bond6791 said:
Hello. I have a few questions and hope someone can help. My family and I are from the US (all citizens) and are moving to Canada because of my work. We received the PR approval through Express Entry and will be heading up in a few weeks. So here are my questions:
1. I know you're required to be in Canada for 2 out of 3 years to maintain PR...what if one has to travel often for work? I usually travel 4-5 days per week, almost 40 weeks per year. Most of my clients are in the US or in Europe. I travel with my US passport, so will Canadian immigration officials know that I'm a PR as well? Do I have to state that when coming back to Canada?
2. Once we arrive, we will stay in Canada for a week then head back to the US for about 6-8 weeks as we have to finalize our house sale, etc. When we first arrive in Canada, will they place a PR visa stamp on the US passport or will they just send us the PR card in the mail?
3. Related to question #1, if I travel strickly on my US passport and not use my PR card, how will they know I am in and out of Canada? Whenever I go back to the US while driving, they don't stamp my passport...same as when I enter Canada...doesn't get stamped.
To an extent others have essentially answered your queries and raised obvious questions.
But some clarifications and quibbles seem warranted.
bond6791 said:
1. I know you're required to be in Canada for 2 out of 3 years to maintain PR...what if one has to travel often for work?
As noted by others, the PR Residency Obligation requires a PR to be in Canada at some point during the day for at least 730 days (two years) out of five years, which is a continuing obligation. For the first five years, however, this practically means the PR may not be outside Canada for 1095 days between the date of landing and the fifth year anniversary of landing.
I do not see your scenario as cutting it as close as others perceive. You indicate you will be absent from Canada between 160 and 200 days per year (4-5 days/week for up to 40 weeks of the year), which means in Canada 165 to 200 or so days a year. That should be plenty, particularly if you maintain your residence in Canada, and are indeed traveling in and out of Canada forty times per year (frequent travel indicates continuing, substantial ties in Canada, and ordinarily such a PR will not be examined, at a POE, about compliance with the PR Residency Obligation, at least not absent some other reason triggering concern about PR RO compliance). Averaging between 150 and 160 days in Canada per year would be cutting it close (less than 800 total in a given five year period). Being in Canada closer to 200/year is not likely to invoke so much as a wrinkled brow, let alone a residency examination.
During the first five years you get credit, as days in Canada, all days between the present date and the fifth year anniversary of landing. So the pattern you describe should be no problem at all for the first three plus years, so long as you make sure you will be in Canada 730+ days before you reach the fifth year anniversary of landing.
After that, if your pattern of absences continues indefinitely into the future, once you are past three years since landing, and particularly if there are additional absences (weeks of vacation outside Canada for example), then you will want to be especially cautious about how many days you are outside Canada.
Important: keep an exact running log of all dates in/outside Canada.
Your dates-of-travel is important information to keep a record of. This applies to everyone in your family, for each of them individually. The burden of proving compliance with the PR RO is always on the PR. And for those who will eventually apply for Canadian citizenship, this information is especially important, important that it be both complete and accurate, accurate to the day for every trip.
Note too, you will never qualify for Canadian citizenship if every year you spend more than one-third of your days outside Canada.
bond6791 said:
2. Once we arrive, we will stay in Canada for a week then head back to the US for about 6-8 weeks as we have to finalize our house sale, etc. When we first arrive in Canada, will they place a PR visa stamp on the US passport or will they just send us the PR card in the mail?
Actually, your passport will have a PR visa affixed in it
before you can move to Canada. Technically your approval for PR is not final until the PR visa is physically affixed in your passport by the visa office (this is relatively perfunctory once approved). It is a one-use visa. When you arrive at the POE for Canada, you will be referred to Secondary and go through the process of becoming a
landed-immigrant, that is, a Permanent Resident. The PR visa will be stamped and cancelled, reflecting the fact that you have landed. As of that date, you will be a Canadian PR.
At that time, when you are going through the landing process at the POE, your Confirmation of Permanent Residence (CoPR) (an incomplete document which you should receive when the visa office returns you your passport(s) with the PR visa(s) affixed in them) will be completed and stamped, a copy of which is returned to you. This is an important document to safely keep (mine was stapled to a page in my passport, which I subsequently, carefully, removed to put in safekeeping separately . . . although I kept it in place until I had gone to the Canada Service office to get my Canadian SIN).
If you provide a
Canadian address at the time you land, your PR card should be mailed to that address. This can take from a few weeks to a few months. (I got mine in less than a month; some report not getting it for ten weeks or even longer; the citizenship and immigration website posts a timeline but actual timelines for particular individuals tend to vary considerably from those, as this is one of those timelines which tends to vary during the course of a given year.)
If you do not provide a Canadian address, you will have to apply for the PR card once you are settled in Canada and have a residential address. As long as this happens somewhat reasonably after landing, this is not a big deal at all . . . a formality, like applying for a copy of an official document . . . not comparable to a later application for a replacement PR card.
bond6791 said:
3. Related to question #1, if I travel strickly on my US passport and not use my PR card, how will they know I am in and out of Canada? Whenever I go back to the US while driving, they don't stamp my passport...same as when I enter Canada...doesn't get stamped.
How will they know? Short answer: you must truthfully report the dates.
