u/jkk45k3jkl534l

A bit of an unknown part of the PR process is the PPR (Passport Request) but PPR may be an unofficial title. Just before receiving the COPR you are asked to send your passport (if outside the US) or a colored copy of your passport (if in the US). I found there was little information on how to handle this step of the process so I recorded the steps I took to complete this, and if I did it right, I would share those steps (I did get it right and received my COPR so the steps are below).

I was initially aided by u/slr99 through their post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmigrationCanada/comments/13s0c5j/tips_mailing_passport_from_usa_pr/

Their post links to an official IRCC guide on this process, but both their post and the IRCC guide leave out details, unfortunately.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/account/where-submit-passport/cross-border-shipment-instructions.html

The biggest thing to keep in mind that cleared up everything for me is that you are creating two shipping labels**. One shipping label will go on the outside of the envelope, and the 2nd will be inside of the envelope that the IRCC will use later. This is why there is so much confusion regarding the PPR, because guides may not mention whether you are making a shipping label for them or yourself. Just know there are two shipping labels.**

Getting the initial request is confusing and surprising because no online guide I saw directly mentions that there are two labels. You will receive an email sent to the PR applicant (or the principal applicant if you are being sponsored). That email will have an attached PDF. You will see a reference to something called "Annex A". Annex A is a page on that attachment in the email. People often can't find it because the PDF is in English and then French, and Annex A is tucked away after the French section.

This guide will be covering how to handle this process as a US citizen using your courier company's online label creator. If you are sending your physical passport I recommend not following this guide exactly.

Immediately find the photography studio you had used before to get your photos taken for the initial application and get them taken again. This time you will need 2 physical photos instead of digital photos. Remember the guide: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/permanent-residents/card/photos.html

If the studio does not write or stamp your name on the back of the photo, it is acceptable to write it yourself. Just print it legibly.

The studio I used had a bad stamp which made part of the ZIP code illegible. Do not physically write over any misprinted area to correct it. I simply included the receipt for the sale of the photos which included the ZIP code. If you do not have a receipt with a ZIP code, write a letter of explanation for why the stamp is illegible and share the studio's address on there.

You will want your courier companies envelope for shipping. It's a flat white cardboard packet that's a little larger than standard letter-sized paper. You may find one at your courier companies' location.

This is the shipping label creator for users that are not signed in. I recommend you sign in to save details. If you want you can create a shipping label at home if you have a printer or complete this process at your courier companies' location.

These are the items you will need in your envelope:

A printout of the completed Annex A page. I printed mine in color. Be sure to sign it physically with a pen in dark ink (mine was dark blue and still accepted, but black ink is always best).

A colored copy of your passport bio page (my print included the bio page and the page opposite of it as the passport booklet was laid flat on the scanner).

Your two portrait photographs and a receipt with ZIP code or letter of explanation if the information on the back of the photo is illegible.

Your courier companies' commercial invoice page (we will get this later but make note to include it).

Your courier companies' shipping label we will create below. It will say From Ottawa to your personal shipping address

Time to create shipping label 1 (this goes inside the envelope, not on it). If you have your courier companies' shipping label creator open you should be able to fill out the details in order.

1. SHIP FROM:
   1. Contact name: CPC-Ottawa | PR-TR PRINTING
   2. Company: (Leave blank)
   3. Tax ID no.: (Leave blank)
   4. Phone: (Use your personal phone number, not IRCC's!)
   5. Phone Extension: (If you don't know what this is, leave it blank.)
   6. Email: (Use your personal email address, not IRCC's!)
   7. Country: Canada
   8. Address Line 1: 365 Laurier Av. West
   9. Address Line 2: (Leave blank)
   10. Address Line 3: (Leave blank)
   11. Postal code: K1A1L1
   12. State Or Province: Ontario
   13. City: Ottawa
2. DO NOT CHECK "THIS IS A RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS"
   1. Do check "Use Alternative address for billing" and provide your billing address details (usually your home address).
   2. Deliver to:
   3. Put in your secure address that you want to receive your COPR at. You may not receive an emailed copy. I did not and only have a physical copy.
3. PACKAGE DETAILS
   1. Your courier companies' Envelope (30.5 x 24.1 cm)
   2. Packages: 1
   3. Weight: 0.2 kg
4. SERVICE
   1. Ship date: This is the label the IRCC will use to ship to you. The IRCC may not process your PPR for about a week, but I've also read courier companies generally accept a shipping label if it's 2 weeks after the ship date you selected. I recommend selecting a date about 2-3 days away from when you will send the envelope to them.
   2. The IRCC guide requests you choose the fastest possible shipping, which can be very expensive. I found I did not need the fastest possible and it still worked out.
5. SERVICE OPTIONS
   1. This is for the label that the IRCC will use to ship your COPR to you, so select either option if you want.
6. PACKAGE CONTENTS
   1. There are two options, Items or Documents. Select Documents.
   2. Type of document: Business document (e.g. contract)
   3. Customs value: 0 (it may require a minimum value of 1 sometimes).
   4. Invoice for Customs: I want "Courier Company" to help me create a commercial invoice.
7. COMMERCIAL INVOICE
   1. Commercial invoice: I want "Courier Company" to help me create a commercial invoice.
   2. You do not need to select "Add additional invoice information".
8. PICKUP/DROP-OFF
   1. Pickup/drop-off: Select "I have already scheduled a pickup at my location"
9. NOTIFICATIONS
   1. Turn on shipping notifications.
10. PAYMENT
11. You should be able to pay and print your shipping label here. Be sure to print the Commercial Invoice from here too if possible. Save the receipt for your records.

