To explain a little more about my business. . . .
No one here can reliably opine whether you will get credit toward the Residency Obligation for days you are outside Canada working for your business. As noted, for situations similar to what you describe, this is a
TRICKY credit. And that is largely an understatement.
Based on what you describe, including your additional explanation, but nonetheless as I previously noted, successfully navigating this could be a challenge. Which is perhaps also an understatement.
You should probably hire a lawyer to review your situation, your business organization, your business operations, and give you an informed opinion with advice (not some free or low-cost consultation), before you rely on getting RO credit for days you are outside Canada.
In particular, I am afraid you may be wearing blinders in how you read and interpret these matters. Maybe not. But like many, if not most, you seem to be reading things in a light that favours you, that will support a claim for the credit. That can be risky. As previously noted, IRCC tends to be strict in how it applies this particular exception to the RO.
You say, for example, "
I am the sole director and full time employee" of this company, but also say the business is "
not a sole proprietorship" and you are "
not self-employed," as if this means IRCC is not going to evaluate your claim to the credit with the scrutiny, potentially skepticism, it would approach someone whose temporary assignments to work outside Canada were with a business that is
MORE or LESS (not necessarily technically) a sole proprietorship.
I think I previously mentioned that the "
technicalities involved tend to work against getting credit. In regards to what qualifies as a 'Canadian business' for purposes of this credit, for example, the technical elements must be met to get the credit, but just meeting the technical elements might not be enough."
None of which is to opine just how IRCC will approach or assess your business, your employment relationship with the business, the nature of the assignments to work outside Canada. I do NOT know how it will actually go. No advanced degrees in Business Administration necessary to apprehend, however, there is likely to be, at the least, questions and elevated scrutiny when the
company official who signs the letter detailing information about the business, and the employee, are the same person.
Who in the business makes the decision to assign you to a job outside Canada?
But it is not a sole proprietorship. One protests. So?
It warrants noting that among the similar situations addressed in forum discussions, in some of the cases there were attempts to mask one/two person operations by technically having additional persons involved, typically in name only (typically family or close friends). Common scenario is a wife and husband, one ostensibly the corporate decision maker, staying in Canada, keeping books and such in Canada, while the other is sent (assigned) to work outside Canada. Another crash and burn scenario, except the one who stays in Canada is OK (and if spouses, they can in turn sponsor the other to get PR status again).
Which brings up . . . You say "
What I should have asked is if there is anyone in a similar situation and if there is any other additional information that I do not currently have that may be useful."
But as I previously noted:
Many of the discussions here at least reference situations quite similar to yours. These scenarios come up rather often, largely because more than a few attempt to get around the RO by ostensibly establishing a business in Canada that in turn assigns them to work abroad, which efforts tend to crash and burn.
If the references here in the forum are insufficiently detailed for you to grasp and understand how they are situations similar to yours, do some research for yourself, looking at some actual cases at the CanII website where official decisions by the IAD and Federal Court are published, searching for residency obligation enforcement cases involving credit for days working outside Canada. See
https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/ Maybe there have not been many recent cases, but if you go back five and ten years (law and practice on this issue has not changed much in the last decade) there should be no shortage of cases in which PRs organized their business legally in Canada but the businesses operations were essentially outside Canada. In itself, there is nothing wrong about that. It's akin to what I have done (but physically staying in Canada long enough to have gotten citizenship). But in many of the cases that does not qualify for RO credit for the time they were outside Canada.
The Mechanics of Enforcement:
If the PR qualifies for the working abroad for a Canadian business RO credit, each day they are employed full time abroad engaged in that employment counts as a day IN Canada . . . for purposes of the RO, not citizenship.
If the PR has been IN Canada 731 days within the previous five years, they are in RO compliance, whether the working abroad credit applies or not is largely NOT relevant, of no matter.
As long as no inadmissibility proceedings have been commenced, if a PR is IN Canada they can stay. Their status as a PR is still valid. If they stay for 730 days, any previous breach of the RO is cured (unless inadmissibility proceedings have already been started; once a 44(1) Report is prepared, days in Canada no longer count).
Meanwhile, actual practices in the enforcement of the RO tend to be flexible and in many respects lenient. Lots of PRs get tangled in some degree of RO enforcement while they are in breach of the RO, but are allowed to keep PR status anyway. Of course it is RISKY to get into that situation.
Note, for example, there are many cases in which a PR has been denied the working-abroad credit but then allowed to keep PR status for H&C reasons, either in the review of the Report by a Minister's Delegate, or later by the IAD if there is an appeal. There is NO guarantee of such leniency, and we are not at all sure how many go which way or the other, but H&C relief is quite common.
