Cold warning is over

After a week of the worst weather I have experienced, the cold warning has been lifted. Yippeee.😂

I questioned why I moved to Canada this week, this is despite the fact that I drive everywhere and I am only outside for short periods of time. 😡

Different parts of Canada experienced the worst of the weather during this period. Ontario had temperatures of -19 degrees, while the wind chill figures for Winnipeg, popularly called Winterpeg got to -55 degrees. Even Vancouver, with its famous good weather had temperatures of up to -6 degrees and they were freaking out.😭

Calgary and environs had a high temperatures of -23 degrees with wind chills of up to -40 degrees.😪

I'll be super glad for a burst of Chinook wind right now.

Anyways, stay warm people, increase the temperatures in your home and dress for the weather.

Hopefully, the worst of the winter is over and we can look forward to some rain in the next few months.

Happy new year

Welcome to 2019.

I'm not a big fan of new year resolutions, but if it's your thing, then welcome to another opportunity to write goals and hope to somehow achieve them.

It's just another day on the calendar, but I guess it's also a reason to create new dreams, new memories and gain new insights.

What are your plans for the new year? The best way to succeed is to take action. Enough of the dreaming, start doing.

Happy new year and here's to taking more action in 2019.

Goodbye Summer, Welcome WinFall

There are 4 seasons in a year, Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

I live in Calgary and can tell you that the weather here does not follow the norm. In 2016, we experienced a hot Spring and a rainy Summer. This year, the Summer season was not too hot because we experienced some rainfall. Anyway, this is October and the Fall season should run from September till November 30.

Winter season should run from December 1 to February 28, but my beloved Calgary is experiencing our first actual snow of the year. We’ve had some flurries in the past weeks, but today’s snow is brutal. According to Calgary Police, there were a total of 251 crashes within the city between 11.00pm on October 1st and 3.30pm on October 2nd.

I’m not looking forward to the winter season this early. I sincerely hope the Chinook wind blows towards Calgary soon so we can have a break.

Since this season should be called Fall, but there’s so much snow on the ground, I have renamed the season and called it WinFall.

Here’s a peek of the view I had this morning.

Happy Canada day

True North, Strong and Free.

I relocated to Canada in 2014 and I have never regretted the move, rather, I’ve had various reasons to be overjoyed I did. Canada is a nation that welcomes immigrants and gives them the opportunities to become better versions of themselves.

Let me give a quick rundown of some of the things I love about Canada:

1. Polite people: We are super friendly and polite in Canada. Aggressive behaviour is not a regular character trait of the average person here. We are always willing to help people and teach everyone to say the magic words: “Please and Thank you “.💕

2. Maple Syrup: Have you tasted our Maple Syrup? No pancake meal is complete without it. It’s yummy and healthy too. I love it.😁

3. Road Trips: Travelling across Canada is always one big adventure. Canada has a massive land mass🚯 and driving even within a Province is usually fun. There are exciting places to visit, waterfalls to see, blueberries to pick and food to eat.😍😘😎

The list is not exhaustive, but just a short message to appreciate my home.

God keep our land, glorious and free. Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee.🙏

Happy Canada day.

Immigrant and small business owner?

Are you an immigrant and a small business owner?
Have you been in Canada for less than 3 years?
Do you have problems accessing financing from the banks?

If you answer yes to all the 3 questions above, then I have an information for you.

The Business Development Bank of Canada has rolled out a loan process for immigrants who are also entrepreneurs.

All the details can be seen in the poster below.

Please share.

Universal Healthcare: a right or a privilege?

I’ve been in Canada for close to 4 years now and I know that the healthcare sector is far from perfect. However, there’s a wide gap between what I had before and what is obtainable here. I’m fortunate to be in a Province where you can access healthcare almost as soon as you start living here. Some other provinces are not that generous and would want you to stay for a certain number of months before you can be given a health card.

Few notes:

There are family clinics all over the city. If you need to see a doctor for everyday issues, they are available everywhere. To see a doctor, it’s better to book an appointment so that you won’t spend 2 hours in the waiting room as a walk-in patient.

