Immigration 101

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I recently became a permanent resident of Quebec. After Toronto, (and followed closely by Vancouver), Montreal is the city that receives the most immigrants in Canada, around 40,000 in 2008 . I am a proud member of the class of 2009.

In establishing myself in Montreal, I had to import my car, register and insure my car, import my furniture and belongings, change banks, doctors, dentists, get a temporary social security card, then a permanent one, procure a temporary work permit, sign up for the famous health insurance, file tax returns in two countries and the list goes on.

You would think that with 40,000 immigrants per year, the government and essential workers like bankers and doctors, would be rather well-informed in dealing with folks like me. But actually,on nearly each occasion, it is I who become the teacher of Immigration 101: Bijou style.

When I first moved, I opened a bank account at HSBC in Plattsburgh, NY. Since I hadn't sold my house yet and still had related expenses, I wanted to keep an American account (also handy when Grandma sends me a check for $25 for my birthday). HSBC's motto is "the world's local bank." Sounds perfect right? Well, it was so far from it. It took four weeks to process a Canadian postal money order. That did not seem very local. And I couldn't do any transactions at the Canadian branches of HSBC. So why did having an account at the world's local bank mean that I had to drive an hour and a half and go through customs any time I had a deposit to make. Not practical, no!

So then I found out that the Caisse Populaire Desjardins, a co-op type bank, offered accounts in US dollars. So I jumped on that. Even though I couldn't have an ATM card and had to go into the counter to do all my transactions, I thought it would be worth it. It probably is the best solution, but it would be better if they trained their tellers how to deal with these accounts. Every single time I've used this account for occasional withdrawals and deposits, the teller has had to call a supervisor to double-check the procedures. You would think that by now I would've encountered all the tellers. Apparently not. The supervisors know me by face and give me a smile of recognition each time, at least they get it.

As of April 1st, I am officially covered by the Canadian government's famous health insurance. But during the waiting period between being granted permanent residency and that date, all my prenatal care was nonetheless covered (one has got to take proper care of those future little Quebeckers). OK, I admit that probably few of the 40,000 annual immigrants are pregnant, but still. You should see the looks on the faces of the hospital employees when I show them the letter that says that my prenatal care is covered even though I don't have insurance until April 1st. Without fail, they start off by telling me, "you're going to have to pay up front and then try to get reimbursed." Then I show them the reverse side of my doctor's orders where the hospital accounting department has stamped their approval. I usually have to do this twice, once for the original employee and once for his/her supervisor. The hospital accountant knows me and greets me warmly each time I come by. Ironically, one time when I was at her office, she was training someone new and she actually said "oh this is good, you don't see this very often." At least she gets it, and thanks to me, so does her new employee.

So you see, thanks to my personalized version of Immigration 101, many Canadian employees are now better at their jobs. Glad to be contributing positively to society. Glad to be of service.