Hi everyone. My name is Jade Calver. I own and operate Calver and Associates Canadian
Immigration Services. Today we're going to talk about coming to Canada without
your PR card as a permanent resident.
After you arrive in Canada as a permanent resident the card usually
takes about six to eight weeks to arrive. In some cases people need to travel
before the card arrives. The general rule says that you cannot travel but what
does this actually mean? Today we'll look at the different circumstances and
situations that you may be in and what to do about it if you're outside of
Canada already without your PR card or if you need to travel without your PR
card before you first receive your very first PR card.
So the first situation is if you're from a visa required country such as India and you're outside of the
country you're not going to be able to fly back to Canada if you don't have
your PR card. So you need to - you're going to need to get what's called a permanent
residency travel document or you're going to have to enter at a land port of
entry. So the land port of entry is - means that you need to go to the United States
first - you would fly to the United States and then you would come to Canada
through one of those port of entries.
The same thing applies for those who are from visa exempt countries such as
England. You need to either get your permanent residency travel document or
you need to fly to the US and enter through one of those land borders.
In either situation you're going to need a valid passport in order to fly. So, if
you're flying to the US you obviously need a US visa if you need one and then
you're going to have to have a valid passport in order to re-enter Canada .
If you don't have a PR card but you're a US citizen you can board the plane from
the US without your permanent residency card because US citizens don't need an
ETA. So from the US, you would just board the plane but you would still need your
confirmation of permanent residency document once you enter Canada. So it's
important that you know if you don't have your permanent resident card you
always need that confirmation of permanent residency document that you
received when you first landed as a permanent resident to enter either at
the land border or to show if you're a US citizen you need to show it to
customs once you arrive back in Canada.
if you're a US green cardholder - I get this question a lot so that doesn't
really affect you that much if you're from a visa requiring country you would
need to get a travel document or again enter through a land border. So holding a
green card doesn't really help you that much if you're applying to enter as
a permanent resident of Canada.
So I get a lot of questions about applying for a
permanent residency travel document. So this needs to be done at your local visa
office and it's important to note that there isn't always an office that will
process your permanent residency travel document in your country.So for example
I had a Danish client recently who was out of the country without her permanent
residency card and wanted to come back to Canada. So she had to apply for a
permanent residency and travel document through the London visa office but what
ended up happening because she didn't want to be without her permanent without
her passport rather when she was in Denmark she ended up flying to the
United States to a city that was close to Toronto (to Buffalo) and then using her
confirmation of permanent residency - and her valid Danish passport to enter
back into Canada. It's always important to note too that with when you're
applying for these permanent residency travel documents you need to be able to
show that you're actually residing in Canada because immigration Canada
doesn't want you applying for this permanent residency travel document if
you haven't been living in Canada and you don't meet the residency
requirements which we'll talk about later. So for example it's always good to
include proof of mortgage payments or rent payments, your bank accounts showing
transactions in Canada, maybe some pay slips from your work in Canada just to
make sure that you show the officer that you actually do live in Canada and that
you're meeting now to requirement that's required of
Canadian permanent residents. So that's all for today. I hope that you enjoyed
our video about entering Canada without a PR card. You can visit our website for
more information at calverimmigrationservices.com