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Hi everyone,
I’m in a unique situation where I work in the US and also hold Canadian PR. My PR card is expired and I need to renew it in order to travel seamlessly to US and return back to Canada. I’m almost 6 months short of meeting the residency considering my physical stay in Canada. However, my ex-wife who is a Canadian citizen lived outside of Canada with me before the divorce for almost 8 months. If I count her days, I am able to meet the residency. At the time she lived with me, she wasn’t working.
I have following questions:
1. Will I be able to renew my PR card if I include her days outside of Canada with me?
2. Given the fact that we are now divorced, does that affect the application?
3. She was not working while she accompanied me and was my dependent. Can this be an issue if I go ahead and file for the renewal?
I do have pictures with dates and a few documents to prove that we were together.
Looking for the valuable inputs from the people on this forum.
Generally a period of time during which a PR is living with their Canadian citizen spouse outside Canada will be given credit toward the Residency Obligation for those days they are "
ordinarily" residing together outside Canada.
As
@canuck78 references, there are situations in which this credit is not given. These appear to be relatively uncommon exceptions. You may be at risk, but most of the exceptions arise in the context of an application for a PR Travel Document and some isolated instances attendant a Port-of-Entry examination, not in the context of a PR card application. Address (residency) history outside Canada in conjunction with the divorce may be something that increases the risk for you.
There is an extensive discussion of this credit and the potential who-accompanied-whom question in the topic where I posted the following late last year (best to read that discussion from its beginning back in 2018):
PR Residency Obligation and Accompanying Canadian Citizen Spouse Credit:
-- I have not noticed much if any activity regarding the RO credit given to a PR for days outside Canada while accompanying a Canadian citizen who is the PR's spouse that suggests any changes . . . except there was a somewhat recent podcast discussion in which a group of lawyers were wondering, one framing it as "speculating," whether IRCC might migrate toward a more strict application of this credit, a discussion arising in the context of how strictly IRCC approaches credit for days outside Canada pursuant to employment with a Canadian business
-- days a PR is outside Canada accompanying a Canadian citizen spouse are explicitly entitled to RO credit (it is NOT that IRCC only sometimes gives this credit, it is prescribed by statute) AND generally as long as the couple are living together, the PR will be allowed that credit subject to some quite uncommon, isolated exceptions in circumstances where the PR did not actually accompany their Canadian citizen spouse (and typically was not living in Canada before the couple lived outside Canada)-- -- it warrants emphasizing that those cases in which the so-called "who-accompanied-whom" issue comes up are unusual, that couples living together generally get the credit, NO who accompanied whom questions asked
That will not answer your questions. How this goes clearly depends on the specific details in the particular individual's case.
Does purpose/intent of travel (who accompanying whom) matter as long as both partners are living together? It isn’t mentioned anywhere.
It is mentioned to the extent it depends on the meaning of "
accompany," which does not mean the same thing as to "
live with," even though IRCC, and long before that CIC, interpreted the credit in a way that allowed it for periods the couple were ordinarily residing together outside Canada.
That noted, as I already stated,
NOT usually. . . . that is, the purpose or who was accompanying whom does not usually matter as long as the couple were ordinarily residing together.
In fact, if you read through the other, lengthy discussion about this, you might discern the real underlying question might not be
who-accompanied-whom but whether either was accompanying the other in moving outside Canada. Most of the cases in which this became the issue are cases in which the PR either did not reside in Canada at all (so could not be "
accompanying" their citizen spouse in going abroad, regardless which meaning of "
accompanying" is applied), or the relationship commenced after the PR was already living abroad, or the citizen spouse clearly joined the PR who was already living abroad.
As the other discussion illuminates, the
who-accompanied-whom issue typically involves what you might think are "
unique" circumstances (not all that unique, but uncommon with personal wrinkles), so how this issue might affect a particular individual will vary and depend on the specific unique or uncommon circumstances, and the less connection to a life in Canada the higher the risk likely is.
So, again, it is difficult to forecast how this is
likely to go, let alone how it actually will go, in your situation. The caution expressed by
@canuck78 is well founded.
And yeah, while the fact of the divorce probably should not directly influence the assessment of those days you were living together while still married, no stretch of imagination necessary to see this could easily be a factor triggering increased scrutiny and perhaps a stricter approach to assessing eligibility for the credit . . . noting, after all, and overall, if you are not married to a Canadian citizen and not currently living in Canada, your situation is outside the scope of the purpose for your PR status (that purpose being to allow you to PERMANENTLY settle IN Canada . . . which many seem to underestimate given how lenient and flexible the RO is, but to be clear, the purpose for allowing a person to have PR status is not to enable them to spend at least two in five years here, it is to allow them to live here permanently and not punish those whose circumstances in life require lengthy absences).
Note re edits: had difficulty linking to other topic.
One more edit (hoping just one)
regarding your personal situation, being "in" Canada in particular:
I notice that you say you are "
in" Canada. If you are currently living in Canada that probably reduces the risk; the longer and more clearly established you
currently are in Canada, the lower the risk that a PR card application will trigger inadmissibility proceedings (a 44(1) Report followed by a hearing with a Minister's Delegate), even if there is no credit allowed for the time you were living together abroad (that is, even if you are short of meeting the RO). As I referenced, even though assessing RO compliance does not depend on whether the PR is following through with permanently settling in Canada, this can be a very influential factor in the scope of scrutiny and how strictly the rules are applied. Still difficult to forecast how this will go for you if you are still employed in the U.S.
