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HI @Jacobs4, Based on you receiving a WES report with a (3 Year Degree) I have calculated your points and get to 405 at this moment. Ways to improve: - Your wife gives you 18 out of 20 points for her IELTS, she can improve it to 20 out of 20. +2 more - You can Improve your IELTS to 128 points (you currently have 125) +3 more - Your wife could give you 2 points for Matric (she needs to sent it to WES) and they will give her a high school diploma equivalency. +2 more You'll end up with 407 total then. - You can do another (1 Year equivalency certificate) and you'll score bonus points and you could end up with +32 points Summary: - You could potentially have a max score of 442 ! You'll loose 5 points every time you have a birthday.

@Nettie... google the online company and you book the place you would like to do the renwal and the date. i must say.. when i made my renewal booking it was the 16 May and only go the first opening 19 June... but hey you can apply online for a temporary one as well. hope it helps

Hi Kitcat, AOR: 30th January Medical passed: 7th Feb PPR: 15th May Submitted passports: 16th May Received passports with CORP: 18th June 3 and half months to PPR and my application was processed in Ottawa.

Hi Kitcat. I know of one if the group who has a 10 FEB AOR who got his a few days ago. I'm 22 Feb and still nothing. Good luck with the wait=)

When I booked for my new ID in December, you could only do passports and ID cards at the bank. Drivers license is still at the traffic department as far as I know...

Thank you very much, the left SA in February and we cannot wait to see them again

AFAIK anything you currently own, can be brought in without issues. Weight and size depends on how much you want to pay.

Hi @Jacobs4, Please tell us what you and your wife got for each section of the IELTS? Also did your wife get assessed for her high school or any after school qualifications?

When you initially did the CRS calculation (before submitting) did you claim points for your wife's education?

I tried the CRS calculator on the CIC website, and I'm getting in the early 400's based on the info you sent

Hi Just some info from our side. We landed in December 2017 on a Work Permit and had received a study permit for my daughter of 7 and we were told by the border agent that we did not need the study permit. They did not ask for it either when we got my daughter into school in the Halton region. Hope this helps.

@Liz. It is very confusing. I delayed our application submission by 4 weeks because I was unsure about study permits for my 13 year old twins. The answer is that your accompanying children do not require study permits. I contacted the Halton school board ON and they didn’t know. I started to complete the IMM1294 forms for my twins as I had read that you include NA for Designated learning institution name and number but then the forms won’t validate when applying online. My husband was issued his study permit within a week. I will apply for the OWP at the POE and have read that border control will issue an extended visitors visa for the twins. We live in the U.K. now and have British passports so maybe easier for us. I hope this helps

Letter of acceptance exemptions [R219(2)] A foreign national is exempt from the letter of acceptance requirement in the following situation: Family members of foreign nationals whose application for a work or study permit is approved in writing before the foreign national enters. This exemption does not guarantee the approval of a study permit application. You can check this out @Liz88

Check out http://www.rbc.com/newcomers/moving-to-canada-resident.html for the banking, if you want to go with RBC, and Airbnb is an option. I used Airbnb for a month and then found a place on Craigslist.

Hi Everyone Not sure if this the right place to post this. Please move if its not. While prepping for Canada my wife and I came across the prepare for Canada website. Its a government program sponsored by Scotia Bank offering a variety of useful info, Links, eBooks, Webinars, Online fairs and even free training. Its helped a lot with financial advice, tips on renting vs buying once in Canada, how to get the most out of networking on linkin ,some courses on Canadian soft skills. Here is the link, try it maybe there is something worth your while. http://www.prepareforcanada.com/

When I was checking prices in November last year, for Feb 2018, return flights were about R5k more expensive than one way. Not that I was planning on going back anytime soon.

I'll only note what I went through with the above few. f & g) PR card is done at point of entry, and I got mine roughly 6.5 weeks after landing. Until then, get used to carrying the landing form (COPR) around with you for activating bank accounts, or opening/signing pretty much anything. You can only get your drivers license card after verifying your identity, which requires the PR card, so, you'll probably be driving on a temp license until about 4 weeks after getting your PR card. Your Services card becomes available once you qualify for the provincial healthcare, at least that's how I did it. Once you get the drivers license or services card, you can use that as ID, as it's easier to replace than your PR card should you lose it, and you need the PR card to reenter Canada should you want to leave. i) Start looking as soon as you know you're getting the visa (PPR). I contacted companies/recruiters/managers directly via LinkedIn, and explained my situation. Most of them were helpful, and I managed(lucked out) to find a job within 3 days of starting to look. Basically, it's all up in the air. Depends on many things. What you do, demand, how open the person you contact is. If you are in control systems/electrical eng, with a degree from a Washington Accord university, our company is potentially hiring.

