Tale as old as time. Canadian girl leaves the great White North for adventure overseas. The experience brings her to Brighton after a whirlwind swoop of Europe. She gets a job at a local resturant and meets a British Bloke. That barman behind the bar stole her heart. Now their in love....Classic.
As many Canadian girls before me, coming to Britain brought with it the possiblity of meeting an English gentleman. The accent, the manners and the impecible chest hair. Who could resist?
Unfortunatly, with such a relationship comes a timeline. An expiry date. In a world of visas and you can only stay in our country for so long....relationships such as these are a bit more complicated. Soon, you have to deal with the inevitable question of.....Are you willing to move across the world to be with me?
Fortunatly, I was in luck. My lovely boyfriend is a traveller. A traveller such as I. Travellers take any chance to see a new part of the world...for whatever it brings...its always an experience that comes around only once. That, and he just couldnt be without me.
As much as I wanted to file for a visa for another part of the world...my 25th birthday reminded me that I dont want to be in my 30's and still asking people "Hows everything tasting? Can I grab you another drink?"
It was time to buckle down for a couple of years and finish my degree. Travelling inbetween school breaks and maybe saving money for a year worldwide tour? Anythings possible! Either way, having James come back to Canada eases the pain of returning home.
Now it was James turn to apply for the glorious Working Holiday Visa. Thousands of under 30's have been able to move all around the world due to this Godsend. Cheap, two years and easy to get.... its perfect! Wait, did I say easy to get?
This is the story of how to get a Brummie to Canada....beware....its not a pretty one.
It started as it usually does with stories containing my naive optimisuim. This will be a brezze....we appply for the same visa when we came to Britain...ours was sooo strightforwrd and we've done it before...it will be outta here by April! HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
As well, being who I am...I like to get ahead of the game. Whilst I was in Canada I thought Id make a trip to Service Canada. They do passports, visas, etc...best way to find out the deal. That was a quick dead end....took about 2 min for the man to explain to me Canada has nothing to do with it...its all in the country of residence.
Thats alirght, thankfully London is only an hour away from Brighton. In London is the Canadian embassy....which deal with all Canadian visas....Perfect. So James and I booked the day off and booked our tickets. Being the smart girl I am, I figured with it being a new year many people would have the same idea as I. So to avoid long lines and be ahead of the game...I planned to be there a half hour before they open. They open at 8am. You know you have the right man when he gets up at 4am to make coffee and doesnt make a peep about the time.
Right on time, we waited in the cold for the doors to open. Then a confused security offficier asked what we were doing waiting in front of the door. After explaining to him with possibly too much enthusam for such an ungodly hour....he explained in about the same man as in Service Canada...they have nothing to do with this Canadian Visa. Further prying fulled by coffee...he informed us there is no one to speak to, call or visit. Everything is done through the internet. Great. Back to square one. Even though we got up earlier then anyone should, and had nothing gained from the trip ....we still had a great day seeing the muesum in London. At least it wasnt a total waste.
Thankfully, Stef and Jake were on the same path as James and I. Jake had as well decided to join Stef in Canada....like I said....Tale as Old as Time. These British men really know how to ttreat a girl.
Stef and Jake
We found the website for the application for a Canadian visa. However, all it said was information to come. This information was the only info on the website and frustrating due to its vaguness. The four of us would check every couple of days just to see what would come next.....after about a month the information about what the visa entiles came up....but no information about where to apply. Being an inpatience person as I, this was incredible infureating. Little did I know this was the easy part. At this time I was still quite convienced the form would come up, we would fill it out, and then get a visa. Wow, you think after two years abroad and the countless situations Ive been in....I would be a bit less naive.
Then one day, sitting on the sofa watching telly I checked the website again. I know this website by heart and must have typed it in coountless times. The format of the website was instantly different. With bold black letters..
Round 1 opened February 14, 2013 at 17:00 closed at 20:00.
Quota: 1,000
Spots available: 0
I freaked out at first. Spots avible 0?!? Does that mean we didnt make it?! When did this go up?! What is a "Round"? Heart racing I read further. These "Rounds" would become my arch nemsis.
There are three Rounds....every round they take a certain amount of applicants to file for the inital stage of the application. An IEC kompass account. This account asks basic information, passport number, CV(resume for my Canadian friends) and contact information. If you do not get a IEC kompass account you can not get a Canadian visa.
The next round is on Feburary 27, 2013. The thrid and final round on March 7, 2013. For the second round they will take 2000 the third 2300. Thats just over 5000 applicants they will take from the UK for this visa. Sidenote: Ireland got 6000 spaces...unfair? I think so. All the website would say is that these rounds will open in the middle of the day london time and close once the quota is filled. The first round closed in three hours....thats not good.
Frazzled by the unexpectance of this information, I decided there must be more information about these visas out there. I decided to resort to the blogs. I found some great blogs on how to do this visa....however, this is the first year they are not doing paper applications...everything will be done online. Therefore, no one knows, understands, how this IEC kompass account works. All I could do was call my employer and book the day off.
Feburary 27th. The day we prepared for. We set up the living room with food, the laptop, a spare laptop, pen and paper, a scanned passport photo, scanned CV and Stef and Jake on the phone. We were as ready as we every could be.
We got up at 8am and got settled. We spent the majority of the day clicking refresh button on the computer. At 3pm it went up. Shaking from addreline pacing through my veins, we set up a log in username and password. First step complete. Then to the main page....here was 8 sections to complete....go to the first section...Personal information....loading....loading....loading.....kicked out to a seperate webpage. On the phone with Stef and Jake they were having the same issue! The website had crashed. After trying to get into the Kompass acount for an hour, the Service Error message came up saything the administartors were working on the website and will be up as soson as possible.
