How I almost missed Google I/O 2016 because of the Canadian Embassy

A week after booking I received an email from cheapoair.com where I had booked the flight informing me that I needed a visa to fly through Canada. That was an unpleasant surprise. I do not fly frequently and have never heard about visa requirement for a transit flight before. I admit I should’ve checked that prior to booking, but since I already had non-refundable tickets, I had to go through the visa application process.

I applied for a visa online as there is no Canadian Embassy in my country, so my application went to the embassy in Moscow. The process itself was pretty straightforward: I had created a profile on Canadian Immigration Services website, examined all the instructions thoroughly and downloaded the application form.

First fun thing was I had to download Adobe Acrobat Reader to fill in the form. Any other PDF viewer simply wouldn’t let me even open and view the form. I installed the program on my Mac and once I filled it in, I understood that Reader for Mac doesn’t work — it didn’t generate any barcodes at the end of the application once I clicked ‘Validate’. For that reason my application wasn’t completed as it is automatically rejected without the barcodes. Pretty stupid, but I had to borrow my designer’s Windows PC to complete the application form.

I attached all the required documents: photo of myself, photo of my passport, photo of valid US visa, an itinerary in PDF format and an additional Schedule 1 form. I didn’t compose any cover letters as I was pretty sure it’s all so transparent that no additional letters were needed. There is no fee to apply for a transit visa, so I submitted my application and kept on working.

I didn’t worry about the decision at all. Last year I went through the process of receiving a B1/B2 type USA visa and it was almost effortless. This time I was requesting just a transit visa for a 2-hour layover in Toronto airport. I thought it’d be a piece of cake. How naive I was.

In five days I received a notification about a new message regarding my application. I signed in into my CIC account and read the message. The main part of it was:

I have determined that your application does not meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations. I am refusing your application.

Wow! That came shocking to me. I quickly read the rest of the message:

You have not satisfied me that you would leave Canada at the end of your stay as a temporary resident. In reaching this decision, I considered several factors, including:

Here comes a juicy part. The main three reasons for my refusal were:

1. Family ties in Canada and in country of residence.
2. Purpose of visit.
3. “You did not provide a Family Information Form, you did not provide any proof of employment”.

Alright, I am fine with statements 1 and 3. I indeed hadn’t provided any forms and proofs. But I didn’t even know I had to! It’s clearly pointed on the application page that you should only upload what’s required:

None of the documents from the statement #3 were required. Providing them wasn’t even optional. There are no fields for uploading neither proof of employment nor Family Information Form (this form is actually not even available for download on the application page) on the application page. You can see it in a screenshot of the form: https://goo.gl/photos/m9CN3cGP2ZzqycK49 As you can see, not a single word about employment or family information.

The purpose of visit reason is the oddest and most confusing part. Thing is, when you fill in the application form, you ought to choose the type of visa you are requesting. Only two options available: Transit and Visitor Visa. The ‘Purpose of my visit’ field itself can be found later in the application form but the field is inactive. You can hover cursor over the field, but you can’t type anything. This makes sense to me. Why would you have to indicate the purpose of visit if you’re requesting the transit visa? But this still became one of the reasons for the application refusal.

Okay, sadness away — it’s time to submit another application. This time without giving any chances for a refusal!

Probably, that is an IQ test — you must find the way to provide what is not clearly requested to provide, but not providing this results in a refusal of your application. Challenge accepted.

Since there is no way to upload Family Information Form and proof of employment as well as indicating purpose of my visit, the only option for me was to write a cover letter.

I had written that I was going to attend the largest annual software conference held by Google, that I have my round-trip booked, that I have already traveled last year to the same conference, that I have a 7-month-old son and my beloved wife whom I would miss a lot during my journey. I also mentioned that I am not going to stay in Canada for longer than my 2-hour layover in Toronto airport.

I filled in the Family Information Form, then printed it alongside with the proof of employment signed by our CEO. Scanned both documents and pasted them into the cover letter — there is no other way to provide these documents but inserting them as images into a cover letter.

I went through the entire application process again. The process is pretty easy once you have everything prepared. It took me an hour max to complete it. I double-checked all the documents and submitted the application for the second time.

In six days I am receiving a message indicating that my application is refused. Again! Same lines about ‘does not meet the requirements’ and ‘have not satisfied me’. But different reasons this time:

1. Travel history. Really?!
2. Employment prospects in country of residence.
3. Current employment situation.

Needless to say I was mad. I couldn’t accept the refusal since I didn’t find a single explanation to why could this happen.

Travel history. You’re asked to list the countries you’ve visited in the past 5 years in Schedule 1 form. I travelled to Turkey, Kazakhstan, India, USA and Thailand. Does anyone see something suspicious in this list? What could trigger an application to be refused? ‘stan’ ending of the Kazakhstan is too familiar with Afghanistan which is not the most secure country? Or ‘dia’ in ‘India’ is too similar to ‘die’ and discredits my purpose of visit?

