Calculating residency requirement

Hi

Tanya wrote: Hi all,   I'm wondering how the residency requirement is calculated. My mom landed in Oct 2006. Went back to home country shortly after that. She came back in June 2009 and lives in Canada for 2 years until June 2011.  Renewed the PR card and the new PR card expires in Oct 2016. Now she wants to go back to home country for a while.   When will be the latest deadline for her to come back to Canada, is it June 2014 (calculated from the 2 years she had fulfilled during the past 5 years which is from June 2009)? Can she come back to Canada in Jan 2016?   According to CIC website one must live in Canada for at least two years within a five-year period. Is that 5-year period meaning everytime we renew the PR card? Or any 5 years?   Is that true that anytime we enter Canada they will calculated 5 years backward and see if we had stayed for 2 years regardless the PR card is still valid? Thank you very much!

June/2014, and then she has to remain for 2 years. It is a rolling 5 year period. So it is calculated backwards to see if you have 2 years in the 5 or you will be able to accumulate the 2 years in the time remaining in the 5 years.

Basically, she can be out of country for next 1 year and then come back to Canada and complete 1 more year and she is good to go. She wants to stay 3 years out of the last 4 years to get her citizenship.

Thanks,
Nureya


Edited by nureya - 09 May 2011 at 6:28pm

Again, the primary source for the PR residency obligation is quite clearly set out in the Appendix A:Residency obligation portion of the guide for applying for a PR card . . . this statement of the obligation is applicable all the time, not just when applying for a new PR card.

For any PR who spends extended time periods outside Canada, it is best to go over the information in the chart at the top of that page, under "minimum residency obligations," and figure out how it works relative to one's own facts and circumstances. Figuring it out for oneself is better than relying on the advice of anyone here (including mine -- I mostly try to help people understand what the obligation is and how it works, but applying it to one's own circumstances really should be done by the PR himself or herself).


But, OK, I'll try this another way:

Since the fifth anniversary of her landing will pass later this year, and in order to make this as simple as possible, the following is based on the residency obligation for PRs generally, that is, those who landed more than five years ago (I understand she will be such a PR on the first day after the anniversary of her landing in October, that being the fifth anniversary of her landing).

To avoid being in breach of the residency obligation, it is really simple: the PR must have been in-Canada at least 730 days within the previous five years, as calculated on any given day going backwards five years from that day. This applies every day. Every day.

It really is that simple.

To be in compliance with the PR residency obligation, all the PR has to do is count how many days they have been in-Canada within the immediately preceding five years, from that day, and so long as that total is 730 days, they are in compliance. And, again, this is applicable every day.


Where some people get confused:

Some people get confused because no one is checking the PR every single day, and the obligation is so leniently applied that even a PR who has been in breach of the obligation suffers no disability from that so long as the PR somehow gets back into compliance without a removal order being issued (there are many ways for this to happen, too many to take a side trip into examples).

In particular, compliance with the PR residency obligation ordinarily arises only in certain circumstances, that is, attendant certain events.

The circumstances in which compliance with the PR residency obligation ordinarily arises are as follows:

1) Always arises in connection with an application for a new PR card.

2) Almost always arises in connection with an application for a PR Travel Document to authorize travel to Canada (this happens when a PR abroad does not have a currently valid PR card in possession, and in order to travel to Canada must thus obtain a Travel Document).

3) May arise upon appearing at a Canadian POE seeking entry into Canada.

Those are the occasions on which compliance with the residency obligation will be questioned.

For (1), for the PR application, the PR must be in Canada, so the critical date is the date of the application; in other words, on the day the PR signs and submits the application for a new PR card, the residency obligation will be calculated based on looking backwards for five years from that date.

For (2), I believe (but am not entirely certain) that there are two critical dates: for sure, as of the date the application for the TD is submitted, the Visa Office at which that application is made will most likely consider whether or not the PR has been in-Canada for 730 days within the five years immediately preceding that date. Moreover, the part that I am not certain about but believe, is that such a PR must also still be in compliance as of the date the PR actually returns to Canada . . . that is, as of the date that PR, with a TD, actually appears at a Canadian POE to enter Canada, I think they also must have been in-Canada for at least 730 days within five years of that date, the date they are entering Canada. What I am not sure of is whether possession of a TD overcomes this, at least for purposes of entry.

For (3), that is, for anytime a PR appears at a POE to obtain entry into Canada, again, it is that day they may look backwards at the immediately preceding five years to ascertain whether or not the PR has been in-Canada for at least 730 days in compliance with the residency obligation.




Another cause for some confusion:

For (3), which, again, is for anytime a PR appears at a POE to obtain entry into Canada, whether or not the returning PR is even questioned about the residency obligation is entirely discretionary with CBSA officer or officers examining the PR. A PR with a valid PR card will often be allowed to return to Canada by the PIL officer (first officer one talks to at a POE, called the primary inspection line officer) without questioning the PR as to the residency obligation, and that seems likely unless there is a flag that pops up on that officer's computer monitor, or the officer examines the PR's passport and infers that the PR has been outside Canada for an extended period of time (years) or the officer asks about how long the PR has been abroad and the answer (one really needs to always be honest) is years. Thus, while the expiration date on the PR card is technically irrelevant, a PR in possession of a PR card with an expiration date sometime in the future, has very good odds of being allowed into Canada without being questioned as to the residency obligation.

This leads some to be confused, thinking that so long as they have a valid PR card, particularly one which will not expire for two more years or so, they do not have to worry about how many days they have been in Canada within the immediately previous five years. Practically speaking, they have good odds of not having a problem at the border, but technically they must still be in compliance with the obligation by having been in Canada for 730 days within the previous five year time frame regardless of the date on their PR card.

Again, the above analysis for a PR who has been a PR for at least five years.


As to your particular question:

So she needs to come back to Canada in June 2014, Is it because if we count backward (to 2009) she would had met 2 years already? Or because she will only have 2 years left that need to be fulfilled until the card expired in 2016?

Absolutely not the latter. Again, the date that her PR card will expire is irrelevant.

If she leaves Canada for any extended time: after this October, at any time she seeks to return to Canada she needs to have been in-Canada for at least 730 days within the previous five years of that day, the day she is in fact returning to Canada . . . and it is foolish to cut this close since so much can happen, a sudden illness preventing travel for example, world events delaying travel, and so on.


Edited by dpenabill - 11 May 2011 at 2:15pm