Today is the 11th of January, which means that we have to go to the airport to check if there are any news regarding our case. I had insomnia and couldn’t eat in the morning, but we finally went to the airport so we’d be there by 2:30 pm.
The CBSA office looks like a police station (I’ve never been to one, but that’s how I imagine it). The officer on duty took our documents and checked that we were who we said we were. He looked at the copy of D.’s passport, looked at me, and said, “It’s not you.” Of course it’s not me; it’s my husband’s ID you’re looking at, Officer. Then he asked us about our story, and when we told him, he got confused. He asked D., “How do I know it’s you and not your twin brother?” I kind of wanted to cry when I heard that question. Really? Really? How about checking all the supporting documents and biometrics for a change? Then we told him that we had been waiting for a month and a half already, and we really wanted to hear their decision on our case. We also mentioned the last name of the first officer we’d met upon our arrival here, and luckily, he was at the airport that day. The officer on duty took our documents and went to talk to Officer J. (the one who had met us upon our arrival).
An hour later, Officer J. came out and said there was still no reply from the visa office, but our lawyer had convinced him to issue our documents! So, Officer J. decided to issue D. a temporary resident permit, and thanks to that, he could also issue a temporary work permit. Actually, we had asked him for exactly the same documents when we arrived, but back then he refused. Luckily (we are very grateful), he eventually issued us our papers and gave us our passports back with the stamp! We spent an additional $440 CAD ($155 for a new work permit, $200 for a temporary residence permit, $85 for new biometrics). Of course, we didn’t care about the cost; we were just happy to stay here in Canada. They stamped our passports with today’s date, which means we left St. Petersburg on the 3rd of December, 2020, and arrived in Toronto on the 11th of January, 2021.
It was a terribly exhausting and rather pointless time, but we’re happy that the bureaucratic situation was resolved in our favor.
Well, now we can start dealing with life.