Worried About Renewing PR Card and Applying for Citizenship

[kachikum]

Hi forum members,

I am new to this forum and would like to seek the advise and guidance of expert forum members (for example, Leon, Alabaman, dependabill, etc.) regarding my current situation.

First my background: I became a PR of Canada starting January 2008 when I initially landed. After 1 month of stay in Canada, I was able to receive my PR card and left Canada for my original country due to outstanding personal and family matters back home. After 4 years since I left Canada in February 2008, I finally settled my personal and family matters and planned of returning back to Canada in January 2012. I am well aware that in my first 5 years as a PR, I was in breach of residency obligation and was worried when I was coming back to Canada in January 2012. Nevertheless, I was able to enter Canada in January 2012 and have been in Canada ever since (i.e. January 2012). Upon my return to Canada in January 2012, I have been working and living here ever since and already considered Canada my home country. Up to now, I have been living and working in Canada for 3.5 years now. Because my PR card expired in December 2012, I didn't travel out of Canada at all upon returning in January 2012 so I have a solid 3.5 years living in Canada in my recent history.

So here are my questions and concerns that I hope expert members can help me with advise and recommendations. It would help ease my concerns if you could also provide me with concrete legal basis in terms of immigration and citizenship laws with regard to your advise and recommendations:

1. Since my PR card expired back in December 2012, will I be able to renew my PR card now given that I did breach my residency obligations during my first 5 years as a PR? If I try to renew my PR card now, will it in anyway jeopardize my PR status? I am very worried that the immigration officer might not renew my PR card on the basis that I breached my residency obligation in my first 5 years as a PR. If renewing my PR card now would not jeopardize my PR status, could you please provide the actual legal basis for saying such?

2. Since I have completed my 3 years living and working here in Canada, can I apply for citizenship as well? Similar to my earlier question, will applying for citizenship now not jeopardize my PR status given the fact that I did breach my residency obligation in the past? If applying for citizenship now will not jeopardize my PR status, could you also provide the actual legal basis for it? Does it have the same legal basis as the one for renewing my PR card?

Sorry for my long post here...but I really need expert members' advise and guidance with regard to my current situation.... I am worried and anxious at this point... I really do not know what to do... Since I considered Canada my home now, I do not want to jeopardize my PR status through PR card renewal or applying for citizenship...

If somebody in the forum have the same situation as me and was able to renew their PR card and obtain citizenship successfully, I would also like to here from them.....

Please...I hope somebody could help me please...

Thanks all in advance.

 

[kachikum]

Any expert members please help me with some advise and recommendation... Thanks.

 

[dpenabill]

Same as in citizenship:

I became a PR of Canada starting January 2008 when I initially landed.
. . . enter Canada in January 2012 and have been in Canada ever since (i.e. January 2012). Upon my return to Canada in January 2012, I have been working and living here ever since and . . . I didn't travel out of Canada at all upon returning in January 2012 so I have a solid 3.5 years living in Canada in my recent history.

1. Since my PR card expired back in December 2012, will I be able to renew my PR card now given that I did breach my residency obligations during my first 5 years as a PR? If I try to renew my PR card now, will it in anyway jeopardize my PR status?

2. Since I have completed my 3 years living and working here in Canada, can I apply for citizenship as well?

. . . I do not want to jeopardize my PR status through PR card renewal or applying for citizenship...

Foremost: there is nothing in your post suggesting any concern at all about your PR status. You are in compliance with the PR Residency Obligation and no application, whether for a PR card, citizenship, to sponsor a family member, whatever, will jeopardize that (well, the burden of proving you are in compliance is always on the PR, but I assume you have enough proof of your presence in Canada for that).


Note: "didn't travel out of Canada at all upon returning in January 2012 so I have a solid 3.5 years living in Canada in my recent history"

Solid three and a half years? Not really, even if you returned January 1st, 2012, it has been less than three years and five months. Not a solid three and a half years.

I mean to be picky. It never does any good to dress things up for CIC. What matters are the facts, the basic facts. Thus I mean to be picky on just this little point for illustration: stick to the specific facts, without elaboration, without characterization.



PR Residency Obligation:

What matters is the last five years. If you have been present in Canada for more than 730 days within the last five years, you are in compliance with the PR RO. Absences more than five years ago are not relevant, not considered, of no significance.

While the fact your PR card has remained expired so long, in conjunction with the previous length of your absence, may invite some elevated scrutiny when applying for . . . well anything, including a new PR card (but for anything, such as to sponsor a family member, or for citizenship) . . . for purposes of applying for the PR card, three years plus (noting again that it will not be 3 and a half years until the date in July corresponding to the date of return in January 2012) should be enough of a margin to avoid secondary review or a Residency Determination. But even if your application was routed for a secondary review, even a Residency Determination, no big deal, you would just have to document where you have been living and working. And again, that inquiry would be specifically limited to the five years immediately preceding the date you make the PR card application.