Seeing the doctor is the easy part, if you need any medication, you have two options.

• Pay out of pocket
• Use health insurance if you have. Most employers provide a form of insurance for their staff. The insurance may not cover the costs of your medication fully, but at least it can be subsidized. If you and your spouse both have insurance, you may end up not paying anything at all.

Annual check ups, blood tests, ultrasound, mammograms, x-rays etc. are all covered by the Provincial government, so you don’t have to pay for them. I had a baby and didn’t pay any hospital bill, well, except parking fees. 😊

Emergency Room: I actually pray not to go to ER. If you are not really sure that your illness is an emergency, please just wait and go to a family clinic. Wait times at the ER are super crazy. You can wait for 3-5 hours before being attended to, simply because the priority is actually on those who need urgent attention.

Specialists: The family doctors can refer one to see a specialist, depending on how urgent the issue is, wait times can be as early as one week after referral to about 3 months or even more.

The system needs a lot of improvement, more family clinics, more specialists, more hospitals etc. I’m not a medical expert, but I’m sure there’s still a lot to be done.

Do you have any negative or positive experience? Let’s read from you. Share your experience in the comments.

Credit, Credit, Credit

Welcome to Canada.

If you were someone like me who grew up in a developing country, having a credit history will probably be a strange phenomenon to you. Growing up, access to loans or credit was next to impossible and for a lot of people, having access to personal funds meant the ability to buy a house, a car and pretty much everything else. When I got to Canada, I learnt that a good credit history gives you access to loans, lines of credit, car loans, mortgages, etc.

Where do you start?

As soon as you arrive in Canada, go to a bank and open a bank account. You don’t need to have any money to save in the bank. Many banks have various offers for new immigrants. When opening a bank account, apply for a credit card too. Most banks will give you a credit card as soon as you arrive. If you go to a bank and they decline your credit card application, go to another bank until you get a credit card.

A credit card is like a loan, so for example if you have a credit card of $1,000, it means you can use the money to buy whatever you need. You can spend the whole amount and pay back without interest if you pay back within 21 days. If you don’t pay back the money within 21 days, you start paying interest on the amount spent. You have a minimum payment you can pay every month; however, the rule of thumb is this: ALWAYS PAY EVERYTHING BACK WITHIN 21 DAYS. If you pay back any amount spent within the approved period, your credit score improves because it shows that you can be trusted to pay back any debt you owe. This is the most important reason for you to always pay back your credit card debt. Furthermore, the interest rates on credit cards are quite high. You can have a credit card with an interest rate as high as 21% p.a.

Credit History – what does it mean?

A credit history is a record of how well or bad you have been meeting your loan obligations. If you have a credit card, a line of credit, a mortgage etc.; you have a credit history. There are Credit Reporting companies who have access to your data as soon as you get your first loan. They typically match your name, Social Insurance Number, date of birth, address and other details every time you apply for a loan. You are then assigned a credit score based on how you meet your payment obligations.

If you have made the mistake of having a high credit card balance i.e, owing a lot, you can approach your bank for a line of credit. A line of credit is a loan with a much lower interest rate. If approved, use the loan to pay off the credit card debt and then make plans on how to pay off the loan.

At some point, you will need to buy a house and will need a mortgage, or you may even need a car loan, if you have a good credit history, it will be easier for you to get approval for the loans. This society is built on trust, so try and be a person that can be trusted.

Final word: Read the fine prints (terms and conditions) of any loan or credit card offers. It will help you to understand how things work and help you in making payment plans.

Good luck.

Just landed? Resources available.

I live in Calgary, Alberta and there are numerous resources available for new immigrants. This post is about some of the resources that can help ease your first few months and some that will help you with other stuff down the line.

