PR Cards - staggered?
 

Hi folks,

My P.R. card came in the post roughly four weeks after landing.

We have now been here 8 weeks and hubby's card is nowhere to be seen...... has anyone else found that couples get their cards this far apart? (Wondering why my card came first when he was the principle applicant and I was merely the "spouse".)

Any comments welcome........ pondering whether or not to attempt to contact them but I know it will be a nightmare.

Mrs Madmac

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Hi

Contact them 1-800-255-4541 your husband should have had his by now. (This number is for PR cards only)

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Oh thank you very much for that!

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

My PR card came through after 10 days, my wife has now been waiting 3 months both sent together. We have called several times to be told there is now a 6 month waiting list, and not to worry

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

PR Cards for new arrivals are being processed in 30 days:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/departm...n.html#pr_card

Something's gone wrong with your wife's. You need to find out urgently in case it's been lost or stolen in the mail.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Hi

They are "blowing you off" Newly landed Immigrants the posted time is 30 days and 65 days for applicants see: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/departm...n.html#pr_card and this was updated 3/Oct/06. Phone them.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

My wife spoke to them on Friday morning, they confirmed that her card had not yet been processed and that we should call again if we hadn't received it by November. We raised the point that their website was stating 30 days, they just replied that that was a guideline not a reality.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

I bet if you paid your taxes a few months late and said "well, the deadline is more of a guideline really" you wouldn't get very far.

What a way to run a country! I can't understand how there's not boiling fury at the widespread utter incompetence of the Canadian Government.

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Because although many people in Canada realise the gov't is incompetent, they also realise it's pretty much the same anywhere else, so why sweat it eh? And, oh look, there's a Tim Horton's...

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Oh well looks like it will be fun when I phone them......... their own rules state that you can't get back into the Country unless you have the PR card - which means you can't leave............. hubby is meant to be going to America shortly............. no pr card then no trip!

(As for no fury at the way they run things here............. from my own experience not much difference from home. I wonder what it is like for immigrants going to the UK....... we got our SIN Numbers, Driving Licenses and OHIP appointments all sorted in a couple of days when we landed........ I doubt the same could be said for the UK??)

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

My experience - time to have police certificates:
Belgium - 4 days
France - 2 weeks
UK - 3 weeks to receive the letter and then 40 days to print out information from a computer....

Still waiting to send in the Federal application because of the dear Metropolitan Police.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

PR Card is not required on the land frontier (COPR will do + passport).

Could he drive to a U.S. airport near the border and take a domestic flight from there? If you're in Guelph then Buffalo and Detroit should both be within driving range.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

If you come from Canada to the UK you can drive on your Canadian licence for a year, and can swap it for a UK licence within the year. You don't need to have your licence on you in order to drive.

Registering for the NHS is easy, doesn't require an NI number, and there's no moratorium: you can get treated as soon as you become resident. Whereas you won't be covered anywhere in Canada for the next three months.

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

My certificates arrived exactly within the 40 days, which makes me wonder if they print them within 48 hours and then just hold on to them for the next 38 days.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I don't hold the UK police up as an example of competence. The UK police are highly political, utterly mismanaged, and completely misdirected in their priorities (they've got time to investigate reports of the Prime Minister saying "****ing Welsh" but no time to investigate arson, assault and theft by feral teenagers on sink estates). It's one of the reasons I want out of the UK (a reason shared by many on this forum, I suspect).

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

I lived in the UK for 5 years and I never did get an NI number... they kept wanting a letter of a job offer... I kept telling them I was self-employed... after two years of having my letters and calls ignored, not followed up, etc... I just forgot about it.

I received a nice 'telling off' (full-on voiced raised in front of all others in the waiting area, finger wagging included) by a receptionist at a doctor's surgery about "people like me" (foreigners) coming to the UK to abuse the NHS. Charming.

Relating to the above... I needed to see the above doc to make sure I had a TB innoculation scar... it's a legal requirement by the Immigration bit of the Home Office. I saw the doc... he looks at my arm and said 'yeah, you have one'... I say, 'no I don't, that's not a TB innoc scar...', he says, 'yeah, all babies get it'... I say, 'in the UK, right?' ... 'yeah, it was standard...' ... 'But I wasn't a baby in the UK...' (Duuuuuh....) :rolleyes: I never did receive a TB jab (like I was suppose to) so if I've spread disease all over the British Isles, blame him. :p

As I was nearing the end of my UK Ancestry Visa and applying for PR, I realised I didn't completely tick all the right boxes to ensure PR (because I was self-employed things were not clear). I tried for months to get some clarity... calls forwarded into outterspace, letters ignored, put on hold until the line went dead, etc... when I finally got someone with their head not firmly wedge up their... I was told my application would just be decided on the judgement of the caseworker on the day. So I say, 'so if they're having a shitty day, I screwed?' He kinda laughed and said, 'don't worry about it but ... yeah...' Oh, thanks for clearing that up for me.

