My Experience of Going Through CBSA and CIC

It was March 4^th 2016. It was a big day. And it certainly was a new start.

I could not sleep well on the plane, and fought the air-sick valiantly. But I lost, was crushed into pieces, to be more precisely.

The worst part is, I was all nervous about meeting with the CBSA (the Customs) and CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada). What with my broken English and not filling out a B4 form in advance. My thought started to wander. What happened if I failed this?

Before moving, I searched the Internet for as much information as I could. But I never found anything about this. And mind you, I did it in Chinese, English and Vietnamese. The best thing I found was it might take about one or two hours to go through.

And it actually does not. It took only about 15 minutes, at least in my case.

I believe if you ever google for what to expect when immigrating to Canada, you definitely will hear about something called a declaration card, B4 form and B4a.

The declaration card is compulsory. You have to fill it out on the plane, or at least most of them, e.g. some personal information. I myself did not, but I believe it would be just fine if you left some sections blank and asked the officer at the Customs for help or details as to what to write, if you did not understand what they mean. About the B4a, it is necessary if you have any stuffs that will come to Canada on a later date. You can download the form on the CIC website. It is something called Goods to Follow. As for B4, I made a list in advance but did not fill it out and guess what, the officer did not ask for that.

When me and my family got to a counter, the officer took the declaration card, asked us some questions. For instance, what kind of food and how much money we were bringing into Canada. Those questions are not difficult to answer, just make sure that you are honest, especially if you are bringing more than ten thousand Canadian dollars. It needs to be declared. And make sure that you understand what they are asking before answering. Just ask them to repeat more slowly if you cannot hear it. I did when we went to a CIC counter. The officer asked us some questions. I could not understand what he was saying and he patiently repeated it. Then he reminded us that one of my family members needed a medical surveillance.

And that is it.

I think there are people out there (probably not many though) who are also nervous and want this kind of information. So I promised myself that after we have landed, I would make a video and write something about it, just to make other people like me feel more assured and less worried.

Here’s the link to a video I made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lajrsa8TyfU