•          Food Bank: there is a main food bank within the city. Food can be quite expensive and you don’t want to spend most of your money on food, especially if you have kids. A visit to the food bank once a month will go a long way to alleviate the stress of spending a lot of money on food. You can get cereals, baby food, rice, pasta, canned food, canned tomatoes, e.t.c. from the food bank. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, no one needs to know you went to the food bank, you are helping yourself and your family and that’s all that matters. If you land in Calgary, below is the address and contact details.

Call the Food Bank for hamper request. Hamper request hot line – (403) 253-2055. After requesting for a hamper, you can pick up at their address: 5000 11 St SE, Calgary, AB T2H 2Y5.

•  Centre for Newcomers:  This center provides various resources to immigrants. There are free job and career trainings, English classes for immigrants who don’t speak English or can just manage to get by with a few words, free tax filing available during tax season e.t.c.

Check their website: http://centrefornewcomers.ca

•       Calgary Catholic Immigrant Society: The CCIS is a fantastic place for newcomers to be. They have quite a lot of career training and integration resources. If you need advice for daily living, someone is readily available to help you out, no matter what the issue is. Their mission statement is “In partnership, we empower immigrants and refugees to successfully resettle and integrate”. Need me to say anything more?

 Website: https://www.ccisab.ca

I’ll continue this in other posts. If you land in any city in Canada, there are all forms of resources available for free. Find them and make your transition easy for yourself and your family.

It’s Spring!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was officially the first day of Spring, which means rain, planting, green grass and flowers. I’m so excited because I am tired of the snow. 

This winter has been really harsh, we’ve had between 15cm to 20cm of snow at various times. Driving to and back from work sometimes was too stressful, you have to drive the car at about 30km/hr on a 100km/hr road.😠😠😠😠

I’m equally tired of wearing boots, dressing up in layers, wearing a heavy jacket and checking the weather before going out everyday.😰

So, welcome Spring, it’s nice to have you here. I love the smell of rain and the beautiful flowers that sprout at this time of the year.🌻💃💃💃

Welcome Spring, the season that heralds Summer. Welcome Spring, Welcome Freshness.

Parles-vouz Francais?

I first nurtured the idea of learning French in my 3^rd year in the Higher Institution. I found a French book at home and dived in. Like a dehydrated person in the desert, I started drinking this fresh water of a new language, alas, that didn’t end so well, because I learnt nothing really, I could write down the words, but I didn’t know how to pronounce them. 

Fast forward to 2005, my younger sister and hubby’s younger brother had just completed their degrees and were waiting for their mandatory National service. They both came up with the idea to learn French. They enrolled at the foremost French learning centre in Port Harcourt (not mentioning their name - no free ad 😊). I’m sure they could manage a few common sentences in French by the end of their classes after paying a huge sum of money. (I hope they don’t read this post 😊.)

In 2015, I learnt of the French immersion program in Canada for elementary and high schools, where teachers teach the students only in French, except when teaching English language. As native English speakers, hubby and I decided to test the kids because English and French are the official languages in Canada.

The French immersion program is in 2 stages – early and late immersion programs. For the early immersion, you can get in at only kindergarten or G
rade 1, after that, the only option available is the late immersion in Grade 7. Older son was in grade 4 at the time, so he couldn’t get into the programme. So, we enrolled our younger son who was in Grade 1.

It was tough for him in the first few months, he will come back from school and say “I wish I was still in my old school”. We encouraged him and he kept at it. He is currently in Grade 3 and doing really well. Older son entered Grade 7 this year and he entered the late immersion program.

I am really glad to say I have two French speakers in my house. They speak French to each other all the time now and argue about French words and sentences. The one thing I find annoying is when they are up to some mischief and they don’t want me to know ☹.

There are a few Spanish, German and Chinese immersion programs as well. It is a good thing because these schools are public schools, so you don’t have to sell a leg and an arm to pay for learning a second language. This is one of the numerous benefits of living in Canada.

Parles-vouz Francais? Non. 

Coming to Canada: Experienced Class

Hi peeps.

This is the second edition of the coming to Canada series.

One way to migrate to Canada as earlier explained is to come in as an international student.
The next way is through Express Entry (Federal Skilled Worker Program) which is available for those who have work experience.

