Any insights, advice, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
In essence I concur with
@armoured's view, that it is quite likely the application will be approved (based on actual presence in Canada for more than 730 days in the relevant time period), a new card issued within the coming months (less than eight months), subject to the possibility that IRCC will require an in-person PR card pick-up (largely to verify identity and presence in Canada, but which could also include an interview/questioning to verify RO compliance).
HOWEVER, what is likely to happen is NOT necessarily what will happen . . . generally probabilities are not predictive, even what is very likely, let alone merely "
likely," is not predictive unless there is a sufficiently high probability to support a prediction; to say what is likely is not to predict the outcome, let alone dictate what will happen. So I am not sure about "
assuming" you will be getting a new PR card before the provincial drivers' license expires, at least not to the extent you rely on it.
Meanwhile, while technically a province's rules may state that presentation of a valid PR card is required to renew provincial programs or licensing, like health care coverage and drivers' licenses, it appears that at least in some provinces they do not in practice ask to see a valid PR card for those already licensed or enrolled in the provincial program. That is, while the rules are the same (requiring valid PR card for example), in practice the renewal procedure is not so strict as it is for those applying for the first time. (I have never been asked to show documentation of my status to renew either my drivers' license or health care coverage in Ontario, and only somewhat recently realized that for OHIP it still shows me to be a PR more than a decade after I became a citizen . . . will try to remember to fix that when I next renew OHIP). I do not know about Alberta in particular.
1. Has anyone experienced their PR card renewal being referred to Program Support? What does this typically mean for the processing time, and what should I expect next?
2. As I have no plans to leave Canada, my primary need for a PR card is to prove my PR status to provincial governments for purposes such as renewing my Alberta driver’s licence. Due to delays, I also applied for a Verification of Status (VOS) document, hoping it might be accepted by Service Alberta as proof of my PR status. My COPR is very old and often not accepted. Does anyone have experience using a VOS document to prove PR status to provincial governments, especially in Alberta? The VOS itself takes around 6 months to be issued and my current Alberta driver's licence expires in 8 months from now (June 2025).
The label "
Program Support" does not illuminate much. Your PR card application is clearly involved in non-routine processing. Hard to say what the nature and scope of that is. If it is merely a referral to conduct inquiries to verify your presence in Canada has been sufficient to meet the PR Residency Obligation, approval of the new card could happen any day now. As noted, an in-person pick-up might be required, but IRCC might proceed to deliver the new card by mail.
Avoiding the temptation to revisit the range of what non-routine processing of a PR card application can entail, while RO compliance is the typical focus of inquiry, the concern or issue at stake could include any grounds for inadmissibility.
I am not sure, but I believe that a referral to program support can be made by either CPC-Sydney or a local office. While the current PDIs describe the referral of "
complex" cases to the Domestic Network (mostly meaning local offices), it is not clear whether this is for concerns other than RO compliance, or whether the PS unit is considered part of the Domestic Network.
As I have discussed in
responses to queries by you before, even though
cutting-it-close (such as applying with just 740 days credit toward RO compliance) does not itself appear to trigger elevated scrutiny, other factors in conjunction with that can be what triggers non-routine processing. And either a history like yours, or the travel outside Canada after applying, let alone both, increase the risk.
As
@armoured previously said, and I agreed, in regards to RO screening attendant your prospective arrival at a PoE (back before your recent return here), "
factual disagreement about absences are rather rare." But that was specifically in the context of a PoE examination. In the context of a PR card application, if the PR's travel history is complete and accurate it is still true that factual disagreement would be unusual; but of course if there is any reason to question the PR's account of travel history, well, it can and will be questioned. Which is to say if you have completely and accurately reported your travel history, and you were in Canada more than 730 days within the preceding five years, there should be NO problem with the RO, even if it takes awhile for IRCC to be satisfied.
Thus, as long as you have no other inadmissibility issues (no serious criminality, no security concerns, no misrepresentations), there should not be a problem. And you should be getting a new card within a few months at most.
If there is reason for IRCC to have admissibility concerns apart from RO compliance, that would make it very difficult to forecast how long the processing will take, or even what the outcome will be. You would know better if there is any prospect of this. (For example, to the extent there are records of the PoE examination during your return to Canada in 2022, they could be reviewed to ascertain if any misrepresentations were made . . . which is NOT to suggest this is likely, more just a possibility, elevated some given the recent PoE examination during which you were questioned about your arrival in 2002.)
