Moving to Canada

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...

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 ...