Citizenship application:

If you apply soon, before the revised requirements in the SCCA take effect (Bill C-24 was adopted in June 2014 but the revised requirements for grant citizenship are not yet in effect; we do not know for sure when they will be, but most indications are that it will be within the next few weeks or months), what will matter is where you have been physically present, residing, and working, during the FOUR years immediately preceding the date you sign the application.

Here again, the fact your PR card has remained expired so long, in conjunction with the previous length of your absence, may invite some elevated scrutiny in processing your citizenship application, but here again it is only the relevant four year period that ultimately matters.

Any applicant for citizenship may be issued RQ. So be sure to have documentation showing where you have been living and working, and other records documenting your presence and activities in Canada. Three years and four months (1200+ days or so) of actual presence is a good margin. Thus, if you have documentation (rental leases and receipts to show residence, T4s and Notices of Assessment to show employment, and such) proving your presence and residence in the last three plus years, you should have no serious problems with the citizenship application (again, anyone can be issued RQ, but if you have your documentation this should be no problem, just a delay in processing . . . and that should be a relatively short delay in comparison to older RQ'd cases, particularly those which have continued to be processed as a residency case even after the initial review of the response to the RQ).



Whether to apply for PR card, citizenship, or both:

This is a very personal decision for you, one only you can make depending on a number of factors. For example, if you have strong documentation to show your rental or ownership interest in where you lived in Canada since the beginning of 2012, plus T4s and Notices of Assessment for 2012 through 2014, an application for citizenship may be what you choose to do.

At other times, I probably would have suggested applying for the PR card, waiting to get that, before applying for citizenship. Applying for citizenship without a currently valid PR card might trigger RQ. If CIC had concerns about your residency those would probably come up and be addressed in processing the PR card application, you would submit a response to the Residency Determination form, residency would be assessed, and it might take longer than a routine application but ultimately you would be issued and delivered a new PR card. By then your margin of actual presence for citizenship would be even larger, and CIC would probably cross-check the information in the citizenship application with the PR card application, all would check out positively, and there should be no problem. In this scenario, waiting the extra two to five months to get the PR card first would be worth it since it would significantly reduce the risk of the citizenship application sliding into a long-haul residency-issue case, and thus likely avoid a much, much longer delay in processing the citizenship application.

You do not have time for this however given that it is quite likely the revised requirements in the SCCA will come into force relatively soon, perhaps in a week or two, more likely not until July, maybe somewhat later (and possibly even later). If you delay applying for citizenship until after the revised requirements take effect, you would have to wait until January 2016 at the soonest to be eligible for citizenship.

You may decide to do that, to wait to apply for citizenship. That is, you could apply for the new PR card soon, and plan to apply for citizenship early next year . . . give yourself a month or so, say, into February 2016, to meet the new requirements plus a month's margin. Of course that would depend on continuing to remain in Canada (new requirement will be 1460 days actual physical presence, that is four years APP).

The advantage of this would be the low number of applications being submitted once the new requirements take effect (for about a year, the number of those becoming eligible to apply will be reduced by approximately the number who became PRs in the same time period three years previous, which is a very large number . . . for about a year, new applications will probably average at least ten thousand a month fewer than usual once the new requirements kick in), so the processing timeline is likely to be very good compared to the usual processing timeline. In contrast, those rushing to apply in the next several weeks to months, applying before the revised requirements come into effect, are probably both large in number (compared to usual application rates) and likely to encounter elevated scrutiny at CIC, so applying soon may encounter longer than usual (compared to last year and a half) processing timelines.

If you decide you want to apply for citizenship (appears you qualify, and if you have the documentation, why not), you have gotten by this long without a valid PR card, you could apply just for citizenship. Particularly if you still have your expired PR card, so you can photocopy and include that with the application (otherwise you have to explain not having a PR card).

There is no good reason to apply for both at the same time. If you did this you still will not have a valid PR card to copy for the citizenship application, and CIC will of course be cross-checking the applications, and if some stranger bureaucrat discerns cause for concern for either one that will undoubtedly lead to those concerns being addressed in both. And in the meantime you do not need a PR card.

Overall, if there is going to be a concern, it will arise whether or not you apply for the PR card in addition to citizenship.

Reminder: even if there is a concern, so long as you have your documentation to show presence, residence, and employment, there should be no serious problems, just the hassle of responding to requests for further information and documentation and the inherent delays that involves.



NOTE: I am no expert. No posts in a forum like this should be considered to be an expert opinion. Many of us make a concerted effort to be informed and to exercise good judgment in our comments and observations, and thus we hope to be of some help, but what is found in open forums like this should be carefully and critically considered in conjunction with more official and authoritative sources before making decisions.