All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Trying to go to Canada (informative)

cog on 2005-05-09T17:18:34

In my previous entry regarding all this I-want-to-go-to-Canada thing, I mentioned the following, taken out of the Canadian embassy website: "[...] you must meet some important immigration requirements. You must be in good health, law-abiding and have enough money to support yourself and your dependants during your stay."

I was getting paranoid, because I didn't know what I had to do (if anything at all) to prove I was in condition of going there.

Also, I didn't feel like buying the tickets and thus spending a lot of money and then getting there and being sent back home for lack of some papers.

Today (last project ended on Friday, so I now have a little bit more time) I visited the website of the Portuguese embassy in Canada.

It read, in Portuguese, something like "This site was conceived aiming to give everyone an easy access to the information"

May I ask: What information?

Sure, you'll probably see something if you're using IE, but give it a try with a different browser.

Viewing the source, I even found an HTML comment stating "Insert alternate HTML codes here that will be seen by browsers OTHER than IE 4.x"

Mind you, the English version of that site isn't anything better.

And at this point, my saviour appears...

include to the rescue (thanks, pal)! With a helpful link, btw.

So here it goes:

  • must be healthy: they state that, for less than six months visits to Canada, "generally, no medical examination is required". Since I'm young and don't appear to have any health problem, I don't think I'll need any medical examination :-) So far, I'm good to go :-)
  • must respect Canadian laws: apparently, when one arrives to the country, there's a short interview with an officer. At first I was worried, when I read "You will not be allowed into Canada [...] if you do not satisfy the officer". Then I read it better: "You will not be allowed into Canada if you give false or incomplete information, or if you do not satisfy the officer you are suitable for entry into Canada". I don't think I'll have a problem with this :-) Still good to go :-)

And there's nothing there regarding having enough money to support myself while there (which I have, so it shouldn't be a problem).

So here's my check list ATM:

* Talks submitted ...................... check
* Registered for the conference ........ nope
* Flights booked ....................... nope
* Hotel room booked .................... nope
* Talks accepted ....................... check
* Slides for first talk ................ 10%
* Slides for second talk ............... 60%
* Write something for the proceedings .. nope

I have to take care of at least the hotel this week! There's a reason for this: if you go to the internet (you're probably there already anyway), you'll see that the designated hotel for the conference doesn't seem to have any more rooms for the conference dates. Apparently, it has, but only for people attending it. However, those rooms will be freed to the general public on Thursday, which means if I don't book by then, I'll have to find a bridge in Toronto to sleep beneath it.

Monetary Support

barbie on 2005-05-09T18:27:53

In my experience if you have a valid credit card, you are covered. I think Australia used to require you to have a recent bank statement to prove you had more than AUS $1000, basically to cover your airfare home, but I don't know if that's true any more.

Most credit cards seem to include medical cover too, so that would probably also satisfy the health requirement.

Mind you they let just about anyone in the country these days, so I don't think we have any worries ;)