You guys seem to know your stuff, so I was wondering if you could confirm or correct me of the PR procedure after the decision has been made, and let's assume it's a positive decision, in your VO.
Background: I'm from Finland which is a visa exempt country, applying for permanent residence as my Canadian common-law partner as my sponsor (outland application). My VO is London. I did upfront medical 14 December 2015 and sent out our application at the beginning of June 2016. I realize my medical will probably expire before getting my PR, but as far as I understand the VO can extend it by a year in certain cases, or the other option is that they'll request me a new one. In either case I should have plenty of time to enter Canada before the extended or the new one expires. My passport is valid for 4 more years. I probably won't be in Canada when the final stage of this PR process kicks in (I will be travelling), so among other things I'd be interested to hear which correspondence happens via mail and via email (I selected email as my primary way of correspondence).
If I've understood right, this is the order of the steps:
Decision Made
Passport Request
Confirmation of Permanent Residence
Landing
And the questions: does the correspondence happen via email only or is there something they will send me via mail? If I've understood right, applicants from visa exempt countries only need to send a photocopy of their passport, is that accurate?
Thanks so much for your help in advance!