Dear All,
I have renewed my PR card twice on the basis of Article 28 (2) a (ii) " outside Canada accompanying a Canadian citizen who is their spouse or common-law partner or, in the case of a child, their parent. As my wife (and kids) have Canadian citizenship and living with myself outside Canada. We visit Canada on yearly basis.
My PR is expiring again next year. I am planning to apply for renewal for the third and final time. Would like to understand what are the chances of successful renewal and please share if you have experienced similar situation.
PR status cannot be renewed because it never expires. You do not need to renew the PR card to retain your PR status.
Of course many PRs living abroad in similar circumstances prefer to renew their PR cards for convenience in traveling to Canada, rather than apply for a PR Travel Document for travel to Canada.
To be eligible for a new PR card the PR needs to be IN Canada when applying.
REMEMBER to be honest about your actual address and work history in the application.
As you appear to apprehend, obviously a PR living abroad needs to show compliance with the PR Residency Obligation whenever subject to a RO compliance examination or determination, such as when applying for a new PR card, or applying for a PR Travel Document, or potentially whenever the PR arrives at a Canadian PoE applying to enter Canada (even though the PR is carrying a valid PR card).
As long as the PR abroad is accompanying a Canadian citizen spouse abroad, that time counts toward meeting the PR Residency Obligation (and you cite the applicable statute for this). This is usually shown by proof of relationship, proof of the spouse's Canadian citizenship, and proof of cohabitation. That is, to show you are accompanying a citizen spouse abroad, ordinarily it will suffice to show that you and your citizen spouse are living together abroad.
One potential wrinkle in the situation as you describe it is that this credit, toward meeting the RO based on accompanying a Canadian citizen spouse, is indeed based on the PR accompanying the citizen abroad, and not necessarily when the citizen is accompanying the PR abroad. Thus, while it still appears to be uncommon, sometimes IRCC or CBSA can assess whether it is the PR accompanying the citizen or the citizen accompanying the PR, and DENY credit in the latter situation.
You seem to describe your situation as though your citizen spouse is WITH YOU abroad, as if your spouse may be accompanying you rather than you accompanying your spouse. Whether this might pose an issue for you is very difficult to forecast and depends in large part on the particular circumstances.
As long as YOU were settled and living IN Canada BEFORE going abroad to live, and thus either you followed your citizen spouse abroad or you moved abroad together, it appears unlikely this issue will arise. If this is not the case, however, and particularly if your spouse moved abroad to be with you, you may want to look at some of the cases discussed and linked in another topic here which specifically discusses this issue; see
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/who-accompanied-whom-can-matter-for-prs-living-with-citizen-spouse-abroad-update.579860/
