Vancouverculture & etiquette

The Social Insurance Number is issued free by Service Canada and is required before an employer can put you on payroll. Applying in person at a Service Canada centre usually produces the number the same day; online applications take longer. Bring your passport and your work permit or Confirmation of Permanent Residence. People who leave this until after their start date end up with delayed first paycheques, and it is entirely avoidable.

British Columbia's Medical Services Plan charges no premiums, but coverage does not begin the day you land — it starts after the balance of the month you arrive plus two further months. That gap is genuinely uninsured, and Canadian healthcare is expensive when you are paying for it directly. Buy interim private cover before you fly, and enrol in MSP as soon as you have arrived rather than waiting until the coverage date approaches.

Whatever your record elsewhere, in Canada you start at zero. That affects renting, mobile phone contracts, car insurance and any borrowing. The standard fix is a secured credit card — you deposit a sum and borrow against it — used lightly and paid in full each month, plus one of the newcomer packages the major banks run specifically to issue an unsecured card without Canadian history. Start this in month one, because it takes months to produce a usable score.

The City of Vancouver levies an Empty Homes Tax, British Columbia levies a Speculation and Vacancy Tax across the region, and the federal government levies an Underused Housing Tax. They are three distinct taxes with three separate declarations, and the provincial and municipal ones require an annual declaration from owners even when the property is occupied and nothing is owed. Missing a declaration is what triggers a bill, not owning the wrong thing.

Basic auto insurance in BC comes from ICBC, a public monopoly, with optional extra cover available privately. Bring a letter of experience from your previous insurer — without documented claims-free history, you are rated as a new driver and the difference over a year is substantial. Licence exchange is straightforward from some countries and requires testing from others, so check your country's status before you assume.

Vancouver rarely freezes hard, but the rain runs from November into March under low cloud, and the short daylight combined with constant grey is what people actually struggle with. Locals take vitamin D, get outside in the rain rather than waiting for it to stop, and ski — the mountains inside the city limits are a twenty-minute drive and they are above the cloud. Treating winter as something to endure indoors is the mistake.