If only IRCC would update the form(s), Appendix A and the Document Checklist to remove the word `obligation' whenever/wherever it falls immediately after the word `residency' in terms of supporting documents needed from the PR. Would that not be a quantum leap towards clarifying things, instead of continuing to fly SO close to the sun?
Residency Obligation, in terms of a PR maintaining their status, means to spend 730 days of more in each rolling 5 year period in Canada (or abroad if accompanying a Canadian spouse or partner). Here's an example from IMM 5644e (Document Checklist):
Proof showing that you meet the residency obligation in the past five (5) years immediately before the application. Please refer to Appendix A of the instruction guide for a list of the documents required.
Why not change `obligation' to `requirement'?!
This is light years away from what IRCC is trying to, but failing miserably, convey in the aforementioned `clusterfack'; saying that a PR needs to show proof of meeting the residency...obligation.
No comment regarding how IRCC should rewrite instructions, forms, or checklist.
But an easy comment on why IRCC references the "
Residency Obligation" . . . that's the language used in the statute, Section 28 IRPA. Section 28(1) specifies that PRs "
must comply with a residency obligation," and Section 28(2) specifies the provisions that "
govern the residency obligation," including Subsection 28(2)(a) which prescribes what days count as complying "
with the residency obligation."
IRCC does NOT have the authority to change this term. (Parliament could through the legislative process, which would require adopting a Bill amending IRPA).
IRCC might employ other terms in its instructions, forms, and checklists, including paraphrasing, but probably sticks with using the statutory terms when making references to particular statutory conditions or qualifications.
Apart from an academic discussion about how such things should be written, which will have no impact whatsoever, for a forum like this suggested paraphrasing might help answer questions about what to include. That said, for the PR in compliance based on presence in Canada, just emphasizing that all that is needed is just two documents which show residency in Canada (something to show the PR's residential address in Canada or to show engagement in activity in Canada) seems the most direct, least cumbersome, least confusing way to answer these questions.
By the way, the term "
requirements" itself carries a lot of baggage, and getting into how and why and when "
what-is-required" is not necessarily the same as what the "
requirements" are, risks sliding down a very slippery slope into a morass more beguiling than wrangling with sorting out the distinction in "
proof" and "
proof" and "
to prove." Given the reception parsing "proof" has evoked, along with an avalanche of noise, distraction, and to my view distortion, probably best to steer clear of getting into the weeds trying to explain why being required to comply with the RO does not amount to a requirement, other than to caution that way lies a muddled mire bound be more confusing than illuminating.
Another by the way: I do not know that the term "
obligation" works better than others would (again, I don't think much about how to rewrite the law or IRCC's information), but since a breach of the RO does not necessarily cause the loss of PR status, and moreover, in particular, the RO is not self-enforcing, finding suitable alternatives is, at best, tricky and would have to be carefully evaluated in reference to many other aspects of the law and the regulations governing PRs.
Generally it is easier to sort out what the instructions mean (as best we can, noting even that is not all that easy sometimes) and focus on that in response to questions.