Points to note:

1. NOC (National Occupational Classification): You need to confirm if your work experience qualifies you to even start an express entry application. Check your NOC throughhttps://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/eligibility/find-national-occupation-code.html#find.

2. Educational Assessment: This is compulsory for express entry application. You need to evaluate your previous education to determine the Canadian Equivalent. You can do this through these websites:www.wes.org/ca; or www.icascanada.ca; or www.bcit.ca/ices; orwww.learn.utoronto.ca/international-professionals/comparative-education-service-ces; or www.alberta.ca/iqas-immigration.aspx.

3. Language Test: Language test is also compulsory for the application, the two official languages in Canada are English and French, if you have proficiency in both, it will be a great advantage for you. You must take an English or French Test or both, and the higher your test score, the higher the points you get for your express entry application. The most common test is IELTS – you need to write the General test for your application. More details for language testing can be found here:https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/eligibility/language-requirements/language-testing.html. My advise to people from English speaking countries is to ensure you prepare for the test(easy to just think it will be easy because you speak English, well it doesn’t work that way). Every point counts and you will be doing yourself a favour by getting very high scores.

4. Proof of Funds: You need money to sustain yourself and dependants if you are given permanent residence. The first few months can be quite challenging when you are trying to settle down and get a job. This is why it’s mandatory that you relocate with some money. Familiarise yourself with the amount required for you and your family and you can start saving for it while going through the process of writing your language tests and evaluating your education. You can get the required information here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/become-candidate/eligibility/proof-funds.html.


Finally, you can check the number of points you may hypothetically get before even starting an application. This can be done through this page:http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp

I hope this helps someone. Please read, and share this with people around you too. Thanks.

Coming to Canada: Student Edition

Happy new year. Welcome to 2018. It's an opportunity to make new plans, learn a new skill, etc.

I have received enquiries from different people about migrating to Canada and I have decided to share some ways you can migrate legally. Please note that I am not an immigration consultant and what I will share is publicly available information. You can find more information on Canadian immigration website - cic.gc.ca. Just use the information you need and also pass along to others.

You need GOOGLE and a lot of patience for any process to migrate to Canada. First option to migrate is to come in as a student, because you can get a post graduate work permit when you graduate depending on the length of your study. A few notes:

1. IELTS or GMAT: It depends on the admission requirements. Some schools require an applicant to write either depending on course of study, hence my advice that you need google. Information about specific courses can be found on school websites.

2. Do you need to evaluate your previous degrees or not? Again it depends on the course of study, if you have a previous diploma for example, and you want to apply for an applied degree, you may have to do an evaluation. The following websites are available for evaluation:www.wes.org/ca; or www.icascanada.ca; or www.bcit.ca/ices; or www.learn.utoronto.ca/international-professionals/comparative-education-service-ces; orwww.alberta.ca/iqas-immigration.aspx.

3. Which school should I apply to? It depends on the course you want to study. As a general rule though, there are some provinces that are not highly populated and it may be easier to get admissions into schools there.

4. Funding: studying in Canada is not cheap and most people give up just because the funds are not available. Some schools give scholarships/fellowship to students with high GMAT scores. You have to do a lot of research to know which schools give funding.

Personal advice I have for people is this: go and learn a skill now while processing admissions and visa. Learn how to play musical instruments, coding, cooking, make-up etc, whatever skill you can learn, because it will give you opportunity to make extra income.

You will find a lot of information on Canadian immigration website.

My e-mail is immigrantincanada@outlook.com.

Job search - LL's story

I got to Canada 2 years ago and knew I will have a Career Change. However, we need to pay bills as I came into the country with my husband and 2 children.

My Husband is a certified IT professional with all them Cisco, Project Management and the rest. In fact, he was managing a team in one of the Oil companies in Nigeria. So I thought with his experience and all the international certifications, getting a job in Canada will not be difficult.

