Precisely!
Note: at this stage you want things to take LONGER. @zardoz is wrong about time in Canada after applying for the PR card. Your days in Canada now do count. Unfortunately, however, you still do not have enough days in Canada to be in compliance. So you want IRCC to take longer . . . if you stay and they do not schedule a formal examination of your RO compliance until after November, and by then you meet the RO, you would not even be subject to losing PR status at all.
BUT if they decide to proceed with RO enforcement, there will be an interview scheduled before November. And even though you get credit for days in Canada in the meantime, you will still be short.
As others have said in the vein of shoulda and coulda . . . as in not make the PR card application . . . but that is history now.
For now, about all you can do is WAIT. Be sure that IRCC has valid current contact information. Be sure to watch for and follow-up with any and every communication you get from IRCC. Contrary to what others suggest, be sure to be prepared to fully and honestly explain YOUR actual reasons for why you delayed coming to Canada. No point in worrying about how good your reasons are. They will for sure be considered. Whether an IRCC officer will think you deserve to keep PR status now is a decision for them to make. Your commitment in coming here and staying the last year and a half should help.
Very difficult to forecast how this will go. If you are called for an interview, be sure to go. If you can afford a lawyer, good idea to consult with a lawyer before then. In either event, if you are issued a 44(1) Report following an interview, you can appeal. You remain a PR pending the appeal. You can get a one-year PR card pending the appeal.
There are two promising/hopeful signs:
-- CBSA let you through without Reporting you EVEN when there was some focus on your failure to meet the RO, and
-- IRCC has not aggressively proceeded to take action on your falling short of the RO
In conjunction with you being in Canada most of the last year and a half, these offer some real hope that IRCC will be lenient if not generous. Your explanation as to why it took so long to move here may indeed be a significant part of this.
The less hopeful sign is that your PR card application has been referred to the local office. This is the specific procedure for conducting the formal adjudication of RO compliance. Someone at CPC-Sydney has already concluded you are in breach of the RO, triggering a referral to the local office for an investigation. All you can do now is work with the system, and if asked, when asked, make your best case, your honest case about why you delayed the move to Canada, and honestly state your plans for a future life in Canada.
Some further observations:
There have been sporadic reports, in this forum, of successfully sponsoring family PR visa applications from PRs who were short of Residency Obligation compliance when they made the sponsorship application. About as many of these reports as the number reporting the sponsorship application triggering a RO compliance examination.
Indeed, reports of running into RO compliance enforcement proceedings triggered by an application to sponsor family class PR visas have been too sporadic to support any conclusion other than there is a RISK of the sponsorship application triggering RO enforcement.
In particular, reports of either sort are too sporadic to discern much about how IRCC typically deals with these situations, except there enough reports to recognize that at least SOMETIMES the sponsorship application triggers RO compliance examinations with the potential for being Reported and issued a Departure Order (this is an internal IRCC local office procedure, the Report issued by the ID and similar to CBSA issued Reports then reviewed by a Minister's Delegate).
And it appears it did not directly trigger RO enforcement action here either, given that it has been well over year since that application was made and that has so far not triggered an ID hearing as to RO compliance. There should have been, by now, a decision about eligibility to sponsor, so I am not at all clear about what might be happening there (I do not follow PR applications much anymore so I am not much acquainted with the current process or processing times).
In any event, in the meantime, a PR card application has been made and that has triggered a referral to the local office . . . so that is clearly now the proceeding where RO compliance is at issue.
Leading to . . .
Yes, RO compliance can be assessed by IRCC based on the date of the PR card application (not the date it is received by IRCC but the date the application is made), and it will be for the purpose of determining whether to refer the application for further processing as to RO compliance itself.
HOWEVER, time in Canada after making the PR card application does count toward RO compliance IF and WHEN there is a formal determination made. As a matter of law, days in Canada count. They only do not count AFTER a 44(1) Report or Removal/Departure Order has been issued, or after an application for a PR TD has been denied.
PR status cannot be adjudicated as lost based on number of days in Canada on the date the PR card application was made (with some practical exceptions, such as where the PR has left Canada and is abroad), but must be made based on days in Canada within five years of the date of a formal RO compliance examination.
Unfortunately for the OP here, if the local office decides to promptly proceed with a formal interview regarding RO compliance that could be scheduled and take place well before the OP has enough days in Canada to meet the RO. So the fact that days in Canada after making the PR card application count does not get the OP into RO compliance.
