> H O M E

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining — I chose Canada, not the other way around. Not yet at least. Which is precisely the issue here.

Of course, I love paperwork just as much as the next guy. But I mostly tolerate it as long as I see the point in filing it, and I seem to always get that tingling, warm feeling of achievement whenever I seal a 9×12″ envelope and shell out 20 bucks at the Xpresspost counter, secretly hoping that some government agency may, at some point in our space-time continuum, actually receive, fail to misplace, understand, process and finally update me on whatever futile request I had the naive faith to submit four cabinets ago. But, these days, I am starting to get a tiny bit tired with the paperwork game. I feel like I’m losing my edge.

Our All-Canadian bureaucratic safari began about two years ago, when I started filing a student permit application with the Québec government, whose approval was necessary before I could move on to getting the actual permit delivered by the federal government. Already at the time, I’d hit a couple of snags along the way, most notably a bunch of missing documents and a misplaced file, delaying the visa approval dangerously close to the looming departure date — 22 hours to be precise.

That was merely a warm-up run in what would soon become an uphill battle against bureaucratic forces I still only dimly comprehend. The real fun started when we decided that we’d try our luck sticking around and getting a job. The temporary one-year work permit application was, fortunately, pretty straightforward, the only problem being that we had to return to Paris to get it approved.

With that out of the way, we decided to start thinking ahead for a change, and started putting together the initial permanent residency application for the Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés Culturelles du Québec, a.k.a the M-to-the-I-to-the-double-C, complete with elementary school grade reports, employment history dating back several years and proof of living together which would later turn out to be unnecessary, as this particular verification is done at the next stage by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Of course, in addition to experiencing a total processing time close to 1.5 times the average, the MICC messed up our file, and instead of receiving both our selection certificates, we only got mine, not even signed. I won’t even get into the regulations changing half-way through, with the MICC helpfully providing us with a handful of new documents to fill out and sign. They just know we can’t get enough of those.

A simple 5-min chat with a genuinely friendly and helpful agent over the phone fortunately cleared up the missing/incomplete certificates situation, and we got the valid paperwork a mere 4 days later. I have to say I was truly impressed by the competent and professional service we received from Sophie at the Ministère. The issue here was getting Sophie’s phone number in the first place, which quickly turned out to be a whole-day project for me. I had to call the MICC call centre a total of 5 times to get a moderately intelligent life form to acknowledge that, indeed, one single incomplete form without any kind of explanatory letter was kinda falling short of what I should have been getting after a 5 month wait and a complete file that conservative estimates at the post office put at 750 pounds – I almost went ahead and ordered those special titanium-lined envelopes. Well, to be fair, rep #3 was also starting to see the problem, but she failed miserably — no doubt out of mental exhaustion — at the critical stage of working the phone system to transfer me to a relevant person. Overall, the first four reps I got on the line deserve a mention for outstanding incompetence and extreme unhelpfulness, especially the very first one who seemed to go by the “when in doubt, yell at the customer” guidelines. At some point during the fourth call I was almost expecting to be asked what kind of topping I wanted on that medium cheesy crust.

Anyway, with our Québec selection certificates firmly in our possession, we could finally send our application to the federal government for the last routine medical and security verifications. This important step includes police certificates that, in the case of the FBI, take about four months to be delivered, and thus have a good chance of expiring well before the application is even entered into the CIC system. “Of course,” I was assured by a teenage part-timer simultaneously taking several pizza orders for customers in and around the Tuscaloosa area, “CIC knows that and they don’t really pay attention to the expiration date.” Fair enough, we don’t have much of a choice anyway. In a well-intentioned but incredibly misguided attempt at speeding up and easing the payment process, we follow the advice of an immigration professional and include some kind of highly suspicious-looking bank draft in our file. Of course, a month later CIC returns the whole file untouched, along with a friendly “what the hell was that” note asking for some real payment method next time, like a certified cheque or, you know, anything that we could actually exchange for money, your call.

Again, this is our mistake, but for the time being we’re out twice the processing fees, and that’s not exactly good news. We have thus started a new procedure in hopes of getting a refund for that money that went He Almighty knows where, but I have to say my faith in this whole enterprise is rather limited, as our request got directed to “HPM Productions” in Ottawa, which sounds more like the head office for an offshore casino/adult website operation than an official government agency handling unsuspecting customers gouged by immigration professionals across the country. Oh well, at least it’s in Ottawa, maybe some government clerk walking down an alley will come across it when HPM tosses it to recycling — I like to think even pimps are environmentally aware.

Of course, with all those small delays adding up, we now have lost any hope of getting our landed immigrant status by July 31st, when our current visas expire. I have thus started putting together a joint application for a temporary work permit extension. The application itself is fairly short and goes with little supporting documentation, but our specific situation entitles us to a processing fee waiver, which I’m not sure the CIC people are really used to. Also, we’re trying to switch from separate applications to a joint one as common law partners. I’m starting to think that all these factors taken together will make for a singularly uncommon file, dangerously raising the risk of a rejection, misinterpretation, or a one-way trip to that bureaucratic neverneverland known as The Sorting Basket. I normally wouldn’t mind that much, but we’re kinda running out of time here.

So, please, move CIC! Take off every deadline! For great justice.