Road To Canada Forums

Well, it finally happened. Landed at the Carway crossing on Jan 02!! I was rather concerned about landing, as I read in several places that they might possibly be the rudest folks at any border crossing throughout Canada. However, with that being the closest location to Calgary, we dicided to give it a go. To complicate matters a bit, I was also out of status, having my VR expire in November due to my own oversight.

Long story short, we made the quick drive to the border. My brother-in-law and wife waited in the parking lot of the duty free store on the Canadian side since he did not want to drive his truck across the border due to him not having a passport. So, I make the walk over to the US side to "flagpole." So far so good. The US folks were quite friendly and I was back on my way to Canada in less than 5 minutes. Here's where the fun starts. I get to the Canadian side, inform them I am there to land. The clerk downstairs hands me a slip of paper and has me go upstairs to the immigration office. When I arrive there are a couple of other people ahead of me and what appears to be only one immigration officer working. So, I wait and listen as he grills one couple that apparantly came down there to renew her VR. He was very curt, bordering on rude, but I figured it had to do with their specific situation. Finally it was my turn. I advise the officer that I was there to land and was told "we don't do that here." I advised him there was nothing in my letter I received with my passport or on their website that said that. He asked why I was not doing it in Calgary at the CIC office and I advised we wanted to go ahead and get it done rather than making an appointment and having to wait six weeks or so to do it at the office. (Side note: although I filed outland, the letter I received with my passport stated I could either go to a POE or call and make an appointment with my local CIC office). Additionally, our reasoning to go to the border also had to do with me being out of status. By leaving Canada and returning, I had in effect voluntarily left the country, so I figured that would prevent any issues with the expiration of status and landing. He then asked me for my address, which is in Calgary. He asked about my visitor record and when it expired. I knew I had to be honest with him and advised him it had expired. Long story short, he became very rude and basically said he did not have to allow me to land and probably would not. Needless to say I was pretty freaked out while I waited for him to do whatever he was doing in the back office. I mean, this place is the county seat of the Middle of Nowhere. So,, I'm sitting there formulating a plan on what to do if they do not let me in, much less allow me to land. Finally after a long wait, he comes to the desk, has me sign my landing paperwork, asks for my mailing address and hands me back my passport and says "now you can work." That was it, no welcome to Canada, no Congrats, no nothing. Not a huge deal, but highly unusual in comparison to any other border official I have ever dealt with here. Not sure if he just had a bad attitude or just enjoyed his power a little too much. All in all, the experience took a couple of hours.

So, there it is. That's my story. Waiting on my PR card and heading out this week for SIN number, Alberta Health Care, and a drivers license. Thanks to all for the great info and support on here and best of luck to everyone starting or mired in the PR process!

Well congratulations on being done! :)
I didn't realize that, as an inland applicant that you could make a border run.
My guess is, if it's a small POE - they don't do too many and/or you caught him on an off day.
Either way - you are finished!

Edit to add - I assumed you were inland reading "CPC-V" in your signature - I should learn not to skim...lol

austin2calgary Wrote:Well, it finally happened. Landed at the Carway crossing on Jan 02!! I was rather concerned about landing, as I read in several places that they might possibly be the rudest folks at any border crossing throughout Canada. However, with that being the closest location to Calgary, we dicided to give it a go. To complicate matters a bit, I was also out of status, having my VR expire in November due to my own oversight.