The forgetting part is so much easier said than done. Good luck! Let us know if/when you hear anything.

The fear of winter is overrated. I went looking for snow last weekend, I miss it. Biking is fun, but snow sports are even better.

Try contacting hr/managers directly on LinkedIn. Worked for me.

We got ours in SA after we had our Canadian visas in our passports. I think that helped and when she saw those and we explained we were moving to Canada and would at some point like to visit the USA, she was fine with that. Barely asked any questions and we needed no additional documentation even though we were fully prepared with bank statements, flight bookings to Canada etc. Very quick and easy interview.

You definitely need a Visitor's Visa as a Canadian PR. I got mine a few weeks ago. It was very simple though, I think it was easier as a Canadian PR than from SA. I basically applied online and had the visa in my passport a week later. Interview was all of 20 seconds and 3 questions. Also, on the US visa they identify you as a Canadian PR.

@Jules, except, and I know it is hard to believe, but there are actually a handful of countries where Saffas can enter but Canadians need pre-arranged visas - Brazil for one.

So we just received our passport requests for our work permits!!! 5 weeks on the dot!! So relieved and so excited!!!

We had a successfull one-week Acitivate and Admin trip last week (visa expires in December and we only got papers in October), so here is our Long Story So on Friday the tenth of November 2017 we are dropped off at the airport, ready for our “Landing week” in Toronto. We are a family of four with two little girls aged 1 (almost 2) and 3. We booked into the SlowLounge at FNB where the kids absolutely loved the watermelon and we had a glass of wine and snacks. About an hour before take-off we gave the little ones their “herbal remedies” as recommended by our trusted pharmacist, to help them to calm down. This was absolutely not effective and they started jumping on the chairs and running around while singing “Twinkle twinkle little star” so we left the lounge and boarded the plane. Our first leg was to London to where we would visit my husband’s sister for the day and fly to Toronto again the evening. The flight was quite bumpy and so the older girl’s tummy was not able to keep in all the watermelon and we had an unpleasant experience cleaning up the vomit… Anyway, safe arrivals in London where we were treated like royalty – because of the little ones we were allowed to skip all queues and went through customs like a breeze. Unfortunately our car seat and pram were not found at the carousel as expected, and upon investigation we learnt that it was booked through to Toronto. But hey, Heathrow British Airways apologized and GAVE us a BRANDNEW stroller and car seat! We were blown away. At my sister in laws house the kids played with their nephew for the whole day while we showered, ate and slept. The evening we left for Toronto and the flight went a lot better, the little ones were exhausted and slept like angels. On our arrival at Pearson we were again allowed to skip most of the queues. We were a bit confused when we were requested to provide a “Picture receipt”. In the customs lounge there are all these computer-cubicles where you use a touch-screen to create a landing card. Then you have to scan your passport and stand ready so that the machine can take a picture of you to create the photo. This then creates your “picture receipt” to be used further in the process. We got our passports stamped and then had to stand in the Immigrations queue. How exiting! This was a quick wait, less than five minutes. We had our “interview” with the friendly officer who processed our papers and then he said the magic words: “Welcome in Canada!” We proceeded to pick up our suitcases and were guided to the “goods to declare” queue, also not long. Here we provided our goods to follow list, got it stamped and proceeded to the arrivals hall. No SIN on a Saturday night, also because it was a public holiday. We booked an airport hotel for our first night, as we arrived at 20:20 and we assumed it would be a long process to get through all the hoops. All in all it was less than two hours, as expected. The arrivals lounge has a big bright “Call an Airport hotel” box behind the information desk. Again we (not used too much it seems) were blown away. On the touch screen monitor you select the hotel you want to contact and it dials the hotel. They confirmed our booking and told us when the next shuttle will arrive and at which pillar outside. Ten minutes later we were picked up and driven to the hotel. There we told the girls “it’s dark, we have to sleep”, although it was about six in the morning on our clocks, but around 11 in Toronto time. We managed to sleep until about six in the morning. Again we were surprised by the buffet breakfast: we used paper plates and cups and plastic knifes and enjoyed the “make your own waffle” station. After checking out we got an Uber to our self-catering AirBnb next to Lake Ontario in Etobicoke. Our lovely hosts showed us to our apartment next to theirs. When we asked where the closest Supermarket was, they offered to take me to do some shopping. Well, yes, thanks! Their car was not available immediately, so they brought over some milk, fruit and cereal so that the little ones can start munching away. These friendly people were Polish Immigrants that