hi
my pr card will expire in two month and i have only been 250 days in canada in the past 5 years.
i plan to move permanently to Canada in a month
1. Whats the best plan to avoid being reported ?
2. does cbsa have records of all the exit dates? if they do, why in many court cases( as i found in
https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2018/2018fc361/2018fc361.html?) , the only acceptable document is passport stamps? and there are missing records for exits from canada in cbsa ??
If you are a relatively new PR, less than five years since you landed, and you are in breach of the RO because you simply failed to make the move to settle in Canada sooner, the best you can do is (1) be totally honest in responding to questions at the PoE, and hope you are NOT referred to Secondary. If referred to Secondary (which seems likely), (2) continue to be totally honest in responding to questions, and (3) be prepared to fully explain your REAL REASONS for not coming and settling in Canada sooner, and HONESTLY explain your "plan" to settle in Canada permanently. And hope for leniency.
Odds are probably NOT great, or even good, but Canada is NOT out to punish PRs just because they run into some difficulty making the move to settle in Canada. In regards to PRs, in particular, Canada (including CBSA and IRCC) are NOT about
GOTCHA GAMES. Seems likely you are past the H&C leniency range but you can give it your best shot . . . and your best shot is about being totally upfront, honest, and giving a genuine explanation for why it has taken so long for you to come to Canada to settle.
IF IN CONTRAST you landed and became a PR longer ago, before 2014 say, my sense is that the extent of the breach of the RO offers you VERY LITTLE chance of saving your PR status.
THE LONGER EXPLANATION:
I largely concur in the previous posts above . . .
. . . except I doubt that the Entry/Exit initiative will entirely eliminate any so-called "grey area" in PoE screening of PR-travelers, especially as to PIL inspections. Which is a tangent I'll skip for now.
Foremost there is NO guarantee your "plan" (to move to Canada permanently) can succeed. You are in breach of the PR Residency Obligation, and thus "inadmissible," and given the extent of the breach the odds are likely you will lose PR status (absent compelling H&C reasons justifying a waiver of the breach).
The "best plan to avoid being reported" is NOT available in your scenario. The best plan to avoid being reported is easy (but must precede being in breach of the RO): spend at least 730 days IN Canada within any and EVERY five year time period after the day of landing.
The second best plan also appears to NOT be available, and that is to have established IN FACT residence in Canada and maintain that residence even if spending considerable time outside Canada to the extent there is a breach of the RO. (There is no guarantee this plan will succeed, since any breach of the RO entails a risk of losing PR status, but PRs who actually have established long-term residence in Canada may have a fair shot persuading CBSA or IRCC officers they deserve an opportunity to keep their PR status.)
Of course
I recognize your question is mostly about how to present yourself upon arrival at a PoE so that you will be allowed to enter Canada without being issued a 44(1) Report for inadmissibility due to the failure to comply with the PR RO,
DESPITE the fact you are in breach of the RO. However, given the extent to which you have not complied with the RO there is NO real plan for accomplishing this . . . although the sooner you arrive, the better (caveat: probably not a whole lot better, given the already big breach of the RO).
Note, in case there is some temptation lurking in the back ground, since changes adopted during the Harper administration, misrepresentations made during the course of PoE examinations by returning PRs can now be grounds for terminating PR status (based on inadmissibility for misrepresentations made in the course of obtaining entry into Canada), with NO time limit. And are punishable criminally (though the latter does not happen often).
Which leads to your second question:
2. does cbsa have records of all the exit dates?
This question raises an important preliminary question and requires some preliminary observations.
WHY is this question being asked?
If it is about trying to quantify the risk of a referral to Secondary and there examined about RO compliance, other factors will have far more influence in how it goes at the PIL (Primary Inspection Line) . . . and as others suggest more than I do, this can involve a measure of LUCK.
Overall, presenting a valid PR card tends to lower the risk a PIL officer will make a referral to Secondary for RO compliance questions. But in most cases where there is a substantial breach of the RO (as there is in your instance), there is enough information on the screen to alert the PIL officer to trigger a referral (even if sometimes they don't). As already noted, however, the odds are PROBABLY (we do not really know, as there are no statistics to illuminate the probabilities) NOT favourable; the odds PROBABLY lean well toward there being a referral to Secondary, and in Secondary you will very likely be asked questions about RO compliance.
Let's be clear, in a PoE examination the traveler is required, by law (punishable criminally as well as subject to punitive consequences under IRPA), to TRUTHFULLY answer any and all questions. So it does NOT really matter if CBSA has easily accessed records which will fully reveal all a PR's travel dates. The PR MUST truthfully answer any and all questions about travel dates. You were there, each and every time, so of course you are the one person in the whole world who has for-sure access to all that information, all those dates. Whether or not the examining officer has access to ALL your travel history, the officer has enough access to enough history, especially in conjunction with other information, the odds are high that any substantial misrepresentations (including by omission) will be caught or at least suspected enough to steer the process in a direction that will NOT bode well.
So the biggest factor in how it goes is whether or not you are questioned about RO compliance. There is some possibility that upon presentation of a valid PR card (either at a kiosk or to a PIL officer) you will be waived through the PoE and thus NOT questioned, let alone challenged, about compliance with the RO. But as noted, the odds tend to suggest you will be referred to Secondary and in Secondary questioned about information related to RO compliance, perhaps required to complete a written questionnaire about relevant information (travel history, work or school history, address history, and such). And if that happens, you will most likely be issued a 44(1) Report for Inadmissibility.
It warrants repeating: Since you were personally there each and every time you exited Canada, and you were personally there each and every time you entered Canada, YOU ARE THE ONE PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD WHO CAN HAVE FOR-SURE ACCURATE INFORMATION ABOUT THOSE DATES. And you are required to honestly, that is truthfully, respond to any questions about your travel history. If the PR fails to provide this information (that is, if CBSA officers discern the PR cannot be relied upon to truthfully and completely provide this information), things tend to go badly. REMEMBER: burden of proving compliance with the RO is always on the PR.
Which leads to the second part of your second question:
It appears you misunderstand Justice Barnes' decision. Justice Barnes emphasizes there are OTHER sources of information which MUST be taken into account when calculating a PR's account of days present in Canada. Officers CANNOT rely on passport stamps alone. For Morelly, in particular, Justice Barnes ruled a Citizenship Judge could not ignore, for example, the evidence of Morelly's MSI records (billing dates for Nova Scotia medical services), as evidence tending to show Morelly was in fact present in Canada during those periods of time.
To be clear, this goes BOTH ways. Which is why residency related questions, attendant citizenship applications OR PR RO compliance inquiries, require the PR to declare address history and work history as well as travel history. The ABSENCE of information corroborating presence can weigh as heavily against the PR as Justice Barnes was stating that the presence of evidence corroborating presence (like seeing a doctor in Nova Scotia) can weigh in favour of the PR.
Many IAD and Federal Court decisions explicitly state that decision-makers cannot rely ONLY on what is shown by passport stamps. Other evidence is relevant and must be considered. And again, this goes both ways. For the PR who has other types of information tending to show presence in Canada, that will weigh in the PR's favour. BUT the PR who has a dearth of evidence corroborating presence in Canada tends to NOT be believed if the PR otherwise claims to have been IN Canada.