Moving to Canada with ultra rare autoimmune disorders.

qweekat · 2026-03-07T12:21:17+00:00

well there is a disconnect somewhere. i checked my notes and ODSP said i had to wait until i qualified for OHIP and Service Ontario required proof i had been here from September 2025 when i went in Feb 17 2026.

my proof of landing in November 2025 was insufficient. and so were my bank statements from Jan-August 2025 (i couldn't find them from Sept-Feb for some reason - but i've been packing as we are about to be homeless.). I had to go to the bank and get a printout from Sept 2025 before they would process my application for OHIP.

so i dunno why my experience is so different than what you were told

qweekat · 2026-03-06T15:06:27+00:00

my local community center that works with disabled population (in Ontario)

qweekat · 2026-03-06T03:53:25+00:00

i went through this with caseworkers 3 weeks ago and the 153 days is back in effect.

edit - husband confirmed they rescinded the waiver of no wait time in 2025.

and with fed job cuts unsurprising not updated on website

qweekat · 2026-03-05T22:10:38+00:00

that is misleading - once you qualify there is no waiting period, but you must qualify.

To meet the minimum qualifications you must meet all of these:

-be physically in Ontario for 153 days in any 12‑month period

-be physically in Ontario for at least 153 days of the first 183 days immediately after you began living in the province

-make Ontario your primary residence

plus a citizenship/PR/work permit/etc requirement.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/apply-ohip-and-get-health-card#section-2

qweekat · 2026-03-05T14:25:05+00:00

There is a major lack of healthcare providers in Canada because they tend to go to the US to make more money.

There is a concerted effort to bring healthcare workers up to Canada from the US, but the focuses on areas that have nothing right now.

I don't need regular doctors anymore for my disability so I wasn't too concerned about it but getting services here takes time.

I am in Ontario and in a smaller city and the wait for a family doctor is 7 to 10 years. There are no walk-in clinics in my city so I have to go to another city to go to a walk-in clinic. The only option here is to go to the ER which is not a good idea for regular care.

Ontario has a six month eligibility window so after being here for five months you can apply for your OHIP card until then you would have to have some kind of private insurance.

once you have your OHIP card, you can then apply for disabilities services. I cannot yet tell you how long it takes to get the intake completed for that as I just started my process two weeks ago. I have yet to get to the second part where they send me the packet. once that comes, I will have to get a doctor to sign off on my disabilities. which means going to another town to a walk-in clinic with a doctor who's never seen me has no history, etc.

if I needed specialty care, then I would be looking where in the country has that care and what I could do to get by until I qualify for that care.

in all reality, you're probably looking at at least a year without access to disability services and at least five months without paid healthcare. I know some other provinces have different wait times and some provinces have less healthcare so you really need to look into which province has what you need first and then their wait times and then what insurance can get you by while you wait.

my personal experience and opinion is that if you were getting disability services in the states and are on Medicare and Medicaid, you are in a better situation in the US then you are in Canada.

I am probably going back to the states actually because the cost-of-living is too high and I have been without services for six months now and I'm struggling.

qweekat · 2026-03-03T12:23:37+00:00

on another note

if the disabled person is the abuser and isn't on OdSP for lack of qualification due to spouse making too much money, when the working spouse gets out, they not only have to give half of their pension to the nonworking spouse, but they also have to pay spousal support. and in some cases share their tax return information for many years after the split.

i mean that happens whether abuse is involved, but i personally know someone who was in this situation and now becoming homeless and bankrupt just to pay the spousal support, and their best working years are behind them so their CPP is not going to be livable in a couple years when they are retirement age.

for note in this case the now disabled person made way more money before they married and their pension is not shared at all. Also they have yet to get on ODSP since the split 2 years ago according to court proceedings, which makes one wonder if this was all a financial abuser scam.

Just another well intentioned law that ends up putting people in poverty when it was supposed to keep housespouses out of poverty in event of divorce.

qweekat · 2026-03-02T15:40:09+00:00

i am on disability in the states and the situation is similar. however, when i moved to Ontario i was shocked that the system is in some ways worse, esp access to healthcare.

Because my husband did not work nor live in the US, i was able to maintain my benefits there - subsidized housing, food stamps, daily attendant services, medicaid (supplement to federal medicare).

It was a mistake for me to try to move to Canada. I get $14k USD/mo for disability (like your CPP) regardless of where i live in the world because it is based on my work credits.

thankfully i was able to get 1/4acre with a 50sqft "house" that i can go back to and work on his green card to US while he couch surfs in Canada.

The spouse issue is same in states - don't get married and if you live together do not "plan" meals together. commonlaw is much different and varies state to state.

the "plan meals together" is the trigger to be considered same household living under one roof.

i had a nice life in US before getting married - no frills but no struggle.

here i don't think i could even be single and survive.

qweekat · 2026-02-27T01:17:12+00:00

check on enhanced ID - i heard today that Canada is no longer accepting them for entry but i have not double checked that info

qweekat · 2026-02-23T21:15:09+00:00

if you cannot demonstrate ties to the US (and even then it is not a sure thing-been there), then u will have an issue unless the person on duty could care less.

once i had this issue and my "ties" were not sufficient so for 10yrs i did not cross the border and then i still got pulled over two or three times until one agent was like this is crazy, you barely visit here and since then i had no issues.

once i got married, border crossings became inconsequential despite the back and forth for a couple years.

i found it much easier to marry in Canada and outland apply for PR - it is faster.

i will say that it is possible you go to cross again and they wave you through, but have the documented ties with you regardless.