But to my surprise, first month went by...no call backs, gradually like 4 months and he had no call backs for interviews. All he got were calls from agents who will raise our hopes and then ...SILENCE.

By this time I was getting desperate, our savings was already low, so i had to do something. I went round the stores at a mall, gave out my resumes: basically applying for a store clerk position. I got lucky and got a part time position in one of the stores I applied to.

By this time, my husband was getting calls for interviews and he would prepare so hard and go there.

After a couple of interviews with the usual regret emails, I asked him what he felt the problem was because by now I was thinking abii it’s  a spiritual something ni.. My husband said he feels the problem is in the style of interview questions. As Nigerians, we are taught theoretically and the interviews here are scenario based questions. So for the first few interviews, he was struggling with the questions as he didn’t have matching scenarios.

So, the next task was getting appropriate responses to the scenario questions.  He did this and his confidence levels at interviews soared. He was able to confidently look the interviewer in the eye, answer their questions with the appropriate scenario, even if he had never experienced the said scenario in his course of duty.

By this time, he was getting more calls and our hopes were getting raised.

However, he had to downsize his resume and then apply for a customer service job which is what he is doing now while we work on the bigger picture.

My advice to new immigrants is that just find something to do... because like they say in Canada “Bills have to be paid”. Then when you go for interviews, do your best but at the risk of sounding negative, don’t expect much, because from experience, the Canadian interviewers are so nice and polite and leave you with a feeling of YES, I got the job ( due to their body language, which is what they will portray to all other candidates) but leave you hanging.

So basically, save your heart from being broken by not putting all your hopes on one job posting.

Job Search in Canada

So, you landed in Canada, congratulations, you are now an immigrant or you are on study permit or you have an open work permit, first thing to do is search for a job, right? Right. 👌

Oh, one thing is you’ve had 5 years experience in your country and just thought, my experience will count for me, right? Wrong. 👎

Searching for a job is annoying. You have to tweak your resume so much it doesn’t even look like you anymore. So, you have resumes with different names: “Resume Admin, Resume Accounting, Resume Engineering, Resume Customer Service, Resume finance……”. 😏.

Well next thing you know, even with your 10 years experience as a Professional Accountant or Engineer or Pharmacist with your first and second degrees, you can't practice in Canada. Like seriously? Oh well, apply to CPA or APEG or PEBC and you learn you have to write 10 prerequisite exams. What??????????. THAT'S NOT FAIR. 😭😭😭😭

So, how did you get your first job? By luck, networking, referrals, how exactly? What strategies did you use?

Please share your stories. Thanks.

Titi

Job search: My story - Part 1

Canada, the land of opportunities, be kind to me, this was my prayer when I landed in 2014 after a 10-year banking career in Nigeria with the hope of smoothly getting a banking job. So, I prepared a resume (the last time I had one was over 10 years) and started applying for jobs. My initial resume was 3 pages long (10 years experience is not a joke right) with details of my career. I started applying for senior roles in the banking sector, after all I was a manager at my former organisation.👍

Well, a few months went by and nothing was forthcoming, no calls, no interviews, nothing. The only response I received was “Thank you for your interest, we regret to inform you that……” urgh😠.

So, it began; I read online how one size does not fit all when it comes to job search. I had to prepare different resumes for different positions; “Resume Banking, Resume Admin, Resume Finance, Resume Accounting, Resume Customer Service etc. It was so ANNOYING.😩. So I changed strategy and started applying for any role ; entry level, mid-career, senior roles; anything.

Before I forget, let me mention that during that period, some of the recruiters I heard from were the scammers. Those ones with a mail like the one below:
Job Title :Fin Admin/Customer accounts
Salary: $4000-$6000/month
"We find your resume on indeed and want to give you the above job. your responsibilities include processing of checks from our client base and payment into your personal account. You will transfer the money to us through your account and service our cliants.
please complet the attach form and include your resume in reply to this mail.
Please note that we are looking at several people for the job and want you to be quick to take the job."

Hilarious stuff, if it wasn't so annoying. Note all the spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors in the mail. 

