Clarifcation regarding eTA requirements:
The notice I was thinking about was more recent than that which is posted on the CIC website and my initial recall was mostly correct,
the only nationality completely exempted from the eTA requirements will be U.S. nationals.
French citizens who are residents of St. Pierre and Miquelon will also be exempted if they seek to enter Canada directly from St. Pierre and Miquelon (which is mandated due to a treaty with France).
The other exemptions are limited, specific exemptions, and better examples would be the exemption provided for members of the British Royal Family, crew members for means of transportation in transit, and certain travelers in transit. Most of the exemptions are the same as those listed in the current
Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulation section 190(3).
Reminder, the visa exempt nationalities are listed in section 190(1)(a) of the regulations.
The exemptions from the eTA will be (assuming the regulation is adopted) listed in new section 7.1(3) and the full proposed section 7.1 is published in the Gazette, now archived (see
Gazette Part I Vol 148 (2014) and the notice published June 21, 2014).
By the way, once obtained it will be
good for five years, so long as the traveler is traveling on the same passport. So it is not as if it will have to be obtained for every trip.
Additionally, as I previously indicated, it will
only apply to Foreign Nationals (FNs) from visa-exempt countries. (FNs who are from a country which is not visa exempt must, of course, obtain a visa to board a flight to Canada, and the eTA will not apply to a FN who holds a temporary resident visa.)
So it really does
not apply to Permanent Residents, recognizing that PRs are
not Foreign Nationals. (Allowing, again, the question I have already raised: a PR using a passport from a visa-exempt country for travel to Canada, rather than a valid PR card, that is, traveling as a FN rather than as a PR.)
I tend to agree with
PMM, however, that the implementation of this is likely to be accompanied by elevated scrutiny of at least
some returning PRs, since as I suggested above it is all part of an overall trend at CBSA and CIC to more strictly enforce Canada's immigration laws and regulations, including the PR Residency Obligation.
By the way: anyone interested in considering
actual cases where POE officers issue the 44(1) report (inadmissibility report) for non-compliance with the PR Residency Obligation, followed very shortly by the issuance of a Removal Order (which is pursuant to 44(2)), can find the
officially published cases at the CanII site by searching for cases involving "Removal Order" and "residency obligation." Most of the cases are appeals of rejected applications abroad for a PR Travel Document, and some are for in-Canada decisions arising from adjudications following very foolish applications for a new card by PRs in breach of the RO (though some of these in-Canada adjudications are follow-up procedures where the POE officers initiated an investigation rather than immediately issuing the inadmissibility report), but by focusing on those cases in which Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was a party and those in which the 44(1) report
and the Removal Order (often referred to in the decisions as a "Departure Order") were issued
on the same day, one can find cases which are mostly those where the POE officers issed the 44(1) report and a supervisor or such issued the Removal Order. See, for example,
IAD decision upholding Removal Order for Xiao Xiao Zhang (The 44(1) report and Removal Order both issued at POE August 12, 2012; challenge to authority of the officer issuing the Removal Order rejected, ruled to be a proper Minister's Delegate.)
An interesting example tending to illustrate that the approach leans toward strict rather than lenient, is found in the
(Voulgaris v. Canada) decision. I am not sure
this (Voulgaris v. Canada) is a POE case, although that seems likely (even though it is not for sure indicated), in any event the report was issued as was, then, a Removal Order by the "Minister's delegate" . . . and appealed. At the hearing on the appeal, the Minister (actually a representative of the Minister of course) admitted the evidence showed the PR was physically present in Canada for
869 days and conceded that the appeal should be granted, setting aside the departure order. This involved an Australian national, so perhaps (guessing, the decision does not say) he was returning to Canada using a visa-exempt passport rather than a valid PR card, but as I said, this tends to illustrates an approach leaning more toward strict than lenient, including at the POE.
