well, so the expense would be quite high.