Thanks a lot for you detailed reply, depenabill!
In October 2017 I applied for PR card renewal based on H&CC as I did not meet RO. In June 2018 I travelled to Canada and was admitted at PoE at US-Canada border after waiting for an hour in the CBSA building. They said everything was ok and I could go. Later in June, I received a letter from local IRCC Office with an interview date in June. I was not available on that date and offered them alternative dates. They acknowledged my unavailaibilty and responded that did not have slots for July or August and that they would invite me to an interview starting with September. In August I tried to enter Canada in my husbands car. After 10 minutes of questions the officers told me to fill in a questionnaire with the dates of my presence in Canada which I did. Then after half hour they gave me a removal order to sign. Five minutes after they printed out and gave me to sign the inadmissibility report.
. . .
I know that I do not have to leave Canada before the appeal is pending. However, if I lose the appeal, how do I certify my departure if I left before? I know that Canada does not want to punish me for not having a certificate. But someone in a visa office overseas can simply decide that I need an authorization to return because there is no certificate of departue on file. I have had a lot of negative experience with CIC as a student, visitor, or permanent resident when they acted unprofessionaly, went beyond deadlines, put wrong data into documents, or made rules on the spot. Of course, nobody ever took responsibility for this.
It appears that odds of making a successful appeal are low. A
lawyer, however, could review the facts and circumstances more thoroughly and offer a far more informed opinion than me.
I am still NOT clear what happened. A 44(1) Report is a readily recognizable document. You do not confirm you received a 44(1) Report. If you received a Removal Order but NO 44(1) Report, again that suggests you had already lost PR status. A different scenario. Not about a PR being issued a Removal Order but about a Foreign National being issued a Removal Order. I have not paid much attention to the details in the latter situation. And cannot offer much at all.
But if you were still a PR when you arrived at the PoE with your spouse, and issued a 44(1) Report, then issued the Removal Order, the situation is manageable and there really should be no significant concern about verifying your departure from Canada. Especially if you make the appeal, you would not need to depart Canada at all unless and until you lose the appeal (which seems most likely) . . . so if for example you participate in the appeal via teleconferencing from abroad, there is no issue about any departure from Canada.
In any event, you do report completing the written RO questionnaire and it appears that is what the Removal Order was based on, which strongly suggests there was a 44(1) Report. Which you could still appeal.
So, assuming this is indeed a 44(1) Report based Removal Order:
(Again, if it is something else, I have little to offer.)
Nothing wrong with making the appeal and going through the process. A negative outcome seems very likely but while the appeal is pending you could visit Canada or even come to stay as a PR. And so long as you make an application for a special PR TD within a year of the last time you were physically present in Canada, there should be no problem getting one. You should even be able to get a one year PR card if you apply for it while IN Canada (if the appeal is decided in less than that year, and you lose, obviously that card will NO longer be valid).
Since the underlying problem is how little time you spend in Canada, authorities are not likely to be worried much about you staying when you do not have authorization to stay. The certification of departure (for emphasis: assuming this is the 44(1) Report scenario) should NOT be a problem, not be a real issue. Especially NOT given the fact you have in fact left Canada. (Must caution: this aspect of your reporting about how things went down is one of the things which signal the possibility this is not about a 44(1) Report based Removal Order, but for now I am assuming it is.)
Thus, as I previously noted: UNLESS you have lost PR status due to some reason other than failing to meet the PR Residency Obligation, there are multiple ways to navigate going forward which will allow you to
(1) keep PR status (such as making a successful appeal, assuming there are grounds to support keeping status, but noting it appears more likely you will lose the appeal), OR
(2) to visit Canada pending an appeal, OR
(3) to visit Canada if you do not appeal, or after losing the appeal, and
(4) probably again, later, become a PR if sponsored by an eligible spouse (best to wait to do this only when you are actually ready to live in Canada).
And certification of departure does not loom significantly in any of these.
It appears you may have had some bad advice along the way. The odds of keeping PR status after being in breach of the PR Residency Obligation are rarely good, even with fairly strong H&C reasons, BUT they are especially bad odds UNLESS the PR returns to Canada to stay and in fact stays. The PR who is in breach of the RO and who applies for a new PR card relying on H&C reasons and then leaves Canada is virtually wasting time and the application fee.
The PR who appeals a 44(1) Report Removal Order and then leaves Canada is almost always only delaying the inevitable.
PR status is so the person can live in Canada. The government has very little reason or incentive to waive a breach of the RO for someone who is not in fact living in Canada.
Overall:
I cannot conclusively dismiss the importance of certification of departure. Mostly because it is still not clear what you were issued. Not all Removal Orders are equal.
But I can say that certification of departure should be of little or no import if your Removal Order was based on a 44(1) Report issued during that same PoE event.
Assuming it is a 44(1) Report based Removal Order, whether you appeal, or not, is a personal decision. Odds are you will lose PR status. Soon if you do not appeal. Or later, when the appeal is lost (probably). Properly obtained visitor status should be relatively easy to obtain (you have, after all, a proven track record of NOT staying too long in Canada) and should suffice until you are ready to come to live in Canada. At which point you can apply for PR status again. The loss of PR status for a breach of the PR RO has NO NEGATIVE impact on this. Of course you will need to be eligible, either to be a sponsored spouse or otherwise (Express Entry for example).
Then, finally, in particular:
I am not fudging anything. I sincerely do not know if a certificate of departure that contains someone else's data (it states that I left Canada to the US by car on the date when I could not have been in Canada) is a valid one. If I had gone through arrivals to immigration with an invalid certificate having only 50 minutes before the next flight, I could have got stuck if they needed to fill out and print a new one, let a lone lines at the Immigration and departure security. This is why I decided not to take the risk. But is it a valid excuse for the Immigration?
To be clear, I was NOT suggesting you were fudging anything. But to also be clear, I was emphasizing that it is best to give an honest, truthful explanation, period.
NO excuses. Just the facts. Rather little explanation of why UNLESS specifically asked why. And, if asked why, the truth, in as honest, simple terms as possible. "Not enough time" to do it and catch the connecting flight, that seems a rather direct answer. Trying to elaborate tends to make things sound more suspicious than they really are. (What sounds good in a person's head tends to mostly be the sound of their own voice, not the dictates of reason.)
In the meantime, let's be frank, from Canada's perspective it most likely appears you are NOT settling and staying in Canada, and thus instead it appears you are working the system to try and keep PR status notwithstanding no present or near-future plans to stay permanently. Appearances matter. Some more than others.
Then, when a PR has process pending in which the PR's compliance with the RO is in question, entering Canada by car, rather than flying directly to Canada, tends to suggest the PR is avoiding a direct flight (or, what is sometimes called
Port-of-Entry shopping, which the Americans tend to get a lot more worked-up about but does not make a good impression on Canadian officers either) . . . and especially if the PR does not have a valid PR card, that tends to confirm that suspicion. And if the individual otherwise flies to or from Canada, no need to connect the dots to see a picture. Might not be the true picture. But it tends to be a rather obvious picture. Again, appearances can matter.
Which I am NOT saying characterizes your situation, but rather I am emphasizing that
GOING FORWARD from here, you are now under the microscope some, so best to focus on playing it as straight as possible. For example, if you are not planning to live in Canada in the rather near future, what you probably need is visitor status NOT PR status. (Again, nothing wrong in making the appeal to keep PR status awhile longer . . . but just be sure to be straight up in what you say, what information you give, including as to your own intentions.)
