COPR activation and return

[marcos.leandro.topa]

Hello all,

I hope you are well.

Me and my Wife have received our COPRs in the mail, with a validity of about a month. This happened as a consequence of a provincial nomination issued to our Express Entry application (NB was the province).

We were caught by surprise, as one month is not enough for us to wrap-up and go. So we're considering our options. That said, I have some questions that you may know the answer to:

1. Can the permanent residency status be confirmed/processed at any Canadian point of entry? Or only at the province and city of destination? (in our case, Fredericton NB)
2. How long does it take for our permanent resident statuses to be confirmed, and what does it involve?
3. (most important) We still have matters to settle before moving definitively to Canada, so we are considering going to Canada to activate our COPRs, regularize our permanent resident status", and then return for a period of 3 months to our country of origin (visa-exempt) and after that period move definitively to Canada. Is there any obstacle to this? What would we need to accomplish it, and how much time would it take to do it?

Any information you can provide would be very helpful.
Thank you very much.

Kind regards,

Marcos

 

[21Goose]

1. Yes, any port of entry can process your landing.
2. About an hour or so at the port of entry depending on how busy it is. It can be as quick as 20 minutes.
3. Yes, you can do this. Come to Canada for 2-3 days and then go back. The only thing you should do after landing officially is get your SIN numbers. This takes 30 min or so, and can be done at big airports (Toronto Pearson does it in the airport), or at any Service Canada branch. Also, you will need to give a Canadian address to get your PR cards. Without the PR cards you won't be able to fly back to Canada (you'll need a PRTD, or will have to drive in from the US)

Search for "soft landing" on the forum and you'll find tons of threads on this subject.

 

[gdsy101326]

Although you can technically "land" at any port of entry, as you are obtaining PR via PNP, I would strongly advise OP to do the landing at a New Brunswick border (e.g., driving from the U.S.), or be really prepared to explain & justify your intention to settle in the province that nominates you if you decide to "land" elsewhere. You can also demonstrate this by having a connecting flight to NB (say, landing at the Toronto airport). If you don't have any checked baggage, after successfully validating your CoPR, you can simply ditch the connecting flight to NB and get your SIN in Toronto, if you don't intend to travel to NB on this particular trip. (Note: Be sure to buy the return ticket from Toronto as a separate one-way ticket. If you were to buy a round-trip ticket and ditch a part of your itinerary, the return portion of your ticket will be cancelled by the airline.)

 

[marcos.leandro.topa]

1. Yes, any port of entry can process your landing.
2. About an hour or so at the port of entry depending on how busy it is. It can be as quick as 20 minutes.
3. Yes, you can do this. Come to Canada for 2-3 days and then go back. The only thing you should do after landing officially is get your SIN numbers. This takes 30 min or so, and can be done at big airports (Toronto Pearson does it in the airport), or at any Service Canada branch. Also, you will need to give a Canadian address to get your PR cards. Without the PR cards you won't be able to fly back to Canada (you'll need a PRTD, or will have to drive in from the US)

Search for "soft landing" on the forum and you'll find tons of threads on this subject.

Hello,

Thank you very much for your reply.

It's good that now we know what to search for; I didn't know this kind of approach was called "soft landing".

I assume the necessary funds will need to be available phisically upon activation of the COPR, right?

Thank you,

Marcos

 

[marcos.leandro.topa]

Although you can technically "land" at any port of entry, as you are obtaining PR via PNP, I would strongly advise OP to do the landing at a New Brunswick border (e.g., driving from the U.S.), or be really prepared to explain & justify your intention to settle in the province that nominates you if you decide to "land" elsewhere. You can also demonstrate this by having a connecting flight to NB (say, landing at the Toronto airport). If you don't have any checked baggage, after successfully validating your CoPR, you can simply ditch the connecting flight to NB and get your SIN in Toronto, if you don't intend to travel to NB on this particular trip. (Note: Be sure to buy the return ticket from Toronto as a separate one-way ticket. If you were to buy a round-trip ticket and ditch a part of your itinerary, the return portion of your ticket will be cancelled by the airline.)

Thank you very much for your reply. We're definitely considering the strategy you outlined, since beside our word, we have no way of proving that we do intend to settle in New Brunswick.

Regards,

Marcos

 

[marcos.leandro.topa]

1. Yes, any port of entry can process your landing.
2. About an hour or so at the port of entry depending on how busy it is. It can be as quick as 20 minutes.
3. Yes, you can do this. Come to Canada for 2-3 days and then go back. The only thing you should do after landing officially is get your SIN numbers. This takes 30 min or so, and can be done at big airports (Toronto Pearson does it in the airport), or at any Service Canada branch. Also, you will need to give a Canadian address to get your PR cards. Without the PR cards you won't be able to fly back to Canada (you'll need a PRTD, or will have to drive in from the US)

Search for "soft landing" on the forum and you'll find tons of threads on this subject.

Hello again,

We have one more question, if you will: do you think that providing an Ontario address to receive the PR cards will raise problems with Immigration Officers, considering our destination is New Brunswick? (I have family living in Ontario, you see)
We don't need to sign off the receival of the PR cards by mail ourselves, do we?

Thank you once more,

Marcos

 

[gdsy101326]

Providing an Ontario address on the spot can raise suspicion too, while you can circumvent this by using mail forwarding services (like UPS). This allows you to have a temporary NB address that forwards whatever it receives to your Ontario address. No sign-offs by you required. Proof of funds would also be ideal to have, but it doesn’t have to be cash/cheques in your hand. A bank statement should suffice. You might not even be questioned your intention to settle in NB, and you might not be asked for proof of funds, but the landing experience can vary greatly depending on the officer; hence, being extra-prepared to stay on the safe side never hurts.

 

[marcos.leandro.topa]

Hello all,

How much time between flights do you think is enough?

Thank you all very much.

Kind regards,

Marcos

 

[21Goose]

Hello all,

How much time between flights do you think is enough?

Thank you all very much.

Kind regards,

Marcos

3-4 hours should be plenty, barring any major flight delays.