Once printed this shipping label and the commercial invoice printout go inside the envelope, not the outside.

1. ADDITIONAL STEPS AND CANADA EXPORT INFORMATION
   1. The web form I linked above differs from the one I initially used in some ways because I handled my PPR shipping from a business address instead of a home address. Here are some things that may come up if you're shipping from a business:
   2. Canada Export Information: (Leave blank)
   3. Select "No declaration required"
   4. Exemption number: 03
   5. Bill to: My account
   6. Bill duties, taxes, and fees to: My account

Time to create shipping label 2 (this one goes on the envelope and not inside). Some details vary from above, but some are repeated for clarity. If you have your courier companies' shipping label creator open you should be able to fill out the details in order.

1. SHIP FROM:
   1. Use a secure personal address in-case your mail needs to be returned.
2. DELIVER TO:
   1. Contact name: CPCO - PR VISA
   2. Your courier companies' website will likely not fit “US Permanent/Temporary Residence VISA/Passports” so hand-write that on the label after printing it later.
   3. Company: (Leave blank)
   4. State Tax ID/I.E.: (Leave blank)
   5. Phone: (Use your personal phone number, not IRCC's!)
   6. Phone Extension: (If you don't know what this is, leave it blank.)
   7. Email: (Use your personal email address, not IRCC's!)
   8. Country/Territory: Canada
   9. Address Line 1: 365 Laurier Av. West
   10. Address Line 2: (Leave blank)
   11. Address Line 3: (Leave blank)
   12. Postal code: K1A1L1
   13. State Or Province: Ontario
   14. City: Ottawa
3. DO NOT CHECK "THIS IS A RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS"
   1. Do check "Use Alternative address for billing" and provide your billing address details (usually your home address).
4. PACKAGE DETAILS
   1. Your courier companies' envelope (30.5 x 24.1 cm)
   2. Packages: 1
   3. Weight: 0.2 kg
5. SERVICE
   1. Ship date: Choose the date of whenever your courier companies' delivery person can pickup your envelope.
   2. The IRCC guide requests you choose the fastest possible shipping, which can be very expensive. I found I did not need the fastest possible and it still worked out.
6. SERVICE OPTIONS
   1. Do not select either option. The package will go to their mail room so there will be no one that needs to sign for your package.
7. PACKAGE CONTENTS
   1. There are two options, Items or Documents. Select Documents.
   2. Type of document: Business document (e.g. contract)
   3. Customs value: 0 (it may require a minimum value of 1 sometimes).
   4. Invoice for Customs: I want "courier company" to help me create a commercial invoice.
8. COMMERCIAL INVOICE
   1. Commercial invoice: I want "courier company" to help me create a commercial invoice.
   2. You do not need to select "Add additional invoice information".
   3. I did this just in case but I'm not sure it's necessary for the package going from you to them.
9. PICKUP/DROP-OFF
   1. Pickup/drop-off: Select whichever option suits how you will get your envelope to your courier company.
10. NOTIFICATIONS
11. Turn on shipping notifications.
12. PAYMENT
13. You should be able to pay and print your shipping label here. Be sure to print the Commercial Invoice from here too if possible. Save the receipt for your records.

