Border services officers will assess the circumstances surrounding the student’s travel and consider, for example, whether any of the following apply:Thanks for posting the link here - so now, it's clear that students with online classes should start studying online from home for the fall term.
I hope they eventually change the 50% limit for PGWP eligibility. They may need to increase the limit till which we can study from abroad - if supposing the January term is also online and our travel is still non-essential at that point too.
- they are established, residing and studying in Canada. If they are established in Canada, their return is non-discretionary
- they are expected to begin studying upon arrival after completing their quarantine
- their presence in Canada is necessary for their continued participation in the program (such as in laboratories or workshops)
- pursuing online studies is not an option for their school or program or not possible from their home country (for example, due to internet restrictions or bandwidth limitation)
- the semester has been cancelled or the person will begin studying later in the year
In fact, it says that the border services officer will see if ANY of the following applies.
If you're traveling two weeks before your study date, you should be good. Especially if you are coming from a country from Asia that has a huge time difference with Canada, like in my case the time difference as well as internet connectivity issues, both work in my favor.
The 'essential travel' condition is for students who are traveling months before the program, whose program got moved to a later semester and are still finding it okay to travel on their study permit that was approved before 18th March 2020.
I think this is IRCC making it more than clear who is and isn't allowed to enter.
If CBSA was denying entry to students with online classes, we would have heard of or seen cases complaining here about the denial. Infact we are hearing about people being allowed to enter.