California - Ontario driver's license exchange

I have recent experience with this. I landed in Toronto with my family last month. We were in California for 3 years before this. I got what they call “drivers record” from California DMV. As others mentioned, it only mentions the last renewal date, which was July 2021 for both me and my wife.

I went to the Drive Test center in Brampton. The agent took the driver record document from California. She said it only shows 1 year experience. So I showed her all of my old DLs from California and Wisconsin. I had total 10 years history this way. She took all those DLs (did not return), record 10 year driving history on my Ontario DL record and gave me full G license. I went at 11am and was out in 2 hours.

A couple of weeks later, my wife went to the Drive Test center in Toronto Metro East (on Lawrence E). She had a terrible experience. She waited for 7 hours and finally the agent pointed at the California record, said it showed only 1 year experience and refused to accept any of the older licenses (which showed 3 year total experience). We talked to the agent’s supervisor and he said the same thing.

We are going to try again in Brampton. We went to Metro East because it is closer to our apartment. I had gone to Brampton earlier because I had other work in that area that day.