Once printed this shipping label goes on the outside of the envelope. With a pen you may write: "US Permanent/Temporary Residence VISA/Passports" on the label next to "CPCO - PR VISA" in small print. If you have a commercial invoice sheet, I personally placed mine behind the shipping label in the plastic packaging that attaches to the envelope. This likely wasn't necessary on my end and was a precaution.

1. ADDITIONAL STEPS AND CANADA EXPORT INFORMATION
   1. The web form I linked above differs from the one I initially used in some ways because I handled my PPR shipping from a business address instead of a home address. Here are some things that may come up if you're shipping from a business:
   2. Canada Export Information: (Leave blank)
   3. Select "No declaration required"
   4. Exemption number: 03
2. Bill to: My account
3. Bill duties, taxes, and fees to: My account
   1. If all goes well and you've shipped everything to the IRCC you should see your COPR within a week or so. If there is an issue they will email you, so keep an eye on your inbox and junk email. My package was picked up on April 14th and arrived at IRCC on April 15th. They sent me the COPR in return on April 28th and it arrived at my location on April 29th.

I am moving from the US to BC. I understand there is a minimum of a 90 day wait before you can join the provincial health coverage. I can get a 90 day overfill of my medication in the US before moving that should help with that, but there is a risk that I will be waiting longer than 90 days and this is not a medication I can miss for a single day without consequences.

Paying out of pocket for the medication for 90 days will cost over 10 grand USD. There is no generic alternative for this medication.

I saw this information here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/msp/bc-residents/eligibility-and-enrolment/how-to-enrol/coverage-wait-period

"New or returning residents arriving from outside Canada should contact a private insurance company for coverage during this [90 day] period."

I have contacted over a dozen BC health insurance providers and insurance brokers and all of them have said:

• You cannot have our private health insurance until you have the provincial health card.
• For those without the provincial health card, we have travel insurance but it will not cover prescriptions of any kind, only prescriptions provided during emergency hospital visits.

I am currently working out a potential job that may provide day-1 insurance but they've been wishy-washy about moving forward so it's not a guarantee, so I'm looking into backup solutions.

I've always written it as LittleBigPlanet (one word) because that's how the title was put on the box and appears to be how marketing material writes it officially. But I naturally see people add spaces and write it as "Little Big Planet" as well.

FarCry is another game I played when I was younger and I always assumed it was one word, like it appeared on the box art, but it's actually "Far Cry".

System:

Kernel: 6.17.0-23-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 clocksource: tsc

Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.8 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin v: 6.4.1 vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0

Distro: Linux Mint 22.2 Zara base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble

Device-1: gip0.0 model: Microsoft Xbox Controller serial: N/A charge: 100% (should be ignored)

I am getting doubled inputs from my controller which causes bad behavior in games.

• In first person games if I walk forward with the left analog stick the player also begins looking up.
• Using the right analog stick also has strange issues like the player turning diagonally.

Outside of games:

• The left analog stick moves the mouse cursor. This happens regardless if Steam is active or not.
• Moving the right analog stick moves the mouse cursor horizontally only.
• Pressing triggers moves the cursor up or down but afterwards the mouse cursor will always drift upwards regardless of whether I'm pushing any buttons or touching the analog sticks, and the only solution is to unplug the controller.
• The A key was just placing the letter "p" in text editors for some reason. However an actual 'paste' action had different data in it. After I manually copied different data "A" no longer put down the letter "p".
• The B button acts as if I am right-clicking and opens a list menu.

I think that games are receiving doubled-up inputs when I playing so I'm just looking to disable whatever it is that lets you move your mouse and do other inputs when a controller is plugged in. I did review the Accessibility settings in the System Settings and I'm not seeing any way to disable controller/joystick inputs.

There is surprisingly little info on this issue on Google and elsewhere.

I saw this post but it's for Arch and the instructions don't seem applicable:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=365876

For new residents/immigrants British Columbia has an at minimum 3 month wait before you can join their provincial health coverage. I applied for PR through spousal sponsorship last year but I was diagnosed with a condition after applying that has thrown our moving plans off. I now require a prescription and I cannot seem to find any gap insurance that will cover it. I've contacted various private insurance companies and they've repeatedly told me that their travel/gap insurance only covers medical emergencies and not something like a prescription for a pre-existing condition, and they usually require that you already have a provincial health card. Without something to cover the prescription we may have to start in an entirely different province, which is not ideal because we've built all of our plans around BC.

I am in the process of contacting insurance brokers for advisement but I am feeling unconfident about the issue.

Does anyone know of how a new immigrant may receive coverage for a prescription?