Please Help PR card

[syedd]

Dear All,

I landed Canada a year ago and left it a month after without collecting my PR card. My wife then collected it few days after my departure and brought it down here where I am based at the moment.

My question is what will happen if I go back to Canada with my PR card. Would an immigration officer find out that I was not there in Canada when PR card was delivered because of the fact that it was not with me at the time of departure and that it gets swapped to record the departure ? this will also raise a question then who collected my PR card and also how it was delivered to me. Have my departure been recorded or not ? I have seen somewhere that carrying or posting some1 elses PR card is illegal.

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[Leon]

It is very unlikely that they will ask you how you got it and if they did, it is fine to tell them the truth. I think I have seen one person in the past state that it is illegal to mail or carry another person's PR card for transport but when asked to provide a link to that rule or law, they could not so therefore I consider it a rumour.

 

[syedd]

Thanks for getting back to me.

Do you think my departure been recorded when I left Canada 1 month after landing. Would that 1 month would be considered towards my residency quota which I spent in Canada before departure. I have noticed that on the back of PR card the permanent residence date is when I landed but the expiry date is five years from the date it was issued.

Cheers

 

[kelKel]

Anytime you've been physically present in Canada (even the month before you recieved your card) will be counted towards your residency requirement, 2 out of every 5 years.

 

[syedd]

thanks for your input.

then it would be 2 years out of 5 years and 45 days because i landed on 8th july and my card got delivered on 23 august 2010 with expiry date 24 august 2015 ? Also do u think that my departure would have been recorded when i left canada without pr card ?

 

[Leon]

It is always a 5 year window regardless of the expiry date of your PR card. The clock starts ticking on the day you land as a PR. You have to meet the residency requirements in your first 5 years as in any rolling 5 year window after that.

From what I have heard from other people, it does however seem that it is not always that hard to enter Canada if you have a valid PR card even if you don't meet the requirements. The immigration officer may not see that right away as you are entering Canada.

The problems for people who do that usually arise when they have to apply to renew their card or if they lose the card outside of Canada and need to apply for a travel document. At that time, they need to list all their absences from Canada in the previous 5 years and immigration may look at them carefully if they feel like and possible require them to prove what they state. If you claim you were in Canada when you weren't, it would be hard to prove. You wouldn't be able to prove that you lived anywhere or worked anywhere so in that case, they would not believe you.

As for them registering you leaving, most likely they did not but they work with some other border agencies like the US. If you left via the US, they might not see that you left Canada on that day but they can see that you entered the US. You don't know what they know so it is best to record your travel dates for the future and not lie about anything because if you do and they find out, you will have a problem.