Landed

This morning we drove to Etobicoke, where Mr. O became a permanent resident. They sent him a letter which said "Decision granted" as of June 29 - and I still love the cryptic-elliptic bureaucratic style of these little missives, which, however, I shan't miss.

But aren't you curious what the interview was like? Imagining Green Card with Gerard Depardieu and that woman from the L'Oreal commercials? Yeah, it was kind of like that, or at least it was in my head on the way there - I was inexplicably nervous about the whole thing and even suggested we practice the basic facts about our relationship. Alas, we got to the office right at 8 a.m., which was the time of our "appointment" according to the letter, at which point we realized of course there was no appointment, or rather that everybody had the same appointment, because we sat down in what turned out to be not enough chairs in a wide room with a very, very low ceiling and circa 1969 ceiling tiles.

The Venetian blinds whip up on cubby 3 and an invisible male voice starts calling out names. He's no pro and the mic keeps cutting out but eventually the first lucky PR catches on and goes up to the window. And, uh, proceeds to complete the whole interview over the mic. "Do you have any children outside Canada? Do you have any criminal record here? Have you ever been deported? Oh you have? How did you like that?" etc. Repeat about 12 times before Mr. O got his turn and heads up, by which point other cubby holes are flapping and people are crowding around the chairs...He waves me over and the invisible voice actually has a young friendly, maybe French Canadian face and he addresses me by name and reminds me of my three-year responsibility as sponsor. He asks the immi (I can still call him the immi, can't I?) the same questions in the same cracking mic voice and then has Mr. O check his vital info and sign inside the green box and he sticks the photo on and Congratulations! You are now a permanent resident of Canada. You can sponsor your family. Call OHIP and tell them your status has changed. He gave him a piece of paper he will need when he applies for Old Age Pension. I heard previous generations cackle like gobbledy ghosts in my ears at that one.

Sigh. He made it all sound so fancy. Then he says, "we're going to get you a new SIN number so go sit down and one of my colleagues will call you up in a few minutes." So we plop back down I beg off to go get my coffee from the car and come back to find a horrible child has taken my seat and Mr. O is still waiting...and finally he is beckoned to window 5 and she pronounces his name perfectly and all minor nitpicks and blemishes are overlooked because now he's a Canadian like the rest of us. Or will be in approximately four weeks when the card arrives; for now don't leave the country or there could be trouble. Phew.

And then he calls CIC to try and get his open work permit application - which he had to file in case the PR didn't come through in time - cancelled and they've changed the system to amke ti 35 times harder to get a real live person than it was before and he finally gets one and they put him on hold and then the line is disconnected. And all this before lunch.

Cheers to Mr. O for hanging in there, and specifically for not leaving me and hightailing it back to Finland, where you can always get a real person on the line, even the taxman. I love you.