settled in Canada about 40 years ago. The rest of the day we spend shopping, preparing food and sleeping. On Monday we started exploring public transport. We walked to the nearest GO train and went to the CN tower for a wonderful visit. The visibility was not very good and they were doing maintenance, and therefore we were allowed to have a free trip to the top bubble as well. We loved the inner city look and feel. Because Saturday was a public holiday, Monday was booked off as well, so the city was very quiet. Then back with the train – the children loved it. Walking back home we passed a playground next to the lake. This was just a random playground, but it looked like the ones you see at local restaurants that caters for families. Big and awesome. There were even kids bikes parked around the playground, these bikes stay here and any child can hop on and off. Yes, some of them a wheel or so missing, but hey… it’s awesome. On Tuesday we started our admin, as it is the main reason for our trip. We went to Service Canada for our SIN numbers. Here we had to deal with quite a long queue and wait, but again, there are clean carpets, efficient friendly people, the lights are working, the chairs are not broken. To our surprise the agent assisting us pointed out that the one girl’s birth date is wrong on the CoPR letter. We fumed, because we had these papers re-issued by Vfs twice, because there were mistakes on it. I assume that this mistake were made on the last time they issued the paper, and we only checked that the previous mistake was fixed, and did not pick up on this one. However, it’s not a train smash, apparently we just have to sort it out before we apply for citizenship. Then we went to open a newbie bank account at RBC. This was quite a long process, about 90 minutes and I am sure the bank staff were as excited as us when we left. The girls and their playdough occupied the customer’s entrance and to keep them quiet was not easy at all. The CustomerCare lady brought them sweets and later balloons. At one time they were screaming and she yelled “no, that’s too loud!!” Not fun… However, we have our account and are happy with it. Wednesday was a quiet day, relaxing and resting, whilst preparing for our G1 tests. Yes! So on Thursday we trekked out to DriveTest in Oakville, as we decided that we also want to explore another neighborhood. It was an extremely windy, cold day. We took the GO train to Bronte and walked to the test center. Again, clean, working lights, working system, friendly people. I passed my G1 test with the intention to do the road-test on our return in March. The lady informed me that when I have a G1, I cannot use my South African driver’s license anymore. I am not sure if I understood it correctly, but we decided that my husband will not do the G1 now, and when we land in March we have the option to rent a car on his name if needed, and buy a car on my name as soon as I have the full G license. I hope it was the right decision. Then we visited the Bronte harbor, what a lovely place. Friday was our last day, and our flight only at six the evening. We had an arrangement with our hosts that we would check out at eleven but only pick up our luggage later. So we left for the local mall but it was not too exciting. Lots of clothes stores, I would have loved to see some homeware stores. What impressed us was the fact that they had leather couches in the walkways where the “male-partners” were waiting for the ladies to finish their shopping. Upon our return to the flat our hosts informed us that they will take us to the airport. Really, these Canadians impressed us. Random people told us that we had beautiful girls, at the playparks strangers were friendly, the bus drivers are kind and friendly, the check-out personnel at shops are smiling and friendly, once when I had to drag a kid and a stroller up or down the stairs, three strangers offered to assist. We really had a very very pleasant time in Toronto. Back at the airport we again were called to special lines because of the “babies”. In the Pearson departure halls we were surprised to see rows and rows of Ipads on desks for the use of absolutely anyone. Yes, you can also use it to order drinks/snacks in the restaurants, but you do not have to. Back in London on Saturday morning the kids played like they were in heaven and were very sad to say goodbye to their nephew the same evening. Heathrow again treated us like Royalty and while we were waiting to board the plane, we were seated in a special quiet area. This flight to Joburg did not go that well, this time the little one’s tummy misbehaved and we had to clean up again. Not fun. Back in Joburg when we left the plane, we tried to find the stroller that we left in the drop-point at the plane when leaving Heathrow. We could not find either the plane’s pick-up point, or anyone that knows where we should look. The most positive response we got was: “Well, it’s not here.” Also, we were not treated like Royalty anymore, and had to take on the long queues like normal people. When inquiring at the lost baggage section, my husband tried to squeeze out another free stroller from them (just testing the Heathrow vs ORT attitude, our lost stroller was a freebie anyway) but no luck and no friendliness. Well now we are back to reality and ORT just delivered the lost stroller so they are not so bad, but hey, we had a Royal time and are really looking forward to our return in March!