My Maple Leaf Card

It’s official, I picked it up today, my Maple Leaf card, so I am now a certified Permanent Resident of Canada, also known as a PR. Hooray for that, I say, though you might wonder if you saw the image on my card why they decided they wanted to make me permanent since I look neither very happy (the passport photo guy wouldn’t let me smile) nor open to making significant positive contributions to my new homeland. But there we are, so for all of you Canadians out there, I am now one of you! Or, to be more accurate, I almost am.

The next step of course is to get my Canadian citizenship, so I can vote and carry a passport like yours and feel I truly belong here (just like my mother and six brothers and wife and three children and three grandchildren and sundry friends and acquaintances and neighbours). But then getting my citizenship is another story, much longer than this one, and it will just have to wait for another post.

The front of my new card, besides the very stern image of FIELD ROGER MICHAEL, has a tiny Canadian flag in the upper left corner, a stylized Canada goose in the lower right (just above the cute Canada printed with an even tinier flag over the final a), and a silver maple leaf just below centre with built in holograms of other maple leaves and the Canadian coat of arms. It’s a sturdy card, and I will carry it in my wallet as a symbol of my sturdy (and stern) patriotism.

The back of the card tells even more, in very small type, about FIELD ROGER MICHAEL:

Height/Taille 179 cm
Eyes/Yeux BLUE/BLEU
COB/PDN BMU (translation: Country of Birth/Pays de Naissance BERMUDA)
PR Since/RP Depuis 15 04 1947
Category/Categoire XXX/XXX

The second last line above tells it all: it says I’ve been a PR since April 15, 1947, which is a very long time. The problem has been that I haven’t had a card to say so since I mislaid my original Landed Immigrant card a few years ago and have carried around a well worn notarized copy of it and my Bermudian birth certificate (also mislaid), which looks like a page from a late Victorian ledger. So now I have my new card to prove that I am truly and officially a Permanent Resident of Canada, at least for the next five years, at which time I may have to renew it if the citizenship thing doesn't work out.

I am puzzled, though, about that last line, my Category/Categoire. Does XXX (the English version) indicate that I’ve been a PR for far too long? After all, it is coming up to 63 years since I was granted status as an immigrant here and maybe my time and Canada’s patience is running out. And what does XXX (the French version) signify? I should have asked J., my CIC officer and greeter today, because she would have been bilingual, but I was so happy to have the card that I didn’t even look on the back. So I think I’ll have to take my Category on faith, unless I can find some other PR’s like me and check out the backs of their cards.

So if you see me walking a little differently over the next few days or even weeks, with a little more bounce in my step, it’s because I am now a PR, I live here, and I’ll happily show you the card to prove it.

All we need now is for our government to do something to make all of us Canadians proud -- just don’t hold your breath right now waiting for that to happen!