Permanent

On April 5 - coincidentally, our 15th wedding anniversary - we heard from our immigration attorney that our permanent residency applications had been approved. Last week our PR cards arrived in the mail! As permanent residents, we now have all of the privileges of Canadian citizenship except the right to vote or run for office. We retain our US citizenship, but we can live, work, and study anywhere in Canada.

My shiny new Permanent Resident card.

Last July, we entered the pool of potential PR applicants under the Express Entry Program, which we had applied to as soon as we became eligible based on achieving one year of Canadian work experience. Last November, we were selected from the pool and invited to apply for permanent residency. The application process was fairly straightforward - we just had to provide even more data than we had already, including detailed information about our immediate family members, work experience, and travel history (side note: I don’t know how anyone could ever recreate 10 years of travel history if they didn’t take date-stamped photos everywhere they went as I have!). It was tedious, but not difficult. We heard within a month that the medical exams we had provided in July for Express Entry were accepted, and then in January we were asked to provide our biometrics, which included being fingerprinted and doing a retinal scan. After that, Immigration went quiet for a few months - but then in April, we were approved!

In the short term, nothing material will change for us going from temporary to permanent residents, other than we now get in the Canadian line instead of the foreigners line when going through customs at YVR. Longer term, we can think about buying a house, which we had been prohibited from doing as temporary residents under the new Federal Foreign Buyer Ban (before the ban went into effect on January 1, we had been subject to a 20% Foreign Buyer Tax, which in this market was effectively a ban as well). But the biggest change is the peace of mind that comes with knowing that we can stay here for the rest of our lives if we choose.

Looking back, I’m awestruck by the serendipity that allowed us to come here, a true alignment of stars that transformed a loosely-held fantasy into a concrete reality in a very short amount of time. I also can’t believe how little we debated the decision - I don’t recall even one conversation where we discussed pros and cons - and other than the family and friends we left behind, there really were no cons. We had been talking about leaving LA for so many years, I don’t think anyone in our lives believed that we would actually do it - but when the right opportunity presented itself, we didn’t hesitate for even a second. And most wonderful of all is how perfect the life we have made here has been for us, so much more than we had anticipated.

Celebrating the approval of our application in April.