Hi Anu,
You case is a little different from mine since my COPR was still valid when I traveled via land. I feel it's always going to be your own decison if it's worth a risk. What I can suggest would be to give it a shot since going by land would be the best bet and less regulations compared to air travel. You would need 2 solid reasons as I understand:
1) At checkpoint convince the officer that you traveled due to COPR expired and reissued. So don't want it to expire again so he would let you in canada
2)Once you get in the building, and here's the tricky part. You would have to convince the immigration officer the urgency and need of soft landing. Try to convince him that you would travel soon after wrapping up some work.
Again it's your decision and considering borders are open only for essential travel. You would have to decide.
Thanks for responding. Do we have to convince them? If we land by Air, I have heard generally they do not ask questions and the process is pretty simple. Let say if we enter the border via road and fail to convince officer then what are the consequences? Can they reject our application or it stands as is? Please help