Question on PR status

I think you got it.

If you are outside Canada for more than 1095 days within the previous five years you are in breach of the residency obligation and (1) would not be able to obtain a TD to travel back to Canada, and (2) would be subject to removal proceedings upon approaching a Canadian POE (if you are somehow able to travel to Canada).

In particular: if a PR is outside Canada for 1095 days (three years) continuously, the next day they are in breach of the residency obligation. This applies no matter when the PR landed, whether the PR has a currently valid PR card or not, or even how long they were in Canada prior to leaving. (Though H&C grounds may come into play if and when actual proceedings to revoke/remove PR status due to a breach of the residency obligation take place.) There is no way to be "not in Canada" (recognizing that there are exceptions for what counts as not in Canada time in specified circumstances, such as accompanying a Canadian citizen spouse abroad) for 1095 days in a row and not be in breach of the residency obligation.

Bottom line: if you remain in Canada continuously prior to leaving in November 2011, you can count back 730 days from the day you leave and technically you would have up to five years from that date to be back in Canada (five years from the anniverary date in November 2009). That should be the same as counting 1095 days from the day you left (since you would have 730 days in Canada as of the day you left).

(If you have had some absences in the two year time frame prior to leaving, the calculation gets a little more complicated, but bottomline there is that any days absent in the two years before leaving will reduce the number of days you can be absent going forward.)

That would be cutting it close. If your return got delayed, problems. If your proof of the time in Canada from before is not persuasive (the burden of proving compliance with the residency obligation is yours), could be problematic. And so on.

And of course if you did that, after returning you would have to remain continuously in Canada for the next two years (730 days) in order to remain in compliance with the residency obligation (since for each day you are then in Canada, one of the days from before the absence will no longer count, it will be more than five years previous). If you are absent for a day or more during that two year time frame, technically you would fall below having been in Canada for 730 days within the previous five year time. (It appears that if one is close, CBSA and CIC are usually fairly lenient toward PRs at POEs; I do not know if this leniency applies to PRs abroad applying for a TD but I suspect they are less lenient and of course then there is the time frame involved in processing the TD application during which the PR continues to be out of Canada.)


Edited by dpenabill - 28 Feb 2011 at 12:05pm