Birth abroad

[sheik]

all of you are definetely right, you will not be able to maintain pr outside canada without being accompanied by canadian citizen and so on, please note that you are not a canadian citizen so your baby wont have access easy to canadian citizen if he is born outside canada. i think as others, make your life easy given birth in canada and stay out with the baby as aan accompanied canadian citizen is the best sugestion and you will be able to maintain your pr , stress free money wise

 

[steaky]

Another thing to keep in mind - if I'm not mistaken, only Canadians who are Canadian by birth can pass sponsorship to their children.

Yes you are mistaken. Naturalized Canadians can also pass their citizenship to their children.

@ on-hold,

From your previous post, I understand you are in fact an american.

So after the child is born in Thailand, get her american passport as soon as possible. This will enable you to bring her to Canada visa-exempted. However, you still need to sponsor her to live in Canada as PR. Depending on where she will be living in Canada, you might have to pay private health insurance for the child before she is eligible get provincial healthcare.

 

[skas13]

I gave birth to my son in India and I had a hard time getting birth certificates to get him his citizenship and then his passport. So you have to keep in mind that Canada takes almost a year to issue citizenship from birth abroad and I don't know about Thailand, but in India, it took me 3 months just to get my son's birth certificate.

So just for ease it might be better to have the baby in Canada. I wish I had as it was a lot of hoop jumping to get health cards, and citizenship and travel having him being born in India, and I am a Canadian citizen by birth, so you might have a little more trouble since you are PR's, and you need to be in Canada a certain amount of time.

I understand the culture, and I know it will be nice for you wife to be surrounded by family in a place she is familiar with, but you also need to think about your child's future and being born in Canada will just make things much easier for you both. You can always travel after the baby is born. I had my daughter in Canada and traveled back to India when she was 2 months, and she did awesome. It's just food for thought.

 

[skas13]

Oh, and, you have to wait 3 months once you are back in the country to get the baby's health card. What a stress, especially with a child and how easily they can hurt themselves or catch a virus. It was like crossing fingers hoping he wouldn't get hurt. But you can get insurance before you come back to Canada. I made that mistake I thought I could get it here, but you are supposed to get it before arriving.

 

[SchnookoLoly]

Yes you are mistaken. Naturalized Canadians can also pass their citizenship to their children.

@ on-hold,

From your previous post, I understand you are in fact an american.

So after the child is born in Thailand, get her american passport as soon as possible. This will enable you to bring her to Canada visa-exempted. However, you still need to sponsor her to live in Canada as PR. Depending on where she will be living in Canada, you might have to pay private health insurance for the child before she is eligible get provincial healthcare.

Look into details of what it means to carry an American passport. Seriously. USA is the only country that taxes by citizenship and not by residency - once the child turns 18 they will be liable for American income tax, regardless of where they are living and whether or not they have lived in America or even visited for that matter. (I am speaking from experience, my husband has American citizenship through his mother who was born there, and this is now causing us quite a headache as he can't renounce his citizenship until he's proven he's met his tax obligations, which he hasn't as he didn't even know he was required to file. He has never lived in the US, only visited a few times. This is causing us no end of headache.)

 

[on-hold]

Thanks for the warning about U.S. citizenship -- I'm aware of all that bullshit, and hate it myself, but I think that the benefits of having U.S. citizenship for future work or education opportunities are higher than the drawbacks. I know many Canadians who are in your situation who don't both filing U.S. taxes, for what that's worth . . . But I do myself. I'm sure that by the time my kid is 18 that stuff will be computerized enough that it won't be TOO much of a hassle. It only gets really thorny when you've been working in both countries in one year

One thing you should look into, though, is that having an RESP account is another thing entirely for Canadian residents who are U.S. citizens too. I opend one for my son, and I'm going to keep it going, but by cancelling the original and starting a second that only has my wife's name on it (she's a Thai citizen). This avoids huge potential liabilities for me -- my son will have to deal with it himself when he's 18, hopfully by then they've fixed the issue.

The birth certificate point is a good one -- but in Thailand, this is not a problem. The bureaucracy there isn't like India's.

And steaky, you are wrong -- children born abroad to Canadian citizens born abroad do not automatically receive Canadian citizenship. You should be more careful about the confident advice you throw around.