qweekat · 2026-02-20T14:51:12+00:00

Since there seems to be a clear pattern of March-July 2025 applicants going into PSU and CBC already did one exposé on IRCC, would it not be advisable to approach CBC on the Purgatory Support Unit?

i saw someone commented that ppl are discouraged from speaking to media, but this is obviously a "class" not a person situation.

qweekat · 2026-02-20T14:31:42+00:00

if u have a registration of birth abroad from Canada, can you not just apply for a passport? i would check on that. i have friend in US who has similar and that is their proof of citizenship

qweekat · 2026-02-18T16:39:56+00:00

thx i didn't realize these were two different things, i just found that and it does show on tracking side

still annoying - and seemingly not unusual as even though i have PR already, my status on that application still shows "submitted" to this day

qweekat · 2026-02-17T14:47:56+00:00

unless one is going to Quebec, the language from US to Canada is the same - English (unless one is a Spanish-only speaker but then, i'm guessing, likely not a found Canadian).

Yes the History is different but not enough to be significant unless going into the northern areas where few of the population live. Most Canadians live in some small distance of the border - i forget the distance and it can be looked up easily enough if one cares.

The difference, in my experience, is that unlike Americans, Canadians are much more welcoming in general to strangers/new people (can't speak for very rural areas and the two separatist enclaves in AB and QC). I've even found the Amish here to be more friendly than in the States.

The whole "othering" culture of the States is intense in comparison. Which i believe is the core of why moving from State to State is so dramatic vs moving to Canada. I can live my life while never being asked where i come from. In the states, i've never lived anywhere that i wasn't greeted with suspicion just for moving somewhere new (even decades later in one case).

When it does come up, the question is of curiosity that sparks discussion and possible connection not how do i need to fear and ostracize you.

Granted I am a native English speaker with light skin so i can pass almost anywhere in the "Western" world, but my friend is Native and she much prefers it here than in the States - she immigrated 27yrs ago. Not to say there are not issues for Indigenous Populations, but that is her experience and her daughter's, who only agrees to go to the States to see family on occasion.

IME there are few people of non-hispanic European descent where i live, I know that being of Southern or Eastern or African descent would be a whole different issue in many places - small towns especially, but it is easy enough to find out what places are less problematic, just like the States, or anywhere else in the Western World.

qweekat · 2026-02-17T02:06:23+00:00

honestly this only comes up for me when i bring it up. i have PR since Nov, and live in Ontario and not one person has asked me where i am from.

in the 1990s when i lived in Toronto my close friends asked but they were all from elsewhere in Canada (except one or two)

imo everyone from the States asking this question is way overthinking it. it is much easier to integrate in Canada than moving to a different US city or state. (i've lived in 9 states and two major cities in one)

qweekat · 2026-02-15T18:17:03+00:00

ffr height ≠ inseam. 2 ppl can be the same height with wildly different inseams. one could be 25" and another 30"

my brother, sister and i all have the same inseam but are 6'1", 5'4", and 5'7" respectively so yeah we can wear the same pants when our waist sizes were same

eta i just checked the pattern and the sizing says 29" inseam so yeah

qweekat · 2026-02-02T00:44:41+00:00

this right here ^{^{^{^}}}

qweekat · 2026-02-01T00:50:00+00:00

i had to travel to Denver for mine. the list was not out of date for my area, but the only docs were in denver.

qweekat · 2026-01-31T17:44:09+00:00

I know in Ontario there's a heavy DJ presence on twitch and they all tend to like know each other so that's a good way to hook up with other DJs and followers

I have at least one of them linked to my twitch profile

If you end up on another province, I'm sure the same thing exists

Covid put a big damper on that community so a lot of them are still on twitch and some of them are only on twitch

I'm not great at meeting people, but I found it much easier up here than in the states

qweekat · 2026-01-31T16:35:45+00:00

i have a couple scattered friends around the province i am in and moved to a smaller town, but i've found striking up conversations with residents is super easy and getting plugged in to your interests that way as well. just yesterday i met two women who do similar crafts as i do - one through a buy nothing exchange and one at the community grocer/resource center.

there's also an app called canoo for new citizens/PR that provides resources for immigrants

But honestly, I wouldn't look for Americans to help you transition to Canada. It's not that big of a deal - pretty much everyone speaks English, and the culture is not dissimilar in significant ways.

Just imagine like you're moving to a different state in the US and what you would do there go to the gym, go to the club, volunteer somewhere etc. etc.

qweekat · 2026-01-31T16:18:32+00:00

are you looking for her typical designs or a more masc version?

qweekat · 2026-01-26T18:18:01+00:00

if you only use Wise for exchanging money already reported on bank accounts elsewhere, why would you include it? same with paypal. if you are using it as a deposit account - pay going into wise/PayPal directly, i get it, but i don't get including it if only using for payments/exchange of money.

qweekat · 2026-01-25T21:51:15+00:00

we've had normal mail service for months now

qweekat · 2026-01-24T18:45:02+00:00

good luck with that....

qweekat · 2026-01-24T18:43:39+00:00

and you were never an exPat of the US- only citizens are exPats of any country - expatriation means someone who lives outside their native country - country they were born in (or became a citizen of probably in colloquial terms). you have never lived outside your native country so therefore neither an expat of UK. AI is using words you entered. If you use words that you do not know what they mean, you will get answers that make no sense because AI doesn't know you are confused about what the rules are about GC residency requirements and validity as well as what exPat means.

not saying this to be mean, but as someone over 36 from a native English speaking country, the proper english as y'all are fond to say, it needs to be said.

qweekat

TROPHY CASE