PR card or travel document

[JAVILAN82]

Hello:

My wife and I have been granted permanent residence november 2011 and plan to move to vancouver next april 2012 (just before our visas expiry date). We plan to stay for one week there and come back home. For job reasons we wont be able to settle in canada until november 2013 approx.

As we are only to stay in vancouver for one week next april 2012 we wont have enough time to receive the PR cards ourselves in canada. Is it possible to indicate an address outside of canada for PR cards delivery (that is our home address)?. If not, is it worth to find a friend/contact in vancouver, indicate his/her address for PR card delivery by immigration services and ask this person to send them to our home address by mail, or will we be fine asking for travel documents just before our next trip to canada november 2013?.

To sum up, does it really make a difference entering with a PR card or a travel document given the above scenario?

thanks in advance for your response

[Leon]

You can not give an address outside Canada to receive your PR card.

If you give an address of a person in Canada who is supposed to receive it for you, you need to make sure this person is trustworthy.  In addition, the immigration officer may ask you if you plan to be at this address when the PR cards arrive.  If you say no, they may decide to withhold them until you back to stay.

You would have to find out from the Canadian embassy in your home country how long it takes them to issue a travel document so you can apply in time for your return trip.  From what I have heard, they are usually valid for 6 months but you can ask about that too.

Arriving with a travel document instead of a PR card should not pose a problem.  As more than 6 months will have passed from your landing, you will not get your PR card mailed to you as you could have on your first landing.  Instead, you will have to apply for one, get new photos and pay $50 processing fee.  The current processing time is around 5 months and you will have to pick it up at your local CIC office.  You can find the application forms here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/prcard.asp