landing in2009, PR card in 2012

[shh08008]

Halo All,

Thanks for reading this. I did not receive my initial PR card in 2009 when i completed my landing since i told the immigration that i was not going to settle down in Canada at that time. I stayed there for 2 days and came back to USA. I went back again in Feb, 2012 to apply for my PR card and received it in May, 2012. On my PR card the validity period is 2012-2017. Now i am confused about my residency obligation. Is it from 2009 when i landed or 2012 when i got my PR card? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards

S

 

[computergeek]

The residency obligation starts on your landing date. The PR card provides primary evidence that you are a permanent resident, but it does not establish you have met the residency requirement. The flip side of this discussion is that having an expired PR card doesn't prove you are out of compliance either, it just makes travel back to Canada more difficult.

With that said, the BSO looking at your card is not likely to examine you closely to ensure you are in compliance with the PR residency requirement until 2016. However, there is always the risk that if you are not in compliance with the PR residency requirement that you could be reported by the CBSA officer at the border. Almost anything that requires a secondary inspection of you is likely to trigger heightened scrutiny at which point if you are not in compliance it might trigger a report.

But for now, you should be fine.

Good luck!