PR status

[howudoineh]

Hello,

I immigrated to Canada with my parents in 1990 from Hong Kong. My father was travelling back and forth to/from Hong Kong for work at the time. After being a permanent resident for a few years (maybe less than 7 years?), he voluntarily gave up his permanent resident status when he was travelling back to Canada at the airport. When I asked him why, he said it was "too much trouble" as it appears that he has been interrogated a lot by the custom officers every time he came to Canada. After all these years, he is now open to the idea of immigrating to Canada. We are trying to explore the options and see what we can do.

We revisited the day that he voluntarily gave up his PR status. What he recalled is: he was interrogated by the custom officer that he travelled back and forth a lot to/from Canada. He was asked to give up his status and handed in his PR paper. He didn't recall he signed any paper for giving up his status, nor given any official papers. He also always made sure he was not absent from canada longer than 183 days.

Since he never signed any papers or got any official letters, do you think he still have his PR status?
If he lost his PR status, can he appeal? or does he have to reapply?

Thanks for your help!

 

[zardoz]

I think that ship has sailed. Even if he hadn't given up his status, the chances of winning an appeal would now be almost certainly zero.
He could try to apply for a PR Travel Document as this will clear up any confusion.

 

[howudoineh]

I agreed, given that it happened so long ago.

I think the only option is to have my mom sponsoring him. (I heard they no longer take application for kids sponsoring parents.) However, my mom has recently been diagnosed to have stage 4 lung cancer. I wonder if there is any way to speed up the application?

 

[scylla]

I agreed, given that it happened so long ago.

I think the only option is to have my mom sponsoring him. (I heard they no longer take application for kids sponsoring parents.) However, my mom has recently been diagnosed to have stage 4 lung cancer. I wonder if there is any way to speed up the application?

There's no way to speed up the application (no expedite process exists). So the sooner your mother applies for your father, the better.

CIC will start accepting parent sponsorship applications again in January. However the processing times will be significantly longer than spousal applications. So the best options is for your mother to sponsor your father.

 

[howudoineh]

If he tries to apply the PR travel document to check his status, how can he answer "have you even lost your status as a PR of Canada?"

He is now in Canada as a visitor, should he apply the document from Hong Kong?