Please Advise ! travel with expired PR!

[Hana Diabas]

Hello friends

I have to travel early December for my wedding party , but I haven't received my renewed PR card yet !

I had My card for five years and it has expired last month ! the application was submitted for renewal in Aug and no reply has been received up to this moment !

I'm so concerned about this whole situation because I booked my flight and paid full money! and the entire family is involved so in terms of financial involvement it's considerable !

What do you suggest ? just wait ?
can I leave Canada without a valid PR card ? does a travel document help ?
Is there any way to leave the country and not miss the flight ?

Thank you

 

[Rob_TO]

Leaving the country is easy, as you don't need anything to with your PR status to leave.

It's returning that will be the problem. To fly back to Canada, you must present a valid PR card or PR Travel Document to the airline, no exceptions.

So you have basically 3 options:
1. Your PR card arrives in time, and you travel easily with your PR card
2. No PR card, so you can apply for a PR Travel Document once you arrive at the country you're visiting. You will probably need a couple weeks to account for PR TD app processing and mailing it plus your passport. With PR TD you can fly directly to Canada.
3. No PR card, and don't want to apply for PR TD, so you can fly back to USA and cross into Canada via land border. At land border no PR card nor PR TD is needed, just your passport and expired PR card and/or COPR document is good enough.