I agree with this observation by scylla.
I do not know what chance you have. I disagree with the assertion the rule is so hard and fast that it is a serious violation if the airline allows you to board. Under the eTA rules the airlines has the FINAL say and they can indeed decide to allow a PR like you to board the flight. HOWEVER, that falls way, way short of suggesting there is much chance they will.
And as far as I understand, the airline does NOT pay a penalty or suffer any other detriment if you pass through the Canadian PoE OK . . . which it appears should be NO problem.
If this ticket was issued as part of a round-trip itinerary, it is possible that your boarding pass was already approved, or that this will otherwise suffice to tip the scales toward allowing you to board. Again, this is merely what is POSSIBLE. And I have no reason to doubt the assertion by others that it is NOT much likely . . . other than, again, there is the fact that the decision to allow boarding is ultimately for the airlines to make, which seems to be overlooked by some.
However this goes, please let us know. Similar situations are actually fairly common. Even if you benefit from an exception, and the airline allows you to board the flight, that does NOT mean anyone else should expect that to happen for them . . . but if you let us know how it actually goes, that will help us have a better idea if there is much chance at all that an airline might allow for such an exception.
Good luck!
The problem of any airline (including Canadian airline) is following:
1. If they bring somebody that will not be allowed to Canada, they have to bring him back (and here goes the fun part, as the destination where he came from does not need to be his country of citizenship and he could be refused there as well.
2. Except of that limited access to the PR database (and I would even dare to say, that there is no access and the machine is just reading some code from our PR card that is translated into validity). They do not have any access to the Canadian system in order to get proof if what you are saying is true. And lets be clear. Some people are extremely good lairs. No problem to tell a sob hurting story, no problem to name the details. So when discovered they will be back on the point 1.
3. If they have lot of back slash from Canada if they let anybody to pass in the plane is hard to tell. Also I believe, that there must be something prompting them to be hard about it.
4. And yes also even people with any type of TRV can be denied to enter Canada, then the airlines do have proof, that they have check the valid documents. At the end of the day, they are not immigration to make the final decision. So, here I am more like guessing, that such refusal are exempted of the returning rule. Not to mention that amount of such cases must be significantly lower.
What sucks for a PR holder is the system without any deadlines for PR renewal. Yes it comes mainly from a bit complicated rules of RO and also from the fact that they are checking criminality. However the biggest part of the RO could have been treated long ago, with proper exit data collecting (that would take care of app. 80% of cases where they try to determine if the RO were met or not).
So I guess the best way how to deal with the problem on a long term is to become citizen fast. And then hopefully get the express treatment when asking for passport or temporary passport document.
