logloglog

Montreal, 29 January 2009. via MPA

This morning a man survived a major avalanche in Montreal, Quebec. At the time of the accident the man was removing the recently fallen snow from his car. The victim, surprised by a wall of snow several metres high, managed to dig himself out before the rescue teams arrived. The rescue dogs didn’t need to come into action.

The victim is, considering the circumstances, doing well and can soon get back to work.

I received this letter today. It is an invitation to take the Oath of Citizenship. I’m finally becoming Canadian!

But. Is it really necessary to make this notice so menacing? It looks like I’m summoned for a trial. I know there is a judge involved, but this is a nice trial.

It would be so much nicer if this letter was a congratulatory one. Something like this:

We are pleased to inform you that you passed the Citizenship test and that there is only one step left in becoming a Canadian Citizen. Therefore we invite you to take the Oath of Citizenship. You can bring friends and family to this joyful occasion.

It is going to take place on

Friday 06 February 2009 at 1:30 PM.

at
Collège de Maissonneuve
2700, rue de Bourbonnière
Montreal QC H1X 2A2

The way it is currently there is only one “happy” word in it: the letter starts with “Please”. But the joy is over very fast since it is immediately followed by a command: “appear”…
At the bottom there are 5 check-boxes ordering me what documentation to bring, what will happen if I don’t show up, and a big block labeled WARNING with legalese about the do’s and don’ts of obtaining Canadian Citizenship.

Then there are two more pages; one is a media release form because there might be people taking photos and another with details about parking (paid!) and a notice to use only this particular entrance of the school.

However one piece of essential information is missing: if and how many people I can bring. Since it isn’t mentioned I presume it isn’t limited so I hereby invite you all (well almost all, you know who you are). Afterwards we can grab a beer, or something non-alcoholic if you prefer. The first drink is on me.

Made it to Yulblog on my skis. Here they are signing up blogs to be included on the register of Montreal blogs. I had already signed up from home, so this post might show up on their meta-montreal-feed.

Today was the day of the Citizenship test. I had myself reasonably well prepared but as I wrote before I’m not very good at studying dry facts. So I was a little bit nervous. The invitation mentioned I should take 3 hours for the test and you can ask a lot of questions in 3 hours.

First I had to wait in a waiting room with about 50 other people. Sitting there I noticed my nickname on the wall, right under the Coat of Arms of Canada. I had seen the Coat of Arms before, but had never read the Latin motto underneath it. It says “a mari usque ad mare”. It means “From sea to sea” and I interpreted it as a good sign.

We were then led into the test room, with rows of desks, all with a freshly sharpened pencil on top. One side for people that took the test in French and the other side for us English speakers. The test consisted of 20 questions of which I needed only 12 answer correctly. They were all really simple questions, and just reading the booklet would have been enough to answer them. One of them for example was: “What are the two official languages of Canada?”. On top of that they were multiple choice so I was finished in 5 minutes. For good times I went over all questions again but then I really had to hand in my answer paper. I would be surprised if I didn’t score 100%. I was the first to finish and then had to go to another room where after a short wait I was interviewed to see if my understanding of at least one of Canada’s official languages was sufficient. I started in Mandarin but then switched to Spanish.

The women checked if all the stamps in my passport matched the dates that I had indicated on my application form as dates I was outside Canada. They matched. Subsequently she asked some questions about my housing situation, sources of income, and if I had a partner and what his/her profession was. And then it was over and just 25 minutes after I had entered I was outside again, where it was still snowing.

In about 2 months I’ll have my swearing-in ceremony where I have to sing “O, Canada” and swear allegiance to the Queen. Better start practising:

Returning from the US I found an unexpected surprise on the doormat. A letter from Citizenship and Immigration Canada inviting me to do my citizenship test.

I hadn’t expected to receive this so soon, since the waiting time they indicate on their website is much longer. And a friend, who is also applying for citizenship, got his letter last week, but he started his application 3 months before me.

When I told the good news to friends one asked if I would lose my Dutch citizenship. “No, I won’t,” I replied but then he came back to me with a link to the website of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization department, the Dutch version of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The question is about dual citizenship and the last paragraph reads:

But what happens if Dutch citizens go to live abroad? In principle, they can renew their Dutch passport every ten years without difficulty. But when they adopt another nationality, they automatically lose their Dutch nationality.

That was quite alarming so I emailed the friend who’s also applying for citizenship the link. His wife replied quite soon with a link to another webpage, this one from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It says that Netherlands doesn’t allow dual citizenship but mentions 3 exceptions:

You will not lose your Dutch nationality:

a) if you were born in the country of your other nationality and have your principal residence there when you acquire the nationality of that country;
b) if, before you turned 18, you had your principal residence in the country of your other nationality for an uninterrupted period of five years;
c) if you are married to a person who possesses the nationality you wish to acquire.

Exception c) is clearly applicable in my case so I have nothing to worry about. However a bit later the article mentions this:

You have acquired another nationality and qualify as an exception. How can you prove this?

If you reapply for a Dutch passport at the Dutch embassy or consulate, you must state on the application form that you possess another nationality in addition to Dutch nationality. You must demonstrate when you acquired this nationality by submitting your naturalization certificate.

[...]

If you qualify under c. (you are married to someone with the nationality you have acquired), you will need your naturalization certificate, your marriage certificate and evidence that your spouse possesses the nationality you have acquired.

