The bad news, part 1

Fun with information retrieval:

Looking for information to decide on how best to move? The criteria for being called to an interview in London? The first-hand sources are thin on the ground.

The Canadian uh, "consulate" in Helsinki doesn't deal with immigration, visas, or citizenship. All apps have to go through the High Commission in London, which is also where any in-person interviews take place. We're not exactly sure what the consulate does exactly, because we can't peek through the welcoming blind they keep down over the reception window, although they did write me a very nice letter last year when I won a grant from the university. They also provide replacement passports that are not machine readable, and thus are guaranteed to make border guards grouchy, for the same price as a regular passport.

BTW, the CIC Call Centre number only works from within Canada. At the CHC London site you can fill out a form, and they get back to you relatively quickly. But chances of speaking to a live person are pretty much nil. In Finland residence permits are handled through the police, and I have awakened before light several times to take the train out to the suburban station to take a number (which is also incidentally where those not accepted are held before being deported), but at least, after waiting an hour or two, you get to talk to a human, face to face, who will usually tell you in a gruff police-person voice if you are wasting your time or not. Small-nation luxuries like this make Canada seem ginormous.

This means that an immigration lawyer is pretty much your only hope for a bit of common-sense advice on your individual situation, rather than a regurgitation of the legally-bound-to-be-vague details on the CIC site. The lawyer we called was very nice and talked to us for half an hour free of charge.