At this point, I am thinking to travel to Canada in early April 2023 and meet obligation and then apply for PR renewal.
Noting alternatives, including potentially traveling here soon, as in this month.
. . . can my request be considered on humanitarian grounds given my immediate family member health emergencies in case I do not meet residency obligation ?
I largely concur in what
@armoured and
@YVR123 have commented.
While I will go into some detail in regards to the situation,
my observations will mostly be oriented to emphasizing the need to come to Canada to stay.
Whether you come real soon, or relatively soon, and whether you need H&C relief or not, to keep your PR status you will need to come to Canada to stay. Odds are probably good things will go OK, even if you are a little in breach of the RO when you arrive here, but that will only continue to be the case if you are coming to STAY.
If you are coming to stay, what
@armoured and
@YVR123 have commented should be enough for you to navigate your way forward.
So there is NO need to consider my further observations UNLESS you are considering NOT staying for the next two years (except perhaps for SHORT excursions abroad) .
REMINDER: only days IN Canada within the previous five years count toward meeting the Residency Obligation; key to understanding why staying is important for a PR in a situation like yours is to recognize that come April 2024, the days you were present in Canada in April 2019 will NO LONGER count toward meeting the RO. Even if you are issued a brand new PR card.
Regarding H&C Relief:
Yes, for purposes of a Residency Determination, if you are in breach of the PR Residency Obligation (which it appears you may be now, but at least for sure you will be if you do not come to Canada quite soon if not very soon) H&C reasons for the stay outside Canada can be presented and they will be considered. Whether the Residency Determination is during a Port-of-Entry (PoE) examination attendant inadmissibility proceedings, or in the course of processing an application for a new PR card, the RO breach may be in effect waived for H&C reasons, allowing you to keep PR status despite being inadmissible for failing to comply with the RO.
That said, obtaining H&C relief is tricky, unpredictable, and as
@armoured said "
risky." This deserves emphasis: relying on H&C relief is risky. It can really help if the PR is in breach by only a little (some formal decisions say things like a moderate breach of the RO only requires moderately compelling H&C factors for relief to be allowed), so the sooner you are IN Canada, the better the odds of H&C relief (if needed).
But in your situation what looms large is
H&
C relief will only work IF YOU COME TO CANADA TO STAY.
If you leave Canada for any significant period of time, that will add to the extent of your breach of the RO. Does no good to get a new PR card if you leave Canada and are in breach of the RO when you are next screened at a PoE when you return here (getting H&C relief one time is tricky enough; counting on H&C relief a second time is, well, really pushing it).
Even if NOT in RO breach:
And even if you return to Canada before you have breached the RO, that too really only works, in your situation, if YOU STAY.
Leading to . . .
I got PR in April 2019 and have stayed in Canada for 1 year 6 months.
My PR card will expire in April 2024. In 2019 when I got PR, I was working in Canada until 2021 March. In between this period, I had gone to my home country few times on vacation and for around 4 months worked from my home country as couldn't get leave for long time (not sure if it would count in RO). In March 2021, I have to move to my country . . .
At this point, I am only thinking to renewing PR status or PR card (not the citizenship) and for that I only have to stay at least 730 days within Canada from April 2019
If you come to Canada SOON, even if you are a little in breach of the RO when you arrive, the odds are probably good you will be waived through the PoE without being examined as to RO compliance, let alone subject to inadmissibility proceedings.
If you are in RO compliance when you arrive (which would mean you have been outside Canada fewer than 1095 days since the day you landed),
AND you are Coming To STAY, once you have established a more or less permanent residence here it should also be OK to proceed with making the application for a new PR card (there is no renewal of PR status by the way).
I will not attempt to be precise about the arithmetic. As both
@armoured and
@YVR123 referenced, the easy way to calculate if, or when, you are in breach of the RO is to count the total number of days outside Canada since the date of landing. If the number of days outside Canada is less than 1095, you are currently in RO compliance.
Obviously you are
cutting-it-close AT BEST.
When doing a RO compliance calculation, be sure to NOT use the date the PR card expires. The date the PR card expires is largely NOT relevant, and definitely NOT relevant for purposes of calculating RO compliance. (The date the PR card expires is only relevant in that, one, as long as it is valid it will allow a PR to board an airline flight coming to Canada, and two, the odds of being waived through at the PoE, without RO compliance questioning, are better when presenting a valid PR card.)
You reference a landing date in April 2019 and your PR card expiring in April 2024. Given the time between date of landing and date PR cards are ordinarily issued, this suggests an early April 2019 landing date. In any event, to be clear, if the date your RO compliance is calculated is, say, April 21, 2024, that calculation will be based on the total number of days you have been IN Canada between April 21, 2019 and April 21, 2024. Days in Canada before April 21, 2019 will NOT count.
I go into that detail to help illustrate how this will work if there is a RO compliance calculation later. If, for example, you come to Canada and apply for and are issued a new PR card, either because you are in RO compliance or because you have been allowed H&C relief . . . and then, say in June 2024, you leave Canada, and then you are gone until, perhaps, mid-December, returning to Canada December 17, 2024. If you are questioned about RO compliance when you arrive at the PoE (and there is a significant chance of that happening given your record and what will likely be readily seen in your record if a border official pulls it up), the calculation will be based on the number of days IN Canada between December 17, 2019 and December 17, 2024. If that is less than 730, there is a significant risk of inadmissibility proceedings. Perhaps not a big risk. But, if there is a longer absence beyond that, you can count and see where this is going.
Yeah, I have taken the long way round to making a relatively simple point. But this seems something all too easily overlooked. A new PR card is not worth much, and H&C relief is not worth much, unless the PR stays IN Canada long enough to avoid any further breach of the RO.
