The goal of citizenship is to remain in Canada.
That's quite judgmental
To be clear, as articulated by many officials, including IAD panels and Federal Court justices, even the goal (the explicit purpose) of granting PR itself is so the individual can PERMANENTLY settle and live in Canada. Offering PRs a path to citizenship is a continuation of this.
That may be a judgmental policy. I do not indulge in those sorts of speculation. BUT there is no doubt that is the underlying policy.
The guidance about working abroad is specific to people being assigned abroad on a foreign assignment to a subsidiary of that business for months/years, it only potentially works for the residency obligation days.It does not work for business trips at all
(Recognizing that
there is NO working-abroad-for-a-Canadian-business credit toward the citizenship actual presence requirement. )
BUT as to the PR Residency Obligation . . . To be clear, there is NO particular rule governing "business trips," as such, and the
working-abroad-for-a-Canadian-business credit toward the PR Residency Obligation.
Whether a "business trip" qualifies for the credit depends on whether the business meets the qualifying elements for a Canadian business (meaning more than just being a business organized in Canada with a location in Canada), and whether the employment relationship qualifies, and whether the employer assigned the employee to engage in the work done abroad (even if that is merely meeting with prospective clients, for example) with an understanding the employee will return to his or her employment IN Canada. Which sounds like a lot of temporary assignments abroad many might label a "business trip." Does not matter if it is for three days or thirty days, so long as it is temporary and so long as the employee remains a full time employee.
Moreover, I have engaged in an extensive effort to locate any credible source for the proposition that business trips will not qualify for the credit, and have found
NONE. And I have asked some here who have expressed this proposition to provide some source for it, and NONE have been able to do so. (Cannot recall if you were among those I have previously asked for this).
In particular, there is nothing about being sent abroad for a short "business trip" by a Canadian business that would disqualify that time from counting, from getting the credit, SO LONG AS the particular elements of the credit are met. Indeed, if a PR is employed full time by a qualified Canadian business and is sent abroad BY and on behalf of that business, the time abroad should be given credit notwithstanding describing or labeling those trips as "business trips."
Typically labels have little relevance. What matters are the substantive facts.
There are cases in which PRs have asserted the credit and been denied it for time abroad they described or labeled as business trips, but that is always about either the business itself not qualifying (many of these cases involve a sole proprietorship or small family business, in which the "business" itself does not qualify even if technically the business is incorporated or organized in Canada), or the nature of employment relationship (for example, someone working only on a commission basis will typically not qualify for the credit, among other particular circumstances which will not satisfy the qualifying elements).
I do not know about going abroad to conferences attendant being a research assistant at a Canadian University. That does not appear to something that would qualify . . . noting, in particular, that going abroad for reasons related to one's employment is not the same thing as being "
assigned" to go WORK abroad by the business (the latter being one of the necessary elements to qualify for the credit).
