730 days not mandatory??

1) No - the 730 do not have to be continuous.

2) Certain jobs outside of Canada (e.g. working for the Canadian government, working for a Canadian company) allow you to count days spent outside of the country towards the 730 total. Also, your days outside of Canada count towards the 730 total if you are accompanying a spouse who is a citizen. See the following link for more details: http://www.cic.gc.ca/English/information/applications/guides/5529E2.asp

Possibly CIC simply isn't realising that they are spending insufficient time in Canada to retain their status. The law is very clear, but it's possible they are "getting away with it". They would also be having to lie on their PR card renewal form to accomplish this, which (if discovered) makes you inadmissible for misrepresentation.

Observations:

Unforunately, fraud is common. Fortunately, fraud is often exposed and the perpetrator subjected to the consequences, including, for this sort of fraud, removal proceedings based on inadmissibility due to misrepresentation. Unforunately, it seems, many do not get caught.

Otherwise, however, I am always suspicious of passing judgment on others; in a five year period, a PR can be absent from Canada for 1095 days (technically 1094, but since February 29 does not count, that's another day once every four years a PR can be absent) without being in breach of the residency requirement. That's a lot of time abroad. In the meantime, though, just because the PR is not at home next door does not mean he or she is outside the country. I'm wary of neighborhood watch vigilantes.

Moreover, while the residency requirement remains always applicable so long as a person remains a PR, it really only becomes an issue at certain times: one, is if questioned about meeting the residency requirement upon entry at a POE (I have not been questioned once in the four times I have left and returned to Canada as a PR); secondly, if there is some reason the PR's case has been brought to the attention of CBSA or CIC and they are pursuing an inadmissibility investigation; and the really important one, when someone applies to renew their PR card and must disclose all travel abroad.

A PR who regularly comes and goes is, perhaps, less likely to be questioned at the POE because it is apparent the PR has continuing ties and presence in Canada; there is always the possibility, the risk, that one will be questioned about time abroad, but if the PR is returning regularly and they respond that they were gone for three or four months that is not likely to trigger a more in-depth inquiry into the total amount of time they have been absent from Canada. It might, but in most cases probably won't.

The major point of testing residency is during the PR card renewal. There may be a bit of irony in how the laws and regulations work. A PR who has been regularly spending a great deal of time abroad, so much so that the PR has less than 730 days in Canada in the last five years, only has to obtain entry into Canada without an inquiry being started and then stay in Canada long enough to reach that 730 day threshold. There are cases involving PRs who got back into Canada on visitor's visas, stayed, and because their PR status had never been formally revoked, once they stayed over 730 days, even if they had been previously absent for ten years, they were in compliance with the 730 day requirement and entitled to retain their PR status (one does not have to have a valid PR card to be a PR).

Sure, those are cases involving what one might call working the system, but . . . well, so long as they made no misrepresentations, they are legit.

I suspect there are many individual factors which play into who gets questioned and when, versus who does not.

I am not at all sure, but it is strongly my impression that challenges to a PR about meeting the residency requirement ordinarily only arise:
-- Main one, most common one I think, is a PR abroad applying for a TD to return to Canada
-- PR approaching POE after being absent from Canada for an extended period of time . . . I have no idea what the triggering threshold is, but it is for sure that anyone who has been absent for three years is going to be questioned closely (many such PRs are still legit because of the three different exceptions to physical presence in Canada)
-- Attendant an inadmissibility examination, investigation, or hearing, for whatever reason one was initiated (usually a criminality matter but there are other triggers)
-- PR approaching POE & displaying travel documents evidencing (via stamps or otherwise) absences approaching or exceeding three years (overlooked initially and added in an edit to post).

Edited by dpenabill - 31 Mar 2010 at 5:25pm

@ Zormas

zormas wrote: HOW are they getting away with it!

Simple: lying on their application forms.  It is illegal and CIC will hopefully catch on, but some percentage of people will slip through.