IrisSphere said:
I know this may be debated here, but just to make sure i understand - does this extension essentially mean that PRs with visa-exempt passports may be able to board the planes under the old system without PR cards or PRTDs?
My husband is still waiting for his PR card after more than 100 days (thanks CIC for changing photo specs), and we are evaluating all our options for his return on Mar 24.. Of course, will lean towards the safe of applying for PRTD but honestly don't understand how he is supposed to prove "future residency obligation" if not even 6 months passed since he became PR.
May be allowed to board a flight by displaying a visa-exempt passport is the operative principle. May, or may not.
His situation, however, is a prime example of the differences at issue here.
The position I understand
Rob_TO to be advancing is that there is no reason for him to bother obtaining a PR TD on the basis there is not even a substantial risk of being denied boarding if he presents a visa-exempt passport.
My view is that there is at least a substantial risk of encountering a problem boarding the flight, so the prudent course of action would be to obtain a PR TD.
By the way, he should have no problem obtaining a PR TD, at least none related to residency obligation issues. Any PR who has been a PR less than three years is per se still in compliance with the PR Residency Obligation, as there are still at least two years left in which to meet the PR RO. No need to proffer let alone prove he will. The calendar allows he can and that constitutes compliance with the PR RO.
Rob_TO:
As I said, I disagree with your characterization. But I see no benefit in debating the underlying details. I would just note that how it goes at the airport varies greatly around the world, generalizations are prone to being more misleading than helpful, and how it has gone at ten or twenty airports in particular hardly illuminates much about how it is likely to go at others, let alone as to how it will go for any particular PR in that PR's particular circumstances.
As I also said, I cannot quantify the actual risk. You quibble with the characterization that it is "substantial." Saying there is a substantial risk means there is some
actual risk as opposed to merely an apparent but only remote, rather unlikely risk. Perhaps, you are suggesting (as it appears you are), that the lawyer Kurland is advancing a specious concern, exaggerating the risk, but there have been enough anecdotal reports of problems, some going back even several months ago, that there is obviously some real risk.
After all, you even admit that to succeed the PR may need to overtly deceive, or at least evade revealing PR status. Frankly I do not see the efficacy of pursuing a course of action dependent on succesfully concealing information if there is any reasonable alternative. I cannot comprehend recommending an attempt to evade the rules when there is no compelling need to do so.
keesio said:
dpenabill - my wife is a PR while I am a Canadian citizen. We both also hold US citizenship. We also are NEXUS members. When we travel to the US, we use our NEXUS cards to board the flight. Hence when we travel to the US, We travel with our US passports and NEXUS cards. She leaves her PR card at home and I leave my Canadian passport at home. The reason being that we use the Global Entry kiosks at YYZ when going to the US and that requires a US passport while when coming back into Canada via YYZ, we use the NEXUS kiosks where we just need the NEXUS cards to use it. And we use our NEXUS cards to board the flights. I'm wondering if this will change with the eTA where I need to carry my Canadian passport also (and my wife must carry her PR card). Your opinion is most welcome on this. Thanks
This is in the realm of how things will go
practically rather than technically. Moreover, I am not personally much acquainted with the details of using the NEXUS program. Way beyond the scope of what I can guess.
That noted, my guess is that PRs who are also American and flying from the U.S. to Canada are
not likely to have a problem displaying their American passport. But technically the rule nonetheless does specify that as a PR, the PR is obligated to display a PR card or PR TD to board a flight to Canada. But travel between the U.S. and Canada is already way, way, way more controlled now than it was not very many years ago, so it seems unlikely to me that there will be any rush to impose any more controls, or otherwise make it any more difficult, despite the technical rules. Basically Canada does not want to discourage Americans from traveling to Canada, even if Canada has dramatically elevated its screening for inadmissibility (our Blues Festival here, for example, has this year decided to go all Canadian in the acts . . . it has just gotten so unpredictable at the border for band members and their staff, many of whom tend to have things like drunk driving or assault or minor drug convictions . . . many of these people used to come and go often, without a hint of a problem, but in the last five to ten years the border has really tightened).
I recently forgot my Canadian passport and had no problem with displaying my U.S. passport, but that was traveling by auto. Going the other way, the U.S. POE can range from politely reminding me to have my U.S. passport to severely admonishing me; I have heard others report more difficulty than that at U.S. airports, including an extended hold in secondary and an unfulfilled threat to deny entry and send the person back to Canada.
But I'd guess a fifth or at least a tenth of the people I know in this town are also U.S. citizens (many just PRs, many Canadian citizens . . . I know many PRs who have been PRs for many, many years with no plans to become Canadian citizens), many of those who are Canadian citizens went to school or worked for years in the States.
Despite the extent to which, historically, many reports indicated no problems returning to Canada by air by displaying a U.S. passport, among the PRs I know here who are U.S. citizens, they would cancel trips if they could not obtain a renewed PR card in time, if their travel plans were for
outside North America (not willing to so much as obtain a PR TD in the destination country). None worry at all about travel between the U.S. and Canada (to their detriment on occasion, such as when children who do not have formal status on the other side of the border are accompanying them, and it does not go so easy as they thought it was going to go, this occuring relative to both directions). In any event, perhaps their conservative, risk-adverse propensities have rubbed off on me some. Or perhaps I am biased because, after having slipped past the gates more than a few times in life (no confessions intended), I look back and swipe the sweat from my brow, sigh with relief, and am glad to be at a stage in life I am comfortable choosing to be risk-adverse. There was a time in my life when short-term convenience severely clouded my judgment. Whew! Made it anyway. Along the way I have seen more than a few who didn't slip past the gates. In retrospect, despite my own experience otherwise, I can emphatically
not recommend pursuing the shortcut. I am a firm believer that the best approach when in doubt is to follow the rules, and otherwise, to follow the rules.