Sometimes I’ll curl up on the bed and just cry. Before I lost count, I had applied for over 370 jobs during a period of almost 1 year. I asked myself so many questions during that period and even started doubting myself. My confidence level dropped from 100 towards 0 so quickly, I actually lost weight.😭

Eventually, I got a job, but that's a story for another post.

Thanks for reading and please share your own stories in the comments section or send a mail to immigrantincanada@outlook.com if you will like me to publish it.

Cheers.

Titi

Johnny Just Come

It really felt different when I moved into the city a couple of years back. There was the semblance between the landscapes I saw in movies back home in Lagos and the skyline of downtown Calgary. The drive from the airport was some sort of Deja vu, a reconstruction of the images that had flashed in my mind many times over. Here we were, driving through the well lined streets, the wide open spaces and the multiple car lanes like those of German Autobahns, the feeling can’t be described in a paragraph. For me, this was the culmination of a lifelong desire to immigrate to a Country that had all the bells and whistles because the externals resonated with assumptions of what a Western Country should look like.

My first interview went fast as I got a call to show up the same day that I applied for the job. Can you imagine the new guy on the block who just came into the country, had been searching for jobs but none had worked out as I had imagined but then picked up a free magazine, flipped to the classified section and saw a job advert that looked promising. When I got the call the same day that I applied for the job, I felt ecstatic, partly thinking that this was finally my moment, I couldn’t be happier.

Trust now, I had my suit on, shined my shoes and made sure my hair was well groomed. I got to the interview like 40 minutes before time as I could not afford to let anything go wrong. I was ushered to sit in a small hall with about 25 chairs, waiting to be called for the real show. Soon after I was seated, other people started to trickle in and I began to get iffy about the number of interviewees coming in.

At a point I felt like I was in the wrong place and I had to ask a staff who was standing by to confirm that there was going to be an interview for real. Anyways, a lady who seemed to call the shot started to call people by name to an office that was right in front of the sitting area.  Each person came out with a paper which eventually turned out to be an offer letter. To my chagrin, I was called and the interview did not last 10 minutes and I was given an offer letter. Wouldn’t you ask what the job offer was? I was being recruited to sell knives. I mean, to sell knives to who? I was new in the country, cash was limited, I was somewhat desperate to work to earn money and someone was going to send me on a wild goose chase to market knives and earn stipends from commission. This couldn’t have exacerbated my frustration any further if you know what I mean. That was my first real experience as a new immigrant looking for work in far away Canada.

Story by JJC

Why immigrantincanada.com???

For some time now, based on personal experiences, I've felt the burden to contribute in my little way to how different issues experienced by immigrants can be solved gradually.

One direct way is to hear people's stories and learn at least one way by which it may work/not work. We can use this blog to reach out to new/old immigrants and help them settle easily or help them know how to resolve knotty issues.

Due to this, I feel the need to create a repository of people's stories stating the issues as they experience it. Hence, the blog, www.immigrantincanada.com.

Suggestions on how this can be done better is welcome.

Please try not to remain anonymous except when sharing stories. 

My e-mail is immigrantincanada@outlook.com.

Thanks a bunch.

Titi

Introduction

First thing: I've never had a blog.  😁

I moved to Canada in 2014 and thought life will be smooth sailing. While I've had some good times, I've also had a lot of disappointments. 😥I experienced some setbacks recently and just thought, why not start a blog where immigrants can share their experiences. Some people have had disappointments like mine and have overcome them. Sharing experiences can help other immigrants (new and old) easily sail through their settling down.

I'll be sharing people's experiences, and will love to hear from you if you have had the same experience and how to maneuver the stormy ride. 😣

You can choose to remain anonymous just because the main purpose is for the learning through the stories.

This page is for those who are already resident in Canada.

Please send your stories to immigrantincanada@outlook.com and it will be published within 24 hours.

Looking forward to reading our stories and learning from them. Please feel free to share the page to your friends and family.

Thanks.

Titi