Wanting to spend only part of the year in Canada

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My husband and I own a house in Nova Scotia, and he is a naturalized citizen. We live in New York now. I have recently retired from teaching, and he will this June. We have spent our summers there for many years, want to spend most of the year in Canada in the future but not the whole year. It is not important to me to become a citizen, but I would want permanent resident status so I can stay longer than six months and, if necessary, go to the local hospital for emergency care. I am finding the guidelines confusing since neither of us is living in Canada now. Thanks for any help!

 

[Aquakitty]

My husband and I own a house in Nova Scotia, and he is a naturalized citizen. We live in New York now. I have recently retired from teaching, and he will this June. We have spent our summers there for many years, want to spend most of the year in Canada in the future but not the whole year. It is not important to me to become a citizen, but I would want permanent resident status so I can stay longer than six months and, if necessary, go to the local hospital for emergency care. I am finding the guidelines confusing since neither of us is living in Canada now. Thanks for any help!

Use the "outside of Canada" package to apply outland. You need to stay in Canada for a total of 2 out of the last 5 years to satisfy your requirements of either maintaining permanent residence or becoming a citizen. Staying for part of the year should be ok as long as you meet that requirement. However you may also need to prove that you intend to reside in Canada.

 

[scylla]

Use the "outside of Canada" package to apply outland. You need to stay in Canada for a total of 2 out of the last 5 years to satisfy your requirements of either maintaining permanent residence or becoming a citizen. Staying for part of the year should be ok as long as you meet that requirement. However you may also need to prove that you intend to reside in Canada.

She will not need to meet the 2 out of 5 year residency requirement for keeping PR since her husband is a citizen. The residence requirement is 4 years out of 6.

Important to note that you lose health care coverage if you live outside of canada for more than six months out of each year and will have to live in Canada for three months each time you return to reinstate coverage. So they will most likely still have to purchase private insurance to cover themselves while in Canada.

 

[Aquakitty]

She will not need to meet the 2 out of 5 year residency requirement for keeping PR since her husband is a citizen. The residence requirement is 4 years out of 6.

Important to note that you lose health care coverage if you live outside of canada for more than six months out of each year and will have to live in Canada for three months each time you return to reinstate coverage. So they will most likely still have to purchase private insurance to cover themselves while in Canada.

Ah right, for some reason I saw "naturalized" and thought "PR".

You will be fine then with this if you stay in Canada for over 6 months and in the US for less than that, your health care in Canada should be ok.

 

[zardoz]

My husband and I own a house in Nova Scotia, and he is a naturalized citizen. We live in New York now. I have recently retired from teaching, and he will this June. We have spent our summers there for many years, want to spend most of the year in Canada in the future but not the whole year. It is not important to me to become a citizen, but I would want permanent resident status so I can stay longer than six months and, if necessary, go to the local hospital for emergency care. I am finding the guidelines confusing since neither of us is living in Canada now. Thanks for any help!

Your biggest problem is for your husband to meet the "intent to reside in Canada" requirement for spousal sponsorship by a Canadian citizen abroad. I think that he may find it difficult to convince CIC, given your description of your current circumstances.

 

[wowsers]

She will not need to meet the 2 out of 5 year residency requirement for keeping PR since her husband is a citizen. The residence requirement is 4 years out of 6.

The quoted statement is I think correct but somewhat delphic and initially caused me some consternation: the rules can change unexpectedly without one's knowledge! As I understand it however, there is no recent change. The residency requirement for keeping one's PR status is that 2 years out of every 5 must be spent in Canada but subject to 3 exceptions one of which is that time spent traveling outside Canada with one's spouse counts towards the residency requirement. The residency requirement for becoming a citizen is different: in that case 4 years out of every 6 must be spent in Canada and there is no exception for traveling abroad with one's Canadian spouse. Or so I understand!

 

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Thanks, everyone. I am hoping that our recent retirements from jobs that kept us out of Canada and the fact that we have owned a house there for nine years will suffice as showing of intent to live there. We both have Medicare and good supplemental insurance in the States and would probably return here for any planned surgery or other serious treatments since the hospital where we are (Cape Breton) sends people to Halifax (4 hour drive) for many sorts of situations. Our friends are often driving back and forth to Halifax repeatedly for treatments. Medicare will not cover any treatment outside the US. We have an American Express policy that will cover some expenses, but is there insurance we can purchase in Canada that would cover emergency care such as heart attack or car accident? We are expecting to spend more than six months in Canada each year, but there are many sorts of circumstances that could interfere from year to year.

 

[wowsers]

You will need to shop around for the best insurance cover for emergency medical treatment. Start with your bank: nearly all UK banks (which is where I live at present) provide free medical emergency cover for their customers, but you need to read the small print. Most of them have a maximum age condition (varying from bank to bank). And I have no idea whether American or Canadian banks provide the same service.. Last time I was in Canada I went through an insurance broker, who did her job very satisfactorily and to whom I will again resort when next in Canada. You will probably find a suitable broker in your province but if you have any difficulty try mine: Okanagan Insurance Services Financial Ltd 6-1131 Lawson Avenue Kelowna BC V1Y 6TB. I know it is a very long way away from you but no further than from the UK!

 

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Thanks! Great information.