Some people still believe that you are not suppose to stay outside of Canada more then 6 months in one year period as a PR
We see such remarks in this forum occasionally. As others have said, there is NO such rule for keeping PR status in Canada. Has NOT been any such rule for at least 19 years. (I am not sure what the rule was prior to 2002.)
As others have suggested, perhaps the confusion is related to what U.S. rules are for those with a Green Card, or related to what the rules are for keeping provincial health care coverage.
Leading to . . .
So if you spend outside 5 months and 25 days then come back and lived the province 3 months but go back again the same year for one more month which makes total of 6 months and 25 days in one year period, you should reapply again ?
Precise requirements to remain eligible for Provincial health care coverage vary from one province to another.
Most, as I understand it, have BOTH a residence requirement and a physical presence requirement.
For Ontario, which is OHIP, it is simple: to be eligible for continuing coverage, a person
must be BOTH a bona fide resident of Ontario ("primary" residence in Ontario)
AND spend at least 153 days in any 12 month period physically present in Ontario. So the presence requirement is actually less than six months . . . just five months give or take some days depending on which months.
I do not know how strictly Ontario pursues enforcement. Moreover, I am not sure what leeway there is for transitional periods. But, just to be clear, if a person establishes a primary residence outside Ontario, technically they are no longer a primary resident of Ontario, and thus NO LONGER eligible for OHIP.
So it only takes ONE DAY of residence elsewhere to terminate eligibility for OHIP (except I assume there are transitional period allowances, which I do not know but which I assume allows individuals some leeway . . . similar to drivers' licenses, for which there is typically a 30-day or 60-day transitional grace period, depending on province and other details).
People tend to play fast and loose with designating what their address of residence is. And
get-away-with-it. So most of the discussions about remaining eligible for provincial health care tend to be about the extent of absences. On any given day a person is actually present in Canada or not. Regardless the address they claim is where they are a resident. So that is a more or less fixed fact.
Which is NOT to say that the primary residence requirement can be ignored. If a person changes their primary residence to one outside the province, that terminates health care coverage in that province. It does not take six months for this to have effect.
In some ways, at least for Ontario, the physical presence requirement works similar to the PR Residency Obligation. It is based on number of days IN the jurisdiction within the relevant time period. PR RO is based on spending at least 730 days IN Canada within the immediately preceding five years . . . based on the day that RO compliance is calculated (thus, as of today, that means to be complying with the RO a PR needs to have been IN Canada at least 730 days between April 19, 2016 and today). Somewhat similarly, to continue to be eligible for OHIP, the individual needs to have been IN ONTARIO at least 153 days within the last 12 months (thus, again as of today, that means to continue being eligible for OHIP the individual needs to have been IN ONTARIO for at least 153 days between April 19, 2020 and today).
Rules for first time qualifying, and rules for initial periods of time, vary from that.
Rules for resuming provincial health care after a period of ineligibility also vary from what I describe above.
Enforcement practices likely vary considerably as well.
If and when a PR who has been living abroad for a time should make an application to resume health care coverage is not an easy to answer question in what one might describe as close-call cases.
In Ontario, for example, technically the individual is obligated to notify ServiceOntario if there is a change in address, and if that change is to an address outside Ontario, OHIP is terminated and the individual will need to re-apply when the eligibility requirements are again met. Again, that is about primary residence. If the individual's primary residence changes to an address outside Ontario, the individual is NO longer eligible for OHIP . . . the number of days spent at the outside Ontario address does not matter.
Technically if a person on OHIP is outside Ontario more than 212 days in a 12 month time period, as of the 213th day they are no longer eligible for OHIP. (212 plus 153 days adds up to a year . . . so 213 days outside Ontario means less than 153 days IN Ontario, which falls short of meeting eligibility requirements.) How strictly this is enforced, I do not know.
Whether it is enforced for older periods of time, absent significant care costs that seems unlikely. That is, say that as of the spring of 2020 the individual had been outside Ontario for 250 days or so within the previous year, but then returned to Ontario and have been here most of the time in the last 12 months . . . technically they should have notified OHIP and then after returning to Ontario reapplied for OHIP. What if they didn't? I do not know. My guess is no problem going forward. But I am not sure.
