Short trip to Canada after returning to U.S. / resident card expired

[Lanaloo]

Hi,
I'm a U.S. citizen and became a Canadian resident in 2009. I moved back to the U.S. in 2013. We're planning a short trip to Canada to visit friends and take care of some loose ends from when we left Canada. In the meantime, my residency card expired.

1) When I enter Canada, do I have to show the the border officer my expired residency card, or just show my U.S. passport entering as a U.S. citizen vising Canada?
2) Because I still have residency status, but my residency card has expired, do I need to show them some sort of proof of landing, even though I'm a U.S. citizen and only staying in Canada for a few days?
3) When I'm in Canada, should I apply for a renewed residency card, or only do that if I actually move back to Canada to stay there?

Thanks!

 

[ecx]

As far as I know, if you enter Canada from the US via car/bus/train you will only need to show your landing papers, no one will ask you for your PR Card. I might be wrong though, but I remember reading this somewhere. If this isn't true however, you can simply apply for a travel document before you come to Canada. Or you can just show your American passport and come as a tourist, but since you're a permanent resident there is no reason to do this.

In my opinion you're better off applying for a new PR Card while you're here simply because you never know what the future holds but of course that's up to you. Say you decide you want to move back to Canada in 2017 - by then your PR status will be expired and you will not be able to live here permanently anymore because you would have been away for more than 730 days in a 5 year period. So it would be game over. But if you renew your card this year it will be valid until 2019, meaning you can move here whenever you want until 2019. Of course if you want to renew it again in 2019 you would need to stay in Canada for 730 days in a 5 year period again, but right now you have literally nothing to lose if you renew your card (quite the opposite).

They don't forward PR Cards to foreign addresses though, so you need to provide a Canadian address so they can either send the card itself or a letter requesting you to pick it up in person.