What happens when you have noone to courier your PR card back to where you are or you don't want to risk?
Can you travel again back to Canada after soft landing just with your CoPR?
i need to clarify a thing. I’ve got my PR in December 19 and planning to do a soft landing in Mid Feb. My deadline to complete my first visit to Canada is 11/Jul/2020. My question is can I reenter Canada (after soft landing) without the PR card before 11 July.
I guess you cannot reenter without the card, that's why you need to have it couriered.
Otherwise, I wonder what would happen if 1) you get the CoPR 2) do a soft landing and get your PR card delivered to a friend 3) leave and enter again the country again with your original passport one month later 4) go get your card at your friend's house.
Reminder: there is a big difference between what is involved in being allowed
ENTRY into Canada versus what is required to
TRAVEL to Canada.
ENTRY into Canada:
If a PR is able to travel to a Canadian PoE, upon arrival at the PoE the PR will be allowed to ENTER Canada when identity has been established and PR status verified. NO PARTICULAR DOCUMENT is required. However, a valid passport is ordinarily the primary document a traveler presents to establish identity. Once identity is established, PoE officials can verify PR status in their own system, BUT this goes better, and faster, if the PR also presents some additional proof of PR status. A CoPR is often mentioned as a good document to show PoE officials to facilitate their verification of the PR's identity and PR status. But an expired PR card also can be and often is used for this. And, virtually any communication from IRCC which is addressed to the PR, and references the PR's client number, should help PoE officials to verify identity and status.
Bottom-line: if a PR can physically get to a Canadian PoE the PR will be allowed to enter Canada. No PR card or PR Travel Document is needed.
TRAVEL to Canada:
If a PR can travel to Canada, get to Canada, the PR GETS IN.
The problem the PR abroad without a valid PR card faces is HOW to physically get to Canada. To board an airline flight headed to Canada a PR must present either a valid PR card or a PR Travel Document (with some exceptions; for example, this does not apply to PRs who are U.S. citizens).
If a PR has access to a private plane, for example (such as some Gaddafi family members did during the conflict in Libya nearly a decade ago), that will provide a means to get to Canada and upon arrival at a PoE the PR must be allowed entry. NOT many PRs have such resources.
The most common work-around employed by PRs abroad without a PR card, who for whatever reason do not want to apply for a PR Travel Document, is to fly to the U.S. and then travel by land to a land-crossing PoE. Where, again, they MUST be allowed entry into Canada.
NEW PRs In Particular (the soft-landing scenario):
When a PR visa is issued the immigrant has a limited period of time in which to get to Canada and complete the landing process. For many that is too soon to actually come to Canada to settle and stay. So they make a trip to Canada within that limited time, complete the landing process at a PoE, and then return to the country where they have been living. The plan is to later make the trip to Canada to settle and stay. This works as long as this is done in time to avoid a breach of the PR Residency Obligation. It is very common. It is so common that CBSA has a specific policy applicable to such new immigrants (regarding duty-free importation of personal and household goods).
Many PRs doing a soft-landing already have family in Canada, or a trusted friend, whose address they can provide to CBSA during the landing, an address where the PR card can be mailed. They trust the family member or friend to collect their mail, safeguard the PR card, and arrange to send the PR card to the new immigrant abroad. There are some risks involved in this but it is nonetheless a very common approach and for most this appears to work well.
If the landing PR can stay in Canada long enough to wait for and collect the PR card before returning to their home country, that works well. However, for the PR doing a soft-landing this is often not a practical approach. Many must return to employment in their home country too soon to wait for the PR card.
Thus some soft-landing PRs complete the landing process and return to their home country without a PR card and without arrangements to have a PR card sent to them abroad. These new PRs thus become a PR abroad without a valid PR card. They are subject to the rules which require a PR abroad to present either a valid PR card or PR Travel Document to obtain boarding on a flight headed to Canada.
Thus, the latter PRs will . . .
. . . need either a PRTD or to cross the USA land border.
Reminder: in addition to needing either a PRTD or to cross the USA land border (or a PR card if available), the new PR needs to come and stay in Canada in time to comply with the PR Residency Obligation. If a new PR is abroad, outside Canada, for more than 1096 days since landing, as of that day the PR is in breach of the RO.
