Gazzae

Hi All,

Has anyone got recent experience of landing at Pearson airport? I will be flying in with my wife (returning Canadian Citizen) and daughter (British passport but we have her Canadian Citizen certificate).
We will be landing on a Saturday at around 5pm - any idea if this is a busy time?
My brother-in-law is coming to collect my wife and daughter and I am getting a hire car. I'm assuming that once we go through initial immigration I will have to go to secondary to activate my PR - is it possible at this stage for my Wife and daughter to leave the airport.

Also how does it work with the B4 form? Do we each need to fill one out or can we list everything under 1 persons name?

If you think it is best that we stay together then thats OK, was just hoping for a quick way to get a tired and grumpy toddler through!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Former Lancastrian

You will have to stay together if travelling as a family until all Customs & Immigration procedures have been completed. Make sure you have any goods to follow lists. It doesn't matter who's name is on the B4 as you would be considered as a Settler and wife as a Former Resident.
No idea if 5pm will be a busy time or not though I expect it to be reasonably busy.
Tell BIL to expect a bit of a wait after your plane lands.

Gazzae

Thanks, least we know where we stand. I've advised BIL to arrive 1 hour after the plan lands. Hopefully that is enough time.

ChrisBan

That could be a bit optimistic. Depending on which terminal (in my own personal experience T3 has always been a longer wait) and how many other international flights come in, you could be an hour in immigration alone. The walk from the plane depending on your walking speed alone is around 10 minutes.

Gazzae

Yes it is T3 we are flying into. We walk pretty fast but will need to wait for the stroller so we won't be first off the plane. Guess all we can do is advise him to go for a coffee when he gets there!
Thanks

Scottygirl

I would say you'll be up to an hour to get thro passport control/customs then another hour at immigration - depending on what other flights have arrived as OP said.

I arrived with our 18mth old almost 4 years ago (hubby & older son has arrived the previous day) and I was so long going thro all the channels that my luggage had been taken off the carousel and was waiting at the side for me!

If you can get your stroller at the plane exit then that would be easier - my son wanted to walk the whole way from the gate to immigration! Needless to say we were the last in the Q and 2 flights from Asia had arrived around the same time

Good luck!

SchnookoLoly

Read the wiki article on landing, it answers a ton of these and has some links to people's landing experiences.

Wags18uk

Did you know there is a cell phone parking lot at Pearson. See the link below, can be much easier than driving round and round or parking charges:

Cell Phone Lot

Gazzae

Just to give you an update, we arrived at 16:20 on the 6th February. It only took us 5 minutes to pass through the first immigration stage. We had to queue for secondary immigration for about 70 minutes, there were only 15 people in front of us but seemed to be very few desks open or there was a lot of complicated cases. The actual processing took 5-10 minutes, the border agent said my PR card would be mailed out in 2 months and advised me to go to a Service Canada to get my SIN.
From there to customs was smooth, there was no queue. The customs agent barely looked at the goods accompanying list and just had a quick look at our goods to follow list, the only question he asked was if our TVs would work over here. We didn't complete the B4 form in advance but it only took a few minutes for the agent to complete this.
All-in-all the whole process took just over 90 minutes.

Scottygirl

Sounds like it was smooth sailing!! Although I would say that your PR card is likely to take longer than 2 mths to be issued. The current processing time on the CIC website is 105 days.

ChrisBan

Brilliant, good to hear!

MarylandNed

I've used it but don't recall seeing any toilets. Rules state that vehicles must be turned off and attended while in the cell phone lot so I'm guessing there are no toilets. Just something to be aware of if, like me, drinking coffee makes you go!