So it looks like I have to keep Alison alive until I die and we really have to stay married. My friend contacted the Dutch consulate and they told him this only applies for the first time you apply for a new passport. So I only have to keep Alison alive and/or keep our marriage afloat for the next couple of months. Then I just have to fill out a form and bring that in person to the Dutch consulate or embassy. I’ll make sure to do that.

But first I have to learn everything about Canada from the nice little booklet pictured above, A Look at Canada. It has been 25 years ago since the last time I did a test, and that was my Driving Test. I’m not very good at test taking (and especially not in learning ‘dry’ facts) so I hope I won’t fail. They will ask me questions like:

Which party is the official opposition at the federal level?
What is the name of your representative in your provincial Parliament?

Since my test will take place next Tuesday, the day after the announced non-confidence vote that will bring down our gouvernment and the day after our provincial elections that might bring a new representative, next wee’s answers to those questions might be different from now. We’ll see.

Now back to studying.

Any idea what these ‘doghouses’ are used for?

Don’t be shy. Fire away in the comments.

In a couple of weeks there is yet another election. Frankly, I’m getting a bit tired of those elections, especially since my citizen application is going nowhere, and I can’t vote myself. A friend who also applied for Canadian citizenship but a couple of months earlier heard that it takes 2 months longer when you live in Québec.

But I digress. There are a lot of election banners in our riding. The incumbent candidate of the Parti Québecois apparently isn’t too confident he will be re-elected because he literally covered the streets in election banners. Not only the main arteries and intersections, which I see in other ridings, but also the residential streets are plastered with PQ banners. On our quiet street almost every hundred meter there is a banner attached to a tree or pole. What a waste of good plastic.

Maybe there is a reason for him to be worried, because one of the competitors for his seat in the Assemblée Nationale is one of the spokespersons (they have two and don’t call them party leaders because that sounds to undemocratic) of Québec Solidaire. In last year’s elections —we seem to throw them like birthday parties— she managed to get 26% of the votes, without much of a campaign. So this year she might actually beat him.

So a few days after PQ’s banner action the Québec Solidaire also put up banners in our street so now we have even more banners. More good plastic wasted.

But I must admit that it’s much more fun to vote in a contested riding. Here is a link to the Québec Solidaire website so you can read their program, but it is all in French. They apparently don’t want any anglophone voters.

I agree with almost all their points (except the separation issue but who takes that serious) so they might get one anglo vote. But only if Alison follows my advice and checks the box in the voting booth.

Exactly seven years ago the iPod was introduced. It was also the morning after the first night Alison and I spend together. We didn’t realize then that both events would have so much impact and longevity.

Happy anniversary iPod and Alison! May the seven-year-itch be gentle on all of us.

While walking in residential Nepean, in the street where Alison’s parents live, I heard and saw this beautiful woodpecker. It was hunting for insects in the tree by waking them up with a lot of noise and wasn’t shy at all. I could approach the tree within a couple of metres and it still wasn’t flying away.

Nine months ago, in January, I was finally eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship. To be able to apply you need to have been exactly 3 years (1,095 days) physically in Canada, and since I was quite often in the Netherlands and the US after my immigration, it took some months after my 3 year anniversary for me to be eligible.

I filled out all the forms, paid a fee, made special pictures and wanted to send it off. The forms included a checklist and I duly checked all the items before putting them in the envelope.

Everything was there.

But wait, one of the items on the checklist said AND not OR.
So I needed two items of paperwork for that checkbox and I only had one.

The paper I was missing was my Record of Landing, a big, legal sized, piece of paper that they stapled into my passport when I arrived in Canada. They told me that I didn’t need that paper anymore because it was going to be replaced by a new, wallet-sized, Permanent Resident Card, that I had to buy for $100. That card indeed was sent to me a couple of months later and I removed the crumpled Record of Landing from my passport. I now was officially in Canada I thought, with a shiny ID-card with my photo on it.

But it turned out I really need that piece of paper, and that the Permanent Resident Card replacement is only for travel purposes, even though it is issued by the same organization that does the citizenship procedure, and there is no way I could have received that Permanent Resident Card without a Record of Landing.

So I paid another 30$ to get a duplicate Record of Landing. I filled out an application form and mailed it to the Citizenship and Immigration office in Montréal that handles duplicate forms.

And then the waiting began. After 2 months, in March, I thought it was taking an awful long time to make me a copy of a form so I call. They tell me that the processing time for duplicate forms is now 4 months, so I just have to wait.

After 5 months I get a letter. Ah, finally, my Record of Landing has arrived!
Nope, it is only a letter saying that my file has been sent to another office in Ottawa and the processing time will be 5 months.

I must say, they are quite fast in Ottawa, because it only took them 4 months to make me a photocopy of my Record of Landing and mail it to me. Tomorrow I’m going to make a photocopy of the photocopy and then I can finally sent my application to become a citizen of this fine country. A country were all official documents/applications/forms seems to be done on paper, and everything has to be processed by humans because none of the forms is machine readable. I fill out the forms on my computer and then I have to print them (and of course Adobe Acrobat spits out 5 copies) and someone on the other end has to enter all my info into another computer. This whole thing can be so much more efficient. It would save so much time and money. Why is Canada a third world country when it comes to bureaucracy?

When I looked first into this procedure, when I just had arrived in Canada, the processing time to become a Canadian citizen was 10 months. By the time I was eligible it was already 12 months, and now it is 15 months. So maybe in March 2009 I will become a Canadian citizen. And maybe not. Watch this space. Patiently.