Are you sponsoring your husband inland or outland? As far as I know if you submitted your application inland and you're a PR, you must be in Canada during the entire processing of your application. Outland processing might have different rules. I am a PR as well and I'm sponsoring my husband thru outland processing. We submitted our application on May 25, 2013 and got sponsorship approval on June 21, 2013. I always wanted to go back in my home country(Philippines) and stay with my husband while waiting for his application approval. Just to make sure, I called multiple time to CIC and talked to different people from there, I asked them if it's ok to leave Canada while I'm sponsoring my husband, I specify that my application is outland and I am a permanent resident. All of them said it's fine and I can stay outside Canada for up to three years. As a permanent resident, we have a residency obligation which is you have to be present in Canada for exactly 2 years within 5 yr. period. Right now I'm here in the Philippines and staying with my husband since July 27, 2013 and planning to go back to Canada when my hubby get his visa, hopefully on January.