unable to fulfill residency obligations in the current 5 year period

[a.soarer]

Hi
I read many posts but I think it is better if I share my specific case and have your opinions:

All my family members (including me) are permanent residents of Canada since 2007. My dad and my sister moved to Canada in 2008 to stay and become eligible for applying for citizenship. They have been staying in Canada since (2008) but my mother and I stayed in home country and have only traveled to Canada to visit my dad and sister 2-3 times a year since they are gone.
My mother and I have not been able to move to canada for these reasons:
1) I have been a fulltime university student, financially dependent on my family (I'm 22 years old)
2) I can't leave the country for more than a 1 month period because of my military service obligations ( military service is mandatory for all young boys in my country)
3) my mother did not want to leave me because she is working and supporting the two of us ( my sister is working and supporting my dad in Canada)

Our PR cards will expire in Aug 2012. That's not a problem for my father and sister as they are going to apply for citizenship ( the will qualify for the requirements by then) but I am very worried about my mother and myself. I will still be a fulltime student by the time my PR expires and I don't know what I should do. I can't move to Canada ( other than for short visits) and so can't my mother ( because of me). I do want to move to canada upon receiving my degree and doing the military service to eventually join my family and reside permanently in Canada but that will not be possible for at least another 3 years. I do not want to lose my PR status as I know it is very precious and has been difficult to obtain.
I am also worried for my mother as she has been sacrificing her chances for me. Can you please tell me if there is anything we could do? :-\
Is there a way for my mother and I to renew our PR cards?
I really appreciate your kind help.

 

[Leon]

You must be in Canada to renew your PR cards and you will not be able to renew them unless you meet the residency requirements of having spent at least 2 years in Canada in your first 5 years as a PR. If you wanted to make Canada your new home, why did you not do your studies in Canada? Could you transfer now?

If you lose your PR status, your father can sponsor your mother again. For you, it is a bit more complicated. In order to qualify as a dependent child to be sponsored along with your mother, you must be a full time student since before the age of 22 and continue to be one until you get your PR again. If your father applies to sponsor you both while you are still a full time student, you can get your PR again. You must go to Canada to land but then you can be outside Canada for up to 3 years again without losing your new PR.

 

[a.soarer]

Thank you so much for your reply.

Yes I have been a full time student since finishing highschool and what you say sounds like a very good solution but if my father wants to sponsor me for a new PR, does that mean that we can fill a new application while my PR is still valid ( say now?). Or should I wait until my PR expires (2012) and then apply for a new application with my father sponsoring it?

Yes I do see Canada as the place I eventually want to build my future and a happy life but as I mentioned before a big part of my problem is the military service obligations. I should serve in military for about a year. otherwise I will be under arrest if I leave the country for more than a short period of time(a month)

many thanks and I appreciate it if you would reply to my second question
A

 

[Leon]

Then it would have made more sense to complete your year in the military before you started your studies. You could have gone back to Canada afterwards, done your studies in Canada and never had to worry about your PR.

You are right about the timing. Your father can not apply to sponsor you while you are still a PR. Another student who was in the same situation was going to try to relinquish his PR once that he did not meet the residency requirements any more. I do not know if that worked for him. They do not exactly make it easy to relinquish your PR.

If you wait until 2012 and your PR card expires, you can apply for a travel document, they will refuse you because you did not meet the residency requirements. You will then have lost your PR and your father can sponsor you. Will you still be a full time student at that time and long enough afterwards that you will still be a full time student by the time you get your PR and land? That could take 6-12 months.

Another way to lose your PR earlier without relinquishing it would be if you happened to lose your PR card after you do not meet the residency requirements any more. You would then want to visit Canada and would apply for a travel document. You would be denied because you do not meet the residency requirements and would lose your PR and enable yourself to be sponsored again.

 

[a.soarer]

Well that would be too long I guess( including the 6-12 months).I am not sure...In that case I will be a full time student only if I start doing a PHD...
So Lets say I lose my permanent residency status and want to apply as a dependent child for another application right now. How good are the chances for that? am I not too old or too educated to be considered dependent?

I wish I could serve the military and fly to Canada right after but the financial situation of my family was not giving me the opportunity to pay high tuitions of undergraduate studies in Canada. Public universities are free in my home country and having a degree with no loans and then coming to Canada for graduate studies/work with a degree seemed best option for us at that point. Besides I have many friends who obtained Canadian citizenship without really fulfilling the residential obligations. They just claimed that they had been there for the whole time. At that point we (mistakenly?) thought it shouldn't be a big issue and if my dad and sister back us up by paying taxes for us ( as they have) and if we have active bank accounts and regular visits we can apply for renewal of our PRs with no problems. To tell you the truth I still am thinking of that option.I think despite the fact that the rules are to be respected, there are always individual cases that could make exceptions. I am young, I will be educated and I can have positive contribution to the country that I choose to live in. On the other hand I wish there could be a way not to lose my current PR status as my family has gone through a hard and long process of immigration to grant me this. I sometimes think that I should claim that I have been there with my family and simply slip past this. But as the time flies I am getting more and more scared to take that kind of risk ( claiming that I was physically present in Canada).

I thank you very much for giving me your expert opinion Leon and I should say that this is a great site.

 

[Leon]

If you are a full time student since before the age of 22, you are never too old or too educated to be a dependent child.

As for lying and saying that you lived in Canada when you didn't, yes, there are people who have done it and gotten away with it but if you do it and get caught, it is bad news for you. There are not many ways to lose a PR but lying to immigration is one of them. There are even fewer ways to lose citizenship but one of them would be if you had gained it based on misrepresentation, for example by lying to keep your PR.

 

[a.soarer]

Thanks for all