Checking the main website for the Quota number, theer were only 1000 places left. As you can imagine tensions were high. James and I sat frustrated and nervous. Finally it came back up, this time however Jake and Stef proved to have luck on their side. While their application was taking alot of time to load, they were able to fill out all 8 sections and get a World Tracking Number(thats the number you need to fill out the next step of the application). James and I, sat in front of the computer getting kicked out after we would fill out a section. Ten hours later, frustrated and on the verge of tears....there was no places left. We didn't get in this round.
The thought that there was only one more chance was nerve racking. For the next week all I could think of is what if the same thing happens again and we cant get in because the website cant handle the volume of people. Fortunatly, we did have one thing going for us. Becuase we had a username we could finish the rest of the application during the week, so all we had to do on March 7, 2013 was submit the application. However, judging by the amount of ranting on the blogs....there was alot of other people that would be doing the same thing as us.
March 7, 2013 came around and we set up the living room the same as last time. Prays said, we got up early and started the same routine. However, all that was swirling in our minds was the same horrors of the last round and the....what if we dont get in? Anxiety was threw the roof when it finally came on...at excatly 3pm. It asks us to fill out a quick page which we did sweiftly then loading....loading....loading...Fuck! Why is it taking so long? Is it going to kick us out again? A minute in we checked the amount of spaces left.....1,300. My heart dropped. In one minute 1000 spaces had gone.
If we press enter will the loading just start from scratch or would it kick us out? Spaces left 1000......we made the decision to press enter. Thankfully it brought us to the page where the glorious submit button was....500 spaces left....we pressed it....loading.....loading....10 spaces left. I was thinking this is it. If it doesnt load right now we are not getting a spot. Then it appeared....Our World Tracking Number.
We both dropped to the floor in relief. In the space of 15min 2300 spaces had gone. We made it. Ive never experience that type of stress before and I hope to never have to again. But the relief that came with it was so incredibly joyous you just wanted to share it with the world.
That is till later that night when I started reading the blogs. Stef said I shouldnt, its not actual information and its just going to freak me out.....but I couldnt help it. Once you get a WTN you wait for an email asking for payment...this solidfys your spot. We hadnt recieved ours yet...but judging by the chaos of this round I assumed it would take a couple of days.
However, I learnt that the round was supposed to close earlier....and you would have a space based on your WTN. The round went so fast because people were double submitting their applications to ensure a spot. Meaning, they had two WTN numbers. I looked at our number 6010.....there are only 5300 spots....does that mean we didnt get in?
I properly started to freak. With this new system of application there is no one to call, no one knows how it works, and it is filled with confusion. However, there was a rumor that they may have added 800 spots due to the techinal difficulties. If this was true we were in...if not we would be put on a waiting list for people whose visas were declined. Back to anxious curiousity of would James be joining me in Canada.
After days of worry, we got the email!More relief and thanking God. But we werent out of the woods yet....we still had to get the payment. The Visa is actually really cheap...only 100 pounds! However, if we get this wrong....were denyed. Again, with everything involving this visa...the instructions didnt make sense...probably outdated or suited to the old way of doing the visa.
It says to go to the bank and you MUST get an electronic funds transfer to their account. Then scan the recipet containing a checklist of information to your Kompass account. Well, if you do an electronic funds transger you only get a recipet saying you transfered money. Its only if you do a cash transfer would you get a recipet containting the information you need to show. So what do we do? Luckily, Stef and Jake had already done this and they did it cash....everythough it says it MUST be an eletronie tranfers. But Stef and Jakes were confirmed. We decided to do the cash...because if it works for them it will work for us.
More days of waiting around, checking the account, waiting for the payment to be verified. Finally it was. More relief, another hurdle jumped.
Now we were onto the final step of the application. This was a CIC account that you need to fill out with tons of informaiton. Everything from where you've been in the world to who/what/where your family works. At least this one didnt have a timeline, so we could do it and make sure everything was right. For this part you also need a police check.
We had already sent it off (95 pounds!). We went earlier in the week to the postal office were you get a postal order made to the name of HCP for the aount of 95 pounds. A few days later the police check people call saying the postal order was made out to HCC not HCP so they would have to send it back. Great. Had to wait another week to get the form back just to go to the Post Office again. Obviously, it was there fault but we still had to pay to get it made again and sent again. What a joke.
Finally, two weeks later we got the police certificate. Even though we had paid for rush delivery the first time. The one thing thats nice about a polica certificate is that you can honestly know for a fact that your boyfriend isnt a criminal.
So with all documents scanned, and a long conversation with Jake to see how they filled out their CIC application...we had finally completed the application to apply for a Canadian visa. With that submit button....all there is to do now is wait for a Letter of Conditional Acceptance. Then when we get to Canada he goes to the port of Canada and gets his visa. Of course we still need to get him medical insurance for his time in Canada(part of the condition of the visa), but at least the bulk of it is over. Of course it will probably be weeks for us to get it....but I have high hopes the stressful part is over.....or am I just being naive again? Only time will tell.
So that my friends is how to get a visa to Canada. Never in a million years would I have though it would be this difficult, however Canada is pretty amazing and we cant have just anyone running around our great land.
So till word comes about a Visa...take care...and apperciate the fact your Canadian.