 

[samir304]

if you both r on pr status, i am sure your baby will get visa to live with you . its not
big deal. i agreed with your excuse that warm weather, social life is more better in
your country. ignore some ppl those dont know about your intention and point of
view.

 

[steaky]

And steaky, you are wrong -- children born abroad to Canadian citizens born abroad do not automatically receive Canadian citizenship. You should be more careful about the confident advice you throw around.

Where did I said that in this post? You are the one who should be more careful about words you throw around.

 

[on-hold]

Steaky, I'm sorry, you're right -- I read something into the exchange that wasn't there. I thought the poster you were replying to was saying "Only Canadians who are Canadian by birth can pass citizenship on to their children", which is true if you assume that it is automatic. But they didn't say "citizenship", they said "sponsorship", which doesn't mean anything. I read the original statement carelessly and saw you disagree with it -- I'll be more careful, my apologies.

 

[Pippin]

A +1 each to Steaky and On-hold for sorting out their understanding so nicely.
I whole-heartedly agree with the comments that recommend giving birth in Canada. I had a lengthy back and forth with a couple who had PR and went back to work in Europe, had a child there then faced the inevitable difficulty trying to meet the 2 year in Canada obligation. The baby's TRV was denied on the grounds the baby would not leave Canada at the end of the visa. Ties to Canada too strong. The couple would have had to leave the baby with grandparents or the couple live in separate countries for the duration if the sponsorship application. They wanted to keep the family together and gave up their PR as a result. It is your call and I think you are wise to understand all the ramifications of delivering in one country or the other. Best wishes for a safe and happy BIRTH DAY!

 

[rjessome]

Bottom line: If both you and your wife are PRs and the child is born outside of Canada, one of you will have to sponsor the child to become a PR of Canada. And that person must reside in Canada while the sponsorship is ongoing. For the child to travel to Canada before sponsorship is completed, you must apply for a TRV for the child. They do get refused sometimes but not that often. Most of the refusals I've seen in this type of situation come from the Middle East. Don't ask why because I don't know. Just saying what I've seen. Sponsorship of a dependent child is normally faster. No background or security checks and basic medicals. CIC tries to keep it to around 6 months max. Of course, that's not the same in all cases, again longer processing in the Middle East and Africa generally or any place where there is a high incidence of fraudulent documents like Pakistan. Asia is not usually too bad.

I don't know where residency obligations came into this arguement. It has nothing to do with the situation unless the wife would not have the opportunity to meet the requirement of residing in Canada for 2 years out of every 5 years. Perhaps it's a worry but easily remedied with sponsoring both the wife and child. However, likely not necessary.

Having family support is a HUGE deal to a pregnant woman. Maybe you have to have the experience of giving birth to understand that. To say Canada is "better" is one thing but there is NOTHING better than having your mother holding your hand and teaching you how to take care of this brand new little person in its first few months of life. Babies don't come with manuals. When I had my child I would have gone to the ends of the earth to have my mom with me for the first couple of months. It's scary being a new mom without family around you and a spouse who probably works full time. Add a new country to that equation. I can empathize with the wife for sure.

 

[steaky]

@ Pippin. A +1 to you too.

@ rjessome: Does the OP still need to apply a TRV for the child if the child get his/her US passport (the OP is US citizen)? If not, couldn't the child travel with the parents to Canada and have the sponsorship going?

 

[rjessome]

@ Pippin. A +1 to you too.

@ rjessome: Does the OP still need to apply a TRV for the child if the child get his/her US passport (the OP is US citizen)? If not, couldn't the child travel with the parents to Canada and have the sponsorship going?

No the child would be visa exempt if they had a US passport. They would enter Canada as a visitor like every US citizen.

 

[steaky]

No the child would be visa exempt if they had a US passport. They would enter Canada as a visitor like every US citizen.

That's what I thought.

 

[Rob_TO]

if you both r on pr status, i am sure your baby will get visa to live with you . its not
big deal.

Sorry but this is horrible advice. Getting a visa for a baby can be a very big deal, and visas in this case have been denied many times. As another poster just pointed out above.
If you want to offer advice you need to be realistic and not just say "everything will be ok" since that isn't helping anyone.