Your questions are about the process leading up to when a person becomes a Permanent Resident, and outside the scope of this part of the forum, which is about PR Obligations. See topics grouped under the heading "Immigration to Canada," including:
You should be able to get more direct responses to your questions there.
I do not follow the immigration process itself much, so I do not have much to offer about obtaining a visitor record to return to Canada before actually becoming a PR. My understanding is a Visitor Record is NOT a visa, so cannot be used to get aboard a plane coming to Canada. My guess is you may be able to apply for an extension of status, but ask for visitor status rather than a work permit. BUT I DO NOT FOLLOW THESE MATTERS, so my understanding may no longer be even close . . . again, try the other topics for your questions.
Beyond that . . .
AVAILABILITY of CREDIT TOWARD RESIDENCY OBLIGATION BASED on BEING ACCOMPANIED by a CITIZEN-PARTNER . . .
You clearly assume you will be entitled to the credit toward compliance with the PR Residency Obligation for PRs abroad accompanying a Canadian citizen common-law partner. The responses here so far have nonetheless raised an issue about this
for good reason.
In particular, you say that you will be "
fulfilling requirements for PR status (physically present in Canada >2y in last 5y, accompanied by Canadian abroad in the future" and reference "
my Canadian common law partner is accompanying me?"
You are obviously referring to information that a PR gets credit toward RO compliance for time the PR is accompanying outside Canada a Canadian citizen who is their common law partner.
Which is stated in many sources, including the recently adopted PDIs in regards to the Residency Requirements:
see
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/permanent-residence/card/permanent-resident-determination.html
This is specifically based on and a paraphrase of the particular statutory provision in Section 28(2)(a)(ii) of IRPA (the legislative Act governing immigration).
In response to posts here about this issue, you asked:
"Why is that so? In other words, is there any official documentation that confirms this?
Anything that I have found doesn't specify restrictions of the spouse accompaniment with respect to the timing of when PR is conferred. "
Actually, there is NO IRCC information or source or official documentation that says a PR can meet the PR Residency Obligation based on being accompanied by a Canadian citizen. The information, and the statute, specifically say the credit is for a PR who is accompanying the Canadian citizen.
This is an oft discussed issue. The
Who-Accompanied-Whom question. The credit is clearly available when the PR is the person who accompanied the Citizen partner abroad. Question is whether it is also available when the Canadian citizen partner accompanied the PR abroad.
AND YES, this issue has been addressed often, at length, and in-depth, in many OFFICIAL sources. There is a topic here specifically about this issue titled:
"Who-accompanied-whom can matter for PRs living with citizen spouse abroad: UPDATE"
Find here:
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/who-accompanied-whom-can-matter-for-prs-living-with-citizen-spouse-abroad-update.579860/
In that topic I and others reference, cite, and often link many of the sources specifically addressing this issue. It gets
weedy. Many of the sources cited are officially published Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) decisions which are about actual cases in which PRs have LOST their PR status, their claim to credit for accompanying-Canadian-citizen-partner-abroad REJECTED even though the PR and the citizen partner were abroad together.
For the most oft cited example of an actual case in which the
who-accompanied-whom question resulted in being denied credit see Diouf, 2011 CanLII 59952 see
http://canlii.ca/t/fn81r
Also see Khan, 2015 CanLII 99397 (CA IRB),
http://canlii.ca/t/grz8t
The IAD stated:
". . . I find that at no time did the Appellant “accompany” his spouse. It is his spouse who went to Bangladesh to “accompany” the Appellant . . ."
Also see Dadash-zadeh v Canada, 2018 CanLII 46499 (CA IRB),
http://canlii.ca/t/hsldq
The IAD stated:
"I share the prevailing approach of the IAD that the test in subparagraph 28(2)(a)(ii) of the Act cannot be met merely by counting the number of days a permanent resident spends outside Canada in the company of a Canadian citizen who is their spouse or common-law partner without regard to who is accompanying whom."
The above and many others are cited here:
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/who-accompanied-whom-can-matter-for-prs-living-with-citizen-spouse-abroad-update.579860/page-4
USUALLY, HOWEVER, who-accompanied-whom does NOT matter. Generally, as long as the PR and citizen partner are "ordinarily residing together" abroad, the time they are living together counts. Older IRCC/CIC guidelines say that there is no need to determine
who-accompanied-whom as long as the couple are ordinarily living together (appears IRCC is replacing these guidelines with less detailed PDIs). But as many sources show,
there are circumstances in which Canadian officials will consider who-accompanied-whom and DENY credit unless it is the PR accompanying the citizen, not the other way around.
And the reason why others here so quickly reacted to your situation is that it appears there are multiple aspects of your scenario which are at RISK for triggering a negative
who-accompanied-whom analysis.
Things to be aware of regarding this:
There are multiple signs that the trend is moving toward a more narrow interpretation and stricter application of the provision allowing credit for PRs abroad with Canadian citizen partners.
In particular, in many of the cases decided by the IAD, the lawyer representing
the Minister specifically argues that who-accompanied-whom matters, and that the credit is NOT available when the citizen is the one accompanying the PR.
That is a rather BIG clue as to the direction things are going.
In the meantime, there are various approaches which Canadian officials take regarding this. That is, there is NO one for-sure rule. This can range from how visa officers decide PR Travel Document applications to PoE CBSA screening, as well as how local IRCC offices (ID officers) approach this, and of course IAD Panels and Federal Court Justices.
There is a for-sure rule in the sense that if a PR is living IN Canada with a Canadian citizen partner, the PR having established an in-fact residence in Canada, and the Canadian citizen has a reason to move abroad, so the PR moves abroad with the citizen partner, that scenario will for-sure get credit for the time the couple are living together abroad.
But if the facts vary from that, especially if the PR was not settled and established in Canada before the move abroad, or the couple did not move abroad together (at least around the same time), or it is the PR who has the reason for the couple moving abroad . . . in these scenarios there is NO for-sure rule. There are at least three different approaches a Canadian official can take:
-- credit is available for any days the PR was ordinarily living together with the Canadian citizen spouse abroad
-- credit may depend on who-accompanied-whom
-- does not matter who-accompanied-whom but there must be a temporal connection in when BOTH moved from Canada to another country (that is, credit depends on couple moving from Canada together or at least around the same time)
If the official approaches the credit depending on
who-accompanied-whom, there are further variations in how this is evaluated. (Did I mention it gets
weedy?)
OBVIOUSLY . . . this is also an area in which there could be significant changes made in the coming years. The Conservatives are mumbling about trying to force an election this coming fall, so the political climate in Canada could be changing.