This is important: As already noted, it is important for
YOU to keep a
complete and accurate record of all dates you travel in and out of Canada. So, if and when a question arises about when you have been outside Canada, CBSA or IRCC will know the dates because
YOU will inform them of those dates, all of them, accurately. There is no fudging this. Especially going forward, as the extent to which border crossings recorded by the government approaches being complete. There are many, many ways in which CBSA or IRCC might identify a date of travel that you do not accurately report. When that happens, when the government spots a trip you did not accurately report, your credibility is compromised. While an isolated and minor error is typically no big deal, the damage to one's credibility will depend on the number and extent of any discrepancies between what you report and what the government finds in its records (or via other sources).
There is widespread misunderstanding about the accounting of travel for purposes of compliance with the PR RO or meeting citizenship qualifications. The burden of establishing the dates is solidly on the PR. IRCC mostly considers the government's sources, including CBSA's travel history based on scanned travel documents at the POE, for the purpose of
verifying the PR's accounting. There is little or no hint this is going to change even though the government now records and maintains readily accessible records which capture and record nearly every trip across the border. The government will rely on the PR's report subject to the government's verification screening.
Note, as others have already noted, you are now a
client of IRCC, and you have a
unique client number. Your U.S. passport is already connected to that client number (per your application for PR, or before that if you previously traveled to Canada). Your name and date-of-birth is also connected to that client number. At the very least, when a traveler's passport (or other travel document) is scanned (
swiped) by the PIL officer at a POE (or used at a kiosk at an airport POE), the system identifies the
client. If it fails to connect to an existing client, a referral to secondary is common (only exceptions of significance might be American citizens walking or traveling by private vehicle, and my impression is that this number is shrinking and may not even be a significant number as of now; that is, that even American citizens making a casual day trip into Canada are now being identified and connected to a unique Canadian immigration client number).
Some participants in this forum suggest that a new passport will not connect to the client. I am fairly sure of the contrary (again, as usual, with some exceptions), that there is usually enough data in the new passport to connect it to a previous one if not actually directly connect it to the client. Again, name and date-of-birth will connect the individual to that person's client number; if there are multiple clients for a given name and date-of-birth, the system will rely on the passport (or other travel document) to distinguish which one is the individual entering Canada, and again if the system does not readily so distinguish the individual, a referral to secondary is likely so that the individual is positively identified and connected to that individual's unique client number.
In other words, whatever means of screening is employed at the respective POE, and whatever travel document a PR presents, the individual will be identified in the system, at least usually, more likely almost always subject to some less-than-common exceptions. Indeed, this was true
many years ago, if not decades ago, but less completely so.
A quibble: no, there is no need to affirmatively indicate to a POE officer you are a Canadian PR.
Another poster said
"You should state that you are a PR every time you enter because not doing it would be misrepresentation."
Not so.
Present a valid Travel Document. And answer questions truthfully, for sure, and that includes not being misleading or otherwise making a misrepresentation by omission. It is best to present the PR card, once you have it, but a U.S passport also works.
In particular, so far as I have seen, at land border crossings these days the vast majority of travelers are expected to present a valid Travel Document (and are asked for one if they do not present one without being asked) and
ordinarily are
NOT asked about their status (
status is a legal conclusion, and these days it is ordinarily based on or inferred from the Travel Documents present plus what the system says about the particular client). Yes, sometimes a question about status is asked (I encounter this far more often when entering the U.S. side, and which is almost always a question about my status in Canada), and if so, obviously the traveler is obligated to truthfully answer the question (without equivocation let alone prevarication; that is, to not give an answer which is in any way misleading, including any misrepresentation by omission).
Generally a traveler only needs to answer the questions asked, with a few obvious exceptions relative to declaring possession of certain types of things, especially weapons, currency (or equivalent in negotiable instruments) totaling more than 10k Canadian, or organics (food, plants, or such).
Sometimes, for example a traveler will be asked about the purpose of his travel or why she is coming to Canada. A Canadian PR who has presented a U.S. passport can say he or she is coming to Canada to visit a brother or go to a hockey game or whatever . . . so long as that is the
truth . . . and still not say anything about being a PR. The reason or purpose of the trip does not necessarily reflect status . . . and, indeed, what the examining officer
typically does (though there are variations of course) is consider what the traveler's stated purpose is compared to the traveler's status as discerned by examining the Travel Documents, and assesses whether the traveler is to then be allowed to actually enter Canada (subject to a range of alternatives, such as whether the traveler should be examined further).
If asked, however, as to whatever is asked, then indeed the PR is obligated to truthfully answer, and this includes questions about status.
Generally it is best for a Canadian PR to simply present his or her PR card. There is no good reason for not doing so. To the extent the days of slipping past the POE without being recognized as a PR might not be totally over, this is nonetheless in steep decline.
For you, however, until you have your Canadian PR card to present, presenting your U.S. passport should be fine. The cancelled PR visa says all that needs to be said if for some reason what is on the officer's monitor does not already do so.
U.S. passport holders are not subject to eTA requirements for visa-exempt passports, so you should have no trouble flying to Canada if that is how you travel before you get your PR card. That said, technically all PRs should present either a PR card or a PR Travel Document when boarding a flight destined for Canada.
