A PR is entitled to have ALL reasons considered in assessing whether there are sufficient H&C reasons to allow the PR to retain his or her PR status.
How a particular factor affects the H&C assessment varies widely. Many facts (like stayed abroad for financial reasons; stayed abroad to complete a particular course of education) can be either a positive or negative factor, or a neutral factor. In particular, it is
NOT correct to say
" . . . education reasons are not accepted as a reason for failing to meet the residency requirement." Rather, the impact of staying in school abroad, foremost,
must be considered among reasons for remaining abroad (when presented by the PR), and otherwise its impact will vary depending on many other factors and circumstances. All the relevant factors must be considered together and relative to one another, the
totality of the circumstances being the key.
Some factors have a more or less clear effect. For example, the longer the PR stays abroad, the more negative this weighs against allowing retention of status given a breach of the PR Residency Obligation. The more compelling the reason to remain abroad (as in the less it is the PR's free choice), the more positive weight that reason has.
Decisions to stay abroad for personal reasons, as reflected by ordinarily free choices, tend to weigh negatively, like a choice to stay at a particular job abroad, or a choice to pursue a course of study abroad. But these are not weighed in isolation or in the abstract, but must be considered in context. Many times these factors are deemed
neutral, depending on the extent to which there were compelling influences to make that choice rather than return to Canada sooner, but this can actually be something of an advantage if there are reasons explaining why a
reasonable person would elect to stay abroad longer. And these can also be
positive factors in some cases, again depending on the overall situation and other particular factors.
In particular, while your age is not in itself sufficient, your age is a factor relevant to a decision like staying in school, and depending on other circumstances these factors can at least support an argument that the IAD should allow you to retain your PR status.
Whether you can do so successfully is very difficult to predict. No one here can offer a reliable prediction or assessment of your odds . . . this is because these cases are so fact specific it is impossible to forecast how a given decision-maker will assess the facts in a particular individual's case, but also precisely because such cases are so dependent on
all the attendant facts and circumstances (oft referred to the "totality of circumstances"), and in a forum like this there is no way to do a reasonably reliable assessment of all the relevant facts.
If you are willing to make an investment of time and effort (and you probably want to get help doing this, if possible, from a family member or more experienced friend for example), you can learn much more about what really matters in these cases, and how various factors have been treated in particular circumstances, toward better putting together a more persuasive H&C case based on
your particular facts and circumstances.
For this, see:
Primary sources of information about making the H&C case for waiving a breach of the PR RO:
For a thorough outline of what is considered in evaluating H&C grounds in a determination which may result in loss of PR status, see
ENF 23 Loss of Permanent Resident Status (this should link), and see section 7.7 beginning on page 26 in particular.
Additionally there are, literally
hundreds of published IAD decisions which are
official cases specifically stating what the law and rules are in these types of cases, how the law and rules are interpreted and applied, and how they have been applied in very specific factual situations. In these cases there is wide, wide variation in the way sundry factors have affected the outome.
You can search the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/irb/index.html, using terms like "sufficient humanitarian and compassionate considerations" & "residency obligation" & "permanent resident" The results are huge and unwieldy, not so easy to navigate to find specific information directly relevant to a specific issue like how staying abroad to finish school affects the H&C assessment, but the information is there. At the least, perusing even a few dozen PR RO H&C cases illustrates the range and variability of factors considered and what weight they have. (Do not be thrown off by, or rely on, any specific case; but rather study the discussion of H&C factors in
many cases to get a grasp on how variable the process of assessing such factors can be and to discern what the better arguments are).
Important note: the H&C case in this context is very, very different than other H&C cases in the immigration context. There is now, for example,
a Program Delivery Instruction (PDI)(this should link) outlining the H&C process for PR applications based on H&C grounds. While many aspects of this overlap or are otherwise similar to the H&C assessment in a PR RO case, there are also profound differences.
Overall:
I do not mean to say, not at all, that making the H&C case is at all easy in the absence of an explanation based on a compelling force beyond the PR's control, or in the absence of a compelling reason based on detriment to the best interests of a child. The PR RO is considered to be very liberal, if not generous, precisely to allow sufficient flexibility for those PRs who encounter difficulties in getting settled in Canada, or those who have been compelled (for reasons beyond their control) to remain abroad (thus the success, in retaining PR status, among many young people who sought to return to Canada within a year or two of attaining the age of majority).
Nonetheless, the distinction between what is considered (that being
any and all reasons for not returning to Canada sooner) and what constitutes
sufficient reasons should not be overlooked or otherwise confused.
