Postpone landing and use work permit instead

[jwswart]

I landed on 1 April 2018, traveled to the U.S. on 5 April and returned to Vancouver on 8 April. Air Canada allowed me to board based on my work visa that is in my passport. When you land as PR the border control officer only strikes out your IM1 immigration visa, not your W1 work visa or your visitor visa, if you have one. If you have those in your passport when you land as a PR they will be left intact and airlines will, to my knowledge and personal experience, allow you to board using these visas.

When you arrive at the airport in Canada, don't go through the line for PR's and Canadian citizens, go through the line for visitors and simply explain to the border control officer that you are a PR and you have not yet received your PR card.

Remember - being a PR gives you the legal right to enter Canada, it's only the airlines that have a problem boarding folks without PR cards if they have no other visas in their passport because they aren't able to determine what their status is in Canada. If you have a visa that is not struck out and that has not yet reached its expiry date then the airline will be satisfied and will let you board. Canada border control also does not care how you arrive at the border, if you are a PR they will let you in. I had my COPR with me when I returned without my PR card but they didn't even care to see it, they could tell that I was a PR by scanning my passport.

Hope this helps, there was also much confusion for me about this and I considered delaying my landing until such time that I knew I would not be traveling again but this simply wasn't practical so I took a chance with the visas that were in my passport and it worked just fine.

* NB: this only applies to non-visa-exempt passport holders. If you require an ETA to enter Canada and don't have any other visa in your passport then this will NOT work.

 

[devnill]

* NB: this only applies to non-visa-exempt passport holders. If you require an ETA to enter Canada and don't have any other visa in your passport then this will NOT work.

It takes some time for ETA to be cancelled after COPR has been stamped (it took 12 months in my case). So if you have an existing ETA at the time you land as PR, until such time as the ETA is cancelled, you can use it for boarding flights.

 

[Bs65]

It takes some time for ETA to be cancelled after COPR has been stamped (it took 12 months in my case). So if you have an existing ETA at the time you land as PR, until such time as the ETA is cancelled, you can use it for boarding flights.

Whether a visa or permit has been struck out or not or whether an ETA is still in the system ultimately the checkin staff have the say whether anyone can checkin/ board or not so not something to be relied on obviously. So even if someone reports they didn’t have an issue they could have just been lucky that one time and the risk always there boarding denied.