Hi everyone. My name is Jade Calver. I own and operate Calver and Associate Immigration
Services. Today, we're going to talk about residency requirements for Permanent Residency
and keeping your PR status. So to be eligible for a PR card, you have to be a permanent
resident of Canada, you have to be physically present in Canada to apply, you have to meet
the residency requirements, which are you have to be present in Canada two out of every
five years, which we'll talk about - more about just later, and you must not be under
a removal order, you must not be a Canadian citizen, and you must have been convicted
of an offense related to the misuse of a PR card. Time spent living in Canada. So keeping
your residency status - what does that mean? So you need to be in Canada for two out of
every five years. This doesn't have to be consecutive, it's just out of every five year
period, you need to be present for two out of those five years. If you've been a permanent
resident for less than five years then from when you land back in Canada, going forward,
you need to be able to show that for those five years, you'll be able to meet that two
year requirement. If you live outside of Canada for longer, you may lose your permanent resident
status, which then you have to go to the IRB and we don't want to get into that. So, it's
really important to always record your trips outside of Canada. This is especially important
if you're outside of Canada on business a lot. People - and especially to the U.S. - because
if you have a PR card, a lot of people won't get stamped going in and out of the U.S. and
then it's impossible to track those trips after. So I really encourage you - as soon
as you become a permanent resident to track all of those trips back to any country not
even just the U.S. when you're a Canadian permanent resident. Some trips when you live
outside of Canada or travelling outside of Canada will allow you to actually count time
towards that two year requirement. So even though you weren't in Canada for those two
years, you can include time spent outside of Canada towards that requirement. There
are three different situations that help you count the time spent outside of Canada towards
the requirement. So the first is if you're accompanying a Canadian citizen outside of
Canada. So this person has to be your spouse or common law partner. It can't be your Dad,
it can't be your uncle, it can't be your cousin. It has to be your spouse or common law partner.
So if you're uh - say you go on a trip to wherever - say you go to France for two weeks
and you go with your spouse or your common law partner. Those two weeks, they actually
count towards your time requirement in Canada. You have to show that you went with that person
and that that person is a Canadian citizen. And the same thing goes for minors. So, if
you're a child under age 19, and you're accompanying a parent who's a Canadian citizen and the
child is a permanent resident, then again that time outside of Canada will count toward
the residency requirement for permanent residence. So the second option towards counting your
time outside of Canada towards the residency requirement is employment with a Canadian
company. So, if you're employed outside of Canada with a Canadian business, then again,
you can count that time towards the residency requirement. It's very important to check
before you start actually working for this Canadian company because again you have to
make sure that they're a Canadian company. A lot of people are contracted to foreign
countries even though they're working within Canada. So, make sure that you're working
for this Canadian company and make sure you have the paperwork too. So, you have to have
the contract and payslips showing that you were working for this Canadian company outside
of Canada because if you don't do that, then it's going to - it could cause complications
with your permanent residency status renewal. So, again, important to keep all of that documentation
- even before you're starting to travel with the company. So, there are also options if
you're the third situation - is it doesn't - it's fairly unique and it doesn't happen
that often. So it's if you're accompanying a permanent resident outside of Canada who
is your spouse - you can count that time with them spent outside of Canada. But only if
they're working for the Canadian government or in a public service - a Canadian public
service position. So, that's if - usually this arises if your permanent resident spouse
is working for the military, for example, or a foreign mission. Then that time will
also count as time spent in Canada. That's everything today. So that pretty much covers
your permanent residency status. I will note that these residency requirements are different
from the residency requirements that have to do with citizenship. So, we'll have another
video about the residency requirements for citizenship. So a lot of people confuse them
and they think that they're building up time that will count towards the citizenship requirements
when in fact there are different scenarios that count towards citizenship residency requirements.
So I'll go through those in another video and that's everything for today. So thank
you very much for watching. For more information, you can visit our website at calverimmigrationservices.com.