#Travel to Canadá: Passports e Visas

by Fabi

After buying the tickets, the next step was to go after the documentation to enter Canada. To travel, we would need passport Canadian visa and a consent letter to travel abroad signed by the Leticia's father, since he would not travel with us.

Passports: As we were planning to travel to Disney soon, we had already received our passports in May 2014. The procedures at the time were very easy. I followed the instructions on the website of the Federal Police, and had no problem. The official site for information on costs and procedures to get the passport in Brazil is this: http://www.dpf.gov.br/servicos/passaporte/requerer-passaporte 

Visas: Brazilians need tourist visa to visit Canada. Our flight was direct to Canada (Sao Paulo-Toronto-Ottawa), then we would not need any other visa to transit through other countries (some flights stop in the United States, and if so, we would also need a US visa).

You can get the Canadian visa online. The first step is to access the site of the CIC  (Citizenship and Immigration Canada - Click here) and fill out the application form for tourist visa. 

I filled out the whole form and submitted for analysis. After a few days I received a notification email requesting new documents. I entered my application and found the following request:

"Parent Authorization to Travel: Signed letter of authorization from the non accompanying parent (s) authorizing child travel to Canada. Must be accompanied by a copy of their passport or national id clearly showing their signature ".

Besides the documents usually required, they requested a letter of authorization to travel signed by Leticia's father. As we reported in the questionnaire that we would travel just two of us, the Canadian immigration wanted to be sure that he was aware. I did the letter in English, based on a model obtained on Canadian Government site (Get here in PDF or DOCX). 

Finally, the Leticia's father signed the letter and I took it to notarize, scanned and uploaded in my application on CIC's website. A week later I received the confirmation e-mail: Our visas had been approved !!!

The whole process took about 30 days. Very fast! It was an indescribable emotion get our passports with Canadian visa s stamped! We had almost everything to embark!

Brazilian authorization letter to travel: In addition to passport and visa, there's a Brazilian model of consent letter to child travelling without parents. The model can be obtained from the Consular Portal  (Click here). 

This authorization is very important for children who will be traveling unaccompanied or without the company of one of their parents. Without the authorization, signed and notarized, children do not board on the plane!

Well, these are my tips regarding the documentation for the trip. In the next post I will tell how we prepared to face a -20° C cold in the Canadian winter !!!

Kisses,

Fabi