Please, need specifics to be RN in Montreal!

Me, again. Wow, over a 100 views and 1 reply!
Thanks, janfrn! I checked out some of your other posts on this forum - you've been a lifesaver for many! If you don't mind, I'd like to take you up on your offer and converse via pm about whatever info you've dug up on Jewish General and others. Thank you!!!

For those, who've viewed this post hoping to get some answers (just like me, ha-ha), I can provide a little update on my progress.
OIIQ has finally replied to my numerous e-mails - boy, are they slow! Kinda gives me an idea of what to expect with them in the near future...
They didn't answer all of my questions, but said they're gonna send me an application packet. Let's hope that packet will cover the rest of my questions about credentials check.
So far, my general understanding is that the application packet has a form that the applicant has to send to his nursing school (and high school, and all other schools you ever went to), and the schools have to mail your transcripts back to OIIQ directly. Once they have all your transcripts, they check your education against Quebec requirements and issue a report. That report lets you know whether or not you need to take some more classes/clinicals before you can sit for the licensure exam.
Regardless of whether you need to get some more classes or not, there's one course you have to take - that's Integration of Nursing Knowledge in Quebec. It can take a few weeks or several months - OIIQ's committee determines that based on your education and work experience.
Once you complete this course, you become CPN (Candidate for the Profession of Nursing) and can begin work under RN supervision (I was told the pay for CPN in Quebec is around $22/hour) until OIIQ lets you take the licensure exam.
The exam is given in September and March, and, unlike the NCLEX in US, you don't get to choose your exam date. You have to take it when OIIQ tells you or you lose your CPN status. However, if you take the exam and fail, you can continue working as CPN and you get 3 more tries within 2 years to pass the exam. The exam is given in French everywhere in Quebec except Montreal, where you have a choice between French and English. I've already bought and received OIIQ's preparation guide for the exam in English (took 5 weeks to get here). The material itself looks very similar to NCLEX exam. In fact, I was told that many Canadian nursing candidates use US NCLEX prep guides to study for the Quebec exam. However, the form is different. There's a theory part, which you take on the first day of the exam, and it's all short answer questions (the exam's not computerized, and it takes 6-8 weeks to get your results). The second day of the exam is the practice part, where you have an actor playing a patient and an observer who present you with a real-life medical situation and grade your reaction. It's not nearly as scary as it sounds, and the OIIQ's prep guide gives you a pretty good idea how to approach the practical part of the exam.
Most of what I said above can be found on OIIQ's website, and I guess I'll keep you posted of my progress as I move along.
For myself, I'm still unclear about:
1) whether I'll be exempt from OIIQ's French exam. The website says that with my 4 years of college-level French I will be, but OIIQ hasn't confirmed it. It appears they don't want to give any definite answers till they receive all my transcripts. Bureaucrats, but what can you do?
2) how will OIIQ deal with the transcript from my nursing school in Russia. I mean, they gonna get it in Russian language - who and at what point will translate it for them? I'll keep bugging OIIQ with this question - maybe they'll finally break.
3) How much of my education and work experience will OIIQ take into account? My guess is I won't get an answer till I go through their entire application process and they issue their report. Seeing how "fast" they are, I don't expect to receive that report anytime earlier than 6 months.

Doesn't look like this thread is gonna be of much more use. But I still hope to get some info on English-speaking hospitals in Montreal - I'll start a new thread for that. Good luck to me.
Thanks, everybody.