Super Visa

Through Step One

Hopkins Landing dock - Sunday morning
Sun Aug 22nd
Mon Aug 23rd

Looking from afar you may wonder about the complexity or security of our presence in Canada.  In some ways it's both though we are taking a three step approach to a continued stay.  It also varies by age and if you are coming to study, work or just visit.

Strand one - We arrived on British Passports for a stay of six months and entry to Canada as part of their programme of 'reuniting families' during the pandemic.   It meant an immigration on arrival not just a passport check and stamp.

I suspect some friends thought we were mad to do this at the height of the Pandemic - and probably were, but nothing ventured.......  

Nick, as a Permanent Resident, enabled us to meet the 'reuniting families criteria' was sufficient to get us in.  Since then he has become a Canadian Citizen.  

We are allowed to remain for six months, as all British Passport holders can (outside a pandemic), subject to meeting certain criteria  which includes demonstrable medical insurance from a Canadian company.  It is possible to extend a six month stay for up to two years.  We have applied to do so for a further year and wait to hear.
Smith Rd looking across to Gambier Island

Strand two.  Last year Nick applied, through our immigration advisor, to sponsor us for PR (Permanent Residency), but we did not get through the ballot.  This year they are taking a further cut from last year's submissions to enable thirty thousand completed applications to proceed.  We will hear if we got through in September.

The third and final strand was to apply for Super Visas that allow 'family' to stay for ten years in two year blocks.  We applied for that before we left the UK.  Today, Monday Aug 23rd, we heard we had passed our medicals that we'd had in London in Feb of this year.  It now means our application is being progressed; we know we meet the balance of their criteria but we wait to hear.  

Verdant moss covered forest floor in Sprockids
It all sounds a bit risky and uncertain.  

It is, but we are all only here once and it was time to take some risks!  

We would not have changed anything in the last five months. 

Actually, on reflection we would have changed the three days of government imposed quarantine hotel food in Toronto!!!

Sunday afternoon we headed off to the Sprockids trails and did a walk we'd not done before across to Gibsons Creek.  

The trickle at the bottom was enough for Jack to drink, but not swim.  We swung back through the Sprockids Trail forest and heard a bear snuffling/growling in the undergrowth.  We loudly made our presence known and walked on.  Bear banger close to the trigger finger and bear spray not far behind.  Phew!  Our paths did not cross.

Two of the three deer on Fred's morning walk.
Monday Fred was playing tennis after her early morning dog walk as I was at the gym in Gibsons.  

Our local Black Tailed deer were chomping their way through a local garden on her walk.  Probably the same ones enjoying 'our' blackberries last week.  

A mother and two fawns, all three in one person's garden enjoying their apples.

Hopkins Landing beach on my walk this afternoon with Jack was deserted.

Still school summer holidays and a warm afternoon.  

An empty Hopkins Landing beach
Where was everybody?  

A local Brit and fellow rugby fan who I saw on the way back with his huge, but gentle,  Rhodesian Ridgeback, suggested families were off buying school uniforms as the summer was coming to an end.

Two hours later I was back walking the beach to look for the lens cap I'd lost on the first walk - without success.

Tomorrow we are off to check out a second car.  An EV (Electric Vehicle) for Fred.  










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