Wednesday’s Weekly Update No.5

I can’t believe this is update number five. I can’t believe it is August. And I can’t believe we’ve without a home for 195 days! So here is the latest…

1. Getting to Canada! We’ve been back in touch with the IRCC London . You can remind yourself of our previous correspondence with them in this post, Part two: How Coronavirus derailed our plans for moving to Canada (skip to the part under June 2020). We’ve also been in touch with the IRCC Canada*. They have a whole system set up for Covid-19 related inquiries, in your email they ask you to state your reason for travel. Writing that section really made me reflect on how sad it is that a few months ago the world was so open for adventure and now you have to beg to be let into a country you have a work permit for and rent property in. It brings the madness of our situation into stark relief, so I thought I’d share it with you…

Reason for travel:  I am moving to Canada to both live and work, and to reunify with my husband, who is a temporary foreign worker at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC. My husband and I left our UK jobs and housing rental agreement before the Canadian border closed in March. We do not have anywhere to live in the UK currently, but we do rent a property in Prince George, BC. To avoid an separation of unknown time, my husband returned from Canada to the UK, and has worked remotely since. However, he now needs to return to Prince George to fulfil the role of his employment. As is not financially viable for us to rent properties in both Canada and the UK, my husband will be required to resign from his job if I cannot get to Canada soon.
As far as I can gather, I would not be exempt from current travel restrictions as, while I hold a work permit approval letter, I don’t currently have a job offer in Canada. Since April, we have waited for the Canadian border to open so that I can enter Canada without ambiguity and not risk being turned away by CBSA staff on arrival but, for the reasons given (my husband’s employment, and that we rent a property in Prince George), we now need to get to Canada as soon as possible. 
We have a sound quarantine plan (with people who can help with groceries and medicines, as required), believe that we would both be travelling for essential (non-discretionary) reasons, and intend to live and work in Canada until our work permits expire in around two years time. 

2. The house. On the frustrating side we’re paying for a property we’re not living in. But our landlady – who we’ve never met – continues to live up to the Canadian stereotype of being kind and helpful. After emailing her with our concerns about continuing to rent the house, she wavered the one month notice period and suggested we wait until the 15th August to see how things are looking then. In her reply she also mentioned how she’d gone above her call of duty and decided to ring the CBSA (Canadian Boarder Services Agency) to state our case and get some more information for us. Not being able to call them ourselves, we were really grateful for this help.

3. Bally The Greyhound. As it becomes more and more obvious that Canada is going to be closed for some time and we may have to try our luck at getting in or give up going, we’re obviously worried about Bally. When we signed up to this adventure, there was no question that he was coming too. There still isn’t, but getting that lovely long boy there is now so much more complex and costly. Flying dogs to Vancouver is possible, but only with special permission and the cost will be double what we were originally quoted. Not ideal. There is also an option to fly him to Toronto and it’s only £300 more than we were originally quoted. But we’d have to drive 2642.0703 miles across Canada, travelling through five provinces and four time zones to get him back to Prince George. Once you account for gas, accommodation and snacks on a mission like that, we’d easily spend quadruple what we were originally quoted. So, not a great option.

What’s Bothering Babs?

Babs’ Question: You can go if you have a job, right? So, how is the job hunt going?

Remember how I told you about having to submit 18 different forms of evidence in order to become a certified teacher in BC. Good news is 14/18 of those have now been submitted! I’ve also applied to be a Supply Teacher and sent out some feelers about working with disabled children. And in other work related news I had a wonderful and emotional day saying goodbye at The Heathland School. I received some lovely gifts, which nearly compensated for the lack of hugs, including a set of Bear Bells each for Jacob and I. Speaking of Jacob, UNBC are still being good about him working remotely and his team are still not expecting to be able to do field work this summer.