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The long road to driving in Canada

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Do you need a car in Toronto? Phew. This is going to be a long one. It’s going to be part guide, part rant, part social commentary. Driving in Canada requires three things - a driver's license (varies province by province), insurance (for yourself and the car you are planning to drive) and a car. Getting each can be a long and rather expensive process. I am detailing my experience with the first below, and will address the other two in follow up posts. I have a lot of feelings about driving and cars. On one hand, there’s overwhelming evidence that cars are bad for the environment and humanity - tires are polluting the whole world with rubber, gas is burnt and releases greenhouse gasses, people become sedentary, unhealthy and lazy. Due to the large amount of space needed to store cars, and the general unpopularity/ expense of multi-level / underground parking, car dependence ends up creating huge parking lots, excessively sized houses, everything becoming far away from each other. M...
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Getting (and tracking) your PR Card after landing in Canada

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Your PR card is the most important document as a Canadian permanent resident. It is universally accepted as an ID proof, on par with a birth certificate or passport used by Canadian citizens. It can be used to avail all government services.  When you land in Canada and speak to the CBSA, once they sign your COPR and you become permanent residents, they will ask you to provide an address to which IRCC can send the PR Card (one for each member of the family). What happens behind the scenes is that they submit a PR card application to IRCC on your behalf, using the address you provide and the details and photo present in the COPR copy that they retain. If you do not have a friend or family member's address you can provide to the CBSA, they will give you a form to submit later once you have a stable address for your PR card. Getting your PR card can be pretty anxiety inducing if you are the overthinking type as it is essential to be able to travel outside Canada (to re-enter Canada as ...
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Getting your bearings

 Getting your SIN, bank accounts and cards, ID, health insurance There are 4 major things you need in a new country  Some kind of taxation identification number (so that you can have a bank account and earn money by working). In Canada, this is called a Social Insurance Number (SIN) - the closest equivalent would be an SSN (in the U.S) or a PAN (in India).  Some kind of bank account and a card to pay merchants and other people Some kind of ID proof - your foreign passport can be used everywhere, but it is a pain to replace if you lose it, and it will likely not fit in your wallet. In Canada, and generally across car obsessed North America, this is usually a Driver's license. In Ontario, the government in all its infinite wisdom, has finally realized not everyone can drive or wants to drive, and have another form of ID called Ontario Photo ID. Some kind of health insurance. In Canada, health insurance is very complicated, and I will cover it in greater depth in a later pos...
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PPR to Landing in Canada

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Your guide to landing in Canada comfortably and safely Getting your COPR and IM-1 visa  There exists a famous guide, AOR to PPR , to help guide PR applicants on the steps they will see and need to take when they apply for a Canadian PR. There is no dearth of information on how to apply for a Canadian PR, study, or work permit on the internet. I will be focusing this post/blog on the parts of the process that don't seem to be well documented, which vary case by case, and on the fun parts of living in Canada. As you may have guessed by now, this focuses on applicants from outside Canada. You will receive some kind of communication called RFV (Ready for Visa) or OPR (Original Passport Request - also commonly referred to as PPR). You will most likely receive this on your email registered with IRCC, and there is also a small chance you may get it in your GCKey portal itself. In either case, you will need to submit one copy of this email / communication for each family member in your app...
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