I will do my landing in Canada in early December. The problem is that soon after landing, my Common-Law Partner and I will visit my family in the US, before we have received PR cards. We have already bought tickets and made plans. It is the first time we will be back in North America after two years, so our family really want to see each other again.
I am American and my partner is Japanese. I know that we can re-enter Canada using a private vehicle with our COPR papers and Passports.
Yes. And this should be particularly routine for newly landed PRs.
I have two questions.
1) Can anyone give clarification on what Canada considers a private vehicle? We are planning to use a ride share, where we share the cost of gas with someone ( a stranger) in exchange for a seat in their (private) car. Does this count as a commercial carrier? Are hitch hiking, riding a bicycle, or walking across the border viable options?
If you can make such arrangements, a ride share crossing the border is OK.
Note: as an American citizen the rules requiring a PR to present either a PR card or PR Travel Document do NOT apply to you. An American passport should be enough to be allowed abroad commercial transportation to Canada.
For other Canadian PRs, the DIFFERENCE that matters is about being allowed to board the means of transportation headed to Canada. That is, the issue is what the PR needs to present to the TRANSPORTATION PROVIDER, the COMMERCIAL CARRIER.
For example, I do not have personal experience but some report that even some (not all) commercial buses
might let a PR board a bus driving into Canada. There is a possibility the traveler may be separated from the bus at the PoE, due to additional screening, but this gets the traveler to Canada. (I am not sure how things go these days if a bus passenger needs Secondary screening at the PoE; some time ago, going the other way, into the States, I was the one person on a bus the U.S. officials subjected to a rather lengthy examination and unfortunately for the other passengers, they all had to wait for me to be cleared to enter the States, and yes that tended to make the rest of the trip unpleasant).
PRs are entitled to enter Canada. No particular documentation or mode of transportation is required. Like all travelers (including Canadian citizens) a PR must, of course, make an application to enter Canada, but that is accomplished by simply showing up at a PoE. Like all travelers (including Canadian citizens) the PR must submit to examination, but once the traveler is identified as a Canadian PR, that entitles the traveler to enter Canada (the traveler may still need to respond to further examination, such as regarding customs matters, or respond to questions about PR Residency Obligation compliance if it appears there is an issue, and so on . . . but once identified as a PR, the border officials are required to allow the person to enter Canada).
Observations here about using a land-crossing PoE to return to Canada are about what is PRACTICAL, the most common way in which a PR without a PR card and without a PR Travel Document can return to Canada. Technically the PR can fly to Canada, if the PR finds someone with a plane who will allow the PR abroad a flight to Canada (even commercial airlines have discretion to do this, even though they generally and probably almost always will NOT).
So basically you can ride with anyone who will let you ride with him or her, no matter what vehicle is used.
AND sure, there are numerous locations where pedestrians are allowed to cross the border (Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls is an easy, scenic, and relatively short walk from a location in Niagara Falls, N.Y. where public transportation will drop passengers off, leaving a short walk to the bridge and across to Niagara Falls, Ontario, where there is plenty of public transportation available). Bicycling is a mode of transportation I often used to cross the border (recreationally, typically crossing back later the same day) in the past. And if the owner and driver of a vehicle allow you to ride in the vehicle, you can ride it to the border crossing, and at the PoE you will be allowed to enter Canada.
2) Will we have any problems leaving Canada and entering the US using a commercial bus?
The respective bus company dictates what documentation travelers must have. My impression is that this varies. (Going both directions.)
Otherwise, a U.S. citizen presenting a valid U.S. passport will not encounter problems being approved to enter the U.S. Obviously customs matters are separate and depend on what the traveler is carrying and declares.
U.S. law otherwise governs the rules for non-U.S. citizens, and of course that depends in large part on what passport the traveler presents. I do not know what the U.S. rules are for persons carrying a Japanese passport.