Long story short, we made the quick drive to the border. My brother-in-law and wife waited in the parking lot of the duty free store on the Canadian side since he did not want to drive his truck across the border due to him not having a passport. So, I make the walk over to the US side to "flagpole." So far so good. The US folks were quite friendly and I was back on my way to Canada in less than 5 minutes. Here's where the fun starts. I get to the Canadian side, inform them I am there to land. The clerk downstairs hands me a slip of paper and has me go upstairs to the immigration office. When I arrive there are a couple of other people ahead of me and what appears to be only one immigration officer working. So, I wait and listen as he grills one couple that apparantly came down there to renew her VR. He was very curt, bordering on rude, but I figured it had to do with their specific situation. Finally it was my turn. I advise the officer that I was there to land and was told "we don't do that here." I advised him there was nothing in my letter I received with my passport or on their website that said that. He asked why I was not doing it in Calgary at the CIC office and I advised we wanted to go ahead and get it done rather than making an appointment and having to wait six weeks or so to do it at the office. (Side note: although I filed outland, the letter I received with my passport stated I could either go to a POE or call and make an appointment with my local CIC office). Additionally, our reasoning to go to the border also had to do with me being out of status. By leaving Canada and returning, I had in effect voluntarily left the country, so I figured that would prevent any issues with the expiration of status and landing. He then asked me for my address, which is in Calgary. He asked about my visitor record and when it expired. I knew I had to be honest with him and advised him it had expired. Long story short, he became very rude and basically said he did not have to allow me to land and probably would not. Needless to say I was pretty freaked out while I waited for him to do whatever he was doing in the back office. I mean, this place is the county seat of the Middle of Nowhere. So,, I'm sitting there formulating a plan on what to do if they do not let me in, much less allow me to land. Finally after a long wait, he comes to the desk, has me sign my landing paperwork, asks for my mailing address and hands me back my passport and says "now you can work." That was it, no welcome to Canada, no Congrats, no nothing. Not a huge deal, but highly unusual in comparison to any other border official I have ever dealt with here. Not sure if he just had a bad attitude or just enjoyed his power a little too much. All in all, the experience took a couple of hours.

So, there it is. That's my story. Waiting on my PR card and heading out this week for SIN number, Alberta Health Care, and a drivers license. Thanks to all for the great info and support on here and best of luck to everyone starting or mired in the PR process!

Wow, Congrats! Sorry, though, that you had to encounter someone so rude - but that's what they do, some of them. I really don't think he could have refused to allow you to land - your temporary status has/had absolutely nothing to do with your admissibility as a permanent resident. Not only that, but you were right - leaving Canada made the expired status irrelevant AND you're supposed to provide them with an address in Canada, even if you hadn't been in the country before AND there is no requirement that you land at a local office. As you know, that's only just recently been made available as an option. He just didn't want to work - judging by how he first lied to you and told you you couldn't land there! What an a$$!! Those are the ones who give them all a bad rep and it's just too bad that it's not easier to get them fired! Hope it didn't dampen your joy! Best of luck and, for what it's worth, WELCOME TO CANADA!!!

DerbyGirl Wrote:Well congratulations on being done! :)
I didn't realize that, as an inland applicant that you could make a border run.
My guess is, if it's a small POE - they don't do too many and/or you caught him on an off day.
Either way - you are finished!

Edit to add - I assumed you were inland reading "CPC-V" in your signature - I should learn not to skim...lol

austin2calgary Wrote:(Side note: although I filed outland, the letter I received with my passport stated I could either go to a POE or call and make an appointment with my local CIC office).

Just to clarify so nobody reading this will get confused - You don't do a border run to land as an inland applicant. All inland applicants are finalized at local CIC offices - that's what "inland" is all about.

Foremost, congrats on landing.

Regarding the attitude of the CBSA officer handling the landing:
While it may have been, simply, one disgruntled/unhappy officer taking out personal frustrations with the client, otherwise I suspect two things: a bad day (or just a bad hour due to a difficult encounter just before yours) combined with it being a POE at which they rarely do landings. Add to that, your approach was also unusual (few people walk across a land-based POE to land) and unusual tends to incite concerns, and in the circumstances it was obvious that you had overstayed your previous status -- the latter was an insignificant technicality at worst, of no import whatsoever because there never was any enforcement action taken (and even if, for whatever reason, an enforcement action was begun, you could have left voluntarily and it would have had no impact on your PR app). BUT of course something like that probably jumps out at a CBSA officer, causing alarms to go off in their head that they might not be able to immediately process, since their first instinct is to enforce what appears to be a violation.

I did something similar, delaying leaving Canada and returning to land until after my last VR had expired . . . but I had my PR visa in hand well before my VR expired, so I knew I had authority to enter and stay in Canada so was not worried about a technical overstay of the VR. Like in your instance, it was obvious what I had done, and that obviously rattled the officer at the PIL some when I did approach to land, and she questioned me fairly closely about where I had been, for how long, but I was calm and shrugged, answered her questions, smiled, and once inside at secondary there was nothing more said about it. (I was a bit surprised by the tone of the PIL officer's questions, since I had said right up front I was there to "land" as a PR, but I quickly got over my surprise and understood that from what she saw, I had clearly overstayed a VR . . . and she would not have immediately compared the date my PR visa was issued relative to the expiration of my VR, so to her it probably appeared that I had deliberately flaunted immigration regulations.) One year ago this week by the way; time flies!

And, again, congratulations.