[grecy]

I feel his pain.

I emigrated to Canada from Australia, and it was exceptionally hard for me to get a credit card. Apparently no credit rating is the same as the very worst credit rating. It also took time to get paperwork like a drivers license and SIN number (a bit like an SSN), and without those there was no chance. I had to go a few years without one, and the number of things I couldn't do without one was immensely frustrating.

Visa debit sounds great, but I find it doesn't work for a ton of transactions that want a credit card.

In the end I had to put $1000 into a special locked-in account that I couldn't touch before the bank would issue me a $1000 credit card.