I experienced lots of frustration... and that's just a small sampling of it .... but, it's just real life shit and I try not to let real life affect my own little world. ;)

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Fantastic outlook. I think I'm gonna take a leaf outta your book. I think I need to be like that, especially today. x

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Being ranted at by a piece of sputum at your GP surgery is something that would affect me. Utterly unacceptable behaviour.

The Home Office is just dreadful. It's the worst UK Government department. It should be broken up and certain sections decimated (in the true Roman sense of the word).

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

I think most civil servants* realise that they've a shitty job, but consider the perks too interesting to move to something in the private sector that interests them. (I could tell you things about Belgium but it's so off topic.) Hence, they're slow and make life difficult for others.

* I know some professions are classed as "civil servants" because they're employed by the gov't, e.g. teachers, but they're not bored pen-pushers so I don't consider the above statement applies to them.

Privatise the Civil Service!

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

I'm so disgusted by 40 days that I've just complained about it to the Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

They are supposed to issue an NI number if you're self-employed:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/benefits/ni_number.asp

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

The NHS does however reserve the right to charge you if you arrive in the country with a pre-existing condition.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Not if you have MOVED to the United Kingdom.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Well I finally got through yesterday............ not good............. hubby is no where on the system!

Apparently they will contact us within 30 days to investigate what has happened.

(For anyone else waiting ........ the voice mail message on their system is now stating a 16 week wait for PR cards.)

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

The queues really do seem to be building up - it looks like it's going to get worse in the near future. I hope it doesn't delay you too much!

It's making me nervous as I'm still waiting for Scotland Yard to send me my criminal record.... I've the impression that each day delay we have in submitting the federal application, the longer it'll take to get our PR.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Hummm wonder if you have a website to prove that.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Well, well............... we got a letter 4 days after my phone call telling us to go to our nearest immigration office because apparently the details we provided at the airport were wrong! How can they know they were wrong when they lost them! Anyway...... we go to the office prepared for along wait and we got taken straight away. They only needed to take another photo and look at the passport and immigration form.......... so now we wait again! (Apparently for 6 weeks.)

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Damn, reading this I'm worried now. Got COPR on October 16th, meant to be flying to the US December 6th. if my card is not through by then, I'm hooped :scared:

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

You don't need the card to re-enter Canada if you'll travelling be on a British (or other visa-free country) passport. Just declare yourself as a PR when you get to Canadian immigration.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

40 days doesn't seem terrible, especially not if they stick to it. My oh needed certificates from the UK, Colorado, Utah, Minnesota and the RCMP. The American ones took a few days, the UK one arrived in about a month but the RCMP one took six months. That made me wonder if one could ever produce Canadian documentation to satisfy the Canadian authorities; by the time the immigration people look at the certificates the Canadian one will cover a period ending eighteen months before.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

It would be pretty impressive to get med requests (which also require updated police certs), wait six months for the RCMP, submit the whole lot to the CHC in London, who sit on their butts for months before PPR, and then sit on their butts after PPR, by which time the date of the meds have expired and you can't take up the visa they eventually get round to issuing. Ta da!

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

How long are medicals valid? If it's a year then that's a potential problem.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

One year only. (So if there is a hold up at their end.... as was the case with us..... you get a shorter period from date of issue to date you must land, i.e. you must land within one year of the medicals...... OR.... you need to do them again.) Our notification from our medicals took a few months: Medicals in September 05 and Visa issued in January 06...... we did everything as soon as possible and never held anything up at our end! Sometimes it is purely the luck of the draw.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Time will tell, I guess. Fortunately a new medical is easily done whereas having to get new police certificates would be a real pain.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Easier said than paid for..

K.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

It's ok if you're in Canada, fifty bucks maybe, certainly less than $100.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Not in the UK though. We paid approx £200 per person for the 4 of us!!!

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Y'know that's something quite surprising about Canada and even the US, most short term medical bills are way less than the equivalent private cost in the UK and certainly way less than people from the UK fear. A broken arm or leg is not going to be a ruinous, it might be $2,000, an unwelcome bill certainly, but probably not the cause of bankruptcy. What drives people to the poor house is chronic conditions; cancer or heart disease or diabetes. That's something to think about before plonking down good money to cover the three months before OHIP kicks in.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

The medical costs were a surprise...... but it was the way it was done. Pay the nurse to get the X-rays.......... then..........Pay the doctor direct to get the medical..... (paying someone to cause you pain...... just not great..... but then I'm a big sissy and the blood bit was one of the worst things for me.) Imagine sitting with the doctor and then paying him direct....... left a odd feeling. As for costs at this end...... we just took our insurance for the first 90 days which cost us $554.50 (USD) which we did not think was too bad for peace of mind.

Re: PR Cards - staggered?
 

Well 11 days later - hubby now has his PR card! (Looks like they can move things along when they want to.)