Hello,
I am from China and I've been living in Canada since 2000 and a PR since 2007. After I renewed my status in late 2013, my father had a stroke. This led to his long term hospitalization and permanent disability, which required that I be out of the country for a long time. After helping him recover somewhat and go back home, I returned to Canada, and traveled back and forth between my home country and Canada to help my family. But then in 2016 my mother had a heart attack, which again required that I spend a long period out of the country. At this point, despite continuous residency in Canada from 2000 until 2013, when I reach my second PR renewal date this year, I will only have been physically here for about 380 days of the past 5 years. I own a business and home in Canada, and my wife and I plan to build our lives here. My wife is not from my home country, and can't obtain PR there. We have no home or business there. But I haven't met the RO yet, and my wife is not a PR yet.
Given this, what options are most effective to successfully renew my card? Overstaying an expired card may not be an option if my parents suffer another medical emergency.
Thanks in advance.
You should have applied for Canadian citizenship when you had the chance, then you wouldn't be in this predicament.
You have few options, and all of them could have very negative repercussions.
1. Once in Canada,
stay in Canada until you meet the 730 days of past 5 years, and only then apply to renew PR card. This is the safest option by far, but you need to stay here and not leave for any family reason or emergency. If you did leave and needed a PR TD to return, you would then put your RO violation in front of IRCC to assess. Or you would need to use USA land border to return which may cause CBSA to assess your RO.
2. Apply for PR card renewal with only 380 days residency, on H&C basis of caring for your parents medical needs. For this to have any chance you'd need documented proof of their conditions like doctors notes, hospital receipts, showing you are only family member available to care for them, etc etc. They also do consider your previous time spent in Canada, integration into Canadian society, and possible hardship should you lose your PR status. Even with all this, there is
no guarantee a H&C claim will be accepted and if it's refused, process is started to revoke your PR status.
Also any PR card renewal app on H&C basis can expect to go for secondary reviews and take significantly longer to process.
3. Wait for PR card to expire, and next time you needed to leave Canada apply for PR TD to return. This will again require a visa officer to assess your H&C claim, and again there is no guarantee of success. If PR TD app was approved on H&C basis, you could then probably renew your PR card successfully when you returned to Canada.
If in either case your H&C claim is rejected, that will lead to termination of your PR status unless you decided to appeal. While waiting for the appeal you would get 1-year validity PR cards for travel purposes. Appeal could take a year or two to hear. If appeal is dismissed you will lose your PR status.
And during all this time, you can't sponsor your spouse for PR until you are back in compliance with RO. Also note that sponsoring your spouse requires you to be living inside Canada for duration of processing.