Employment prospects and current employment reasons made me think I did something wrong with the proof of employment letter. It was not 100% official strict letter but more an explanatory freestyle letter from the CEO of the company I work for. But still an official document with a signature. Probably, my annual salary was missing from the letter. I don’t know.

Letter clearly stated that I am full-time employed as Chief Technology Officer and my company is not intending to terminate my employment. <sarcasm>Probably being a CTO is not prestigious in Canada, though in my country it’s a good position, especially in a company with over 200 employees.</sarcasm>

However, all this resulted as rejection #2.

Well, things were getting more and more anxious. My application had been refused twice and cheapoair.com were not willing to refund me. I understand that not checking a visa requirement before booking the flight was completely my fault, not their. And I had less than 45 days before my journey. Considering that even if my application was approved, I would still have to wait up to a month to get that visa glued into my passport. I started to worry.

I emailed my friend Bektour who had similar difficulties with receiving a Canadian visa this year. His situation was a bit different though — he was invited to give a talk at TED Vancouver (I must note that he is the first Kyrgyzstani ever to speak at international TEDx) and had to wait for his visa for almost a month. He wasn’t getting any messages about his application for 21 days and only an email to Canadian Embassy with TED fellows CC’ed got things rolling again.

So I followed the lead and wrote my own letter with Google representatives CC’ed in. I decided not to send it before I had a visa letter from Google.

A visa letter from Google helped me a lot last year. I received an official visa letter from Google addressed to the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. It was a PDF with information about the Google I/O conference and stated that I was invited to participate. It was signed by a Google rep and this letter made the process of receiving a US visa really easy for me.

I had requested this email from Google for Canadian Embassy this time as I believed it would help to solve my problem. Once I received the letter, I prepared all other documents for the application, asked my CEO to write an official strict proof of employment with my annual salary indicated and attached the official email from Google.

I updated the cover letter to make it 146% clear to the person who’d read it that I am going to the conference and was not going to stay in Canada for longer than two hours. I wrote that my final destination is Mountain View, that I can’t refund my tickets, that I am invited to the conference as distinguished contributor under the Google Developer Groups program, that I have round-trip tickets booked and that I was not going to leave Toronto Pearson airport under any circumstance.

Once I’ve applied for the transit visa, I emailed Canadian Embassy, CC’ed Google reps and attached the visa letter from Google hoping for a positive outcome.

Surprise surprise! In just three days I received my third refusal message.

Reasons this time:

1. Purpose of visit. Not even funny!
2. Current employment situation. Again?
3. Personal assets and financial status.

Wow. Purpose of visit again. Probably I’m missing something, but doesn’t application for a transit visa means that one is only going to transit through a country? Seriously, I’ve tried really hard but could not find even a tiny grain of logic behind this.

Nothing had changed regarding my employment situation. I still was the CTO, I still was expected to work in this company for months and years. Here is the letter itself, probably someone could point me into errors in it:

Personal assets and financial status. My salary is above average in my country yet it is less than 100k. Okay, it’s much less. But hey, I live in a country where you can have a fancy dinner with a starter, glass of wine, two main courses and dessert for $20. Should’ve I included this into my cover letter?

I almost gave up. I understood there was nothing else to do to make the officer change his mind and grant me a visa. I did everything I could. I could explain the situation to an officer if it was permitted to talk to them in person. But that is impossible even if I flew to Moscow.

I decided to contact cheapoair support once more and request a refund. To clarify the situation — I couldn’t spend another $1000 on tickets since my budget is pretty limited due to several reasons. The galaxy was kind to me this time and a kind guy named Renaldo from cheapoair support said they can request the refund from Air Canada if I provided a visa rejection letter. I provided all three letters ;)

Now I have my refund confirmed, I’ve booked tickets and will fly through an amazing and beautiful and kind country of Germany, where they have transit zones in airports and don’t require visas for a transit. So, I am still making it to the Google I/O 2016.

And then I received a reply to my email from Canadian Embassy. Nothing important, more a clarification:

I replied immediately (disregard the ‘transfer application’ typo and aggressive tone):

And then I received a reply that has really shocked me:

I’ve interpreted this as ‘Yeah, you’ve probably provided the itinerary and official email from Google. But I think your stated purpose of visiting Canada is not genuine. Fuck you, Mikhail! You’ve also informed me you are a merit Chief Technical Officer in a software company (that operates in three countries) and have a 7-month-old son. That makes me think you, sir, are a nothing living in the middle of nowhere and will flee as soon as you land in a beautiful country of ours. Oh, and don’t bother emailing me your valid arguments, I won’t respond. Why? Because fuck you!”

K.O.