Judy in Calgary

My reading of Section 56(c) and other bits of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) is that a person needs a passport when he/she first applies for a Permanent Resident Card, and needs one again when he/she applies for the renewal of his/her PR Card, which needs to be done every year.

Section 56(c)(i) states that the applicant for a PR Card must supply a copy of "any document described in paragraphs 50(1)(a) to (h) — or, if the applicant does not hold one of those documents, any document described in paragraphs 178(1)(a) and (b) — that is currently held by the applicant or was held by the applicant at the time they became a permanent resident. If you look at Section 50(1)(a) to (h), you discover they're talking about a passport.

I have not seen anything in the legislation that states that a foreigner with authorization to live and work in Canada needs a valid passport during every second that he/she is in Canada. Perhaps there is legislation or a regulation that states the requirement for a valid passport, and I just haven't found it. But, even if there is no further clarification available in the laws and regulations, what I have quoted from the IRPA suggests to me that permanent residents need passports for the annual renewals of their PR Cards. So, for all practical purposes, they do need valid passports.
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Gremmie

told ya so

Manson

Our permanent residency card is valid for 5 years maybe they have changed the rules since we came over in 2006. In which case by the time it expires we will hopefully be citizens.

Judy in Calgary

Yes, you're right. PR Cards are valid for 5 years, even now. When I was scanning the IRPA I read something too quickly, and made a mistake. Sorry about that.
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Manson

Don't be sorry. My OH was rubbing his hands together thinking of the insurance money(whilst I ran downstairs almost having a heart attack thinking our PR cards had run out.)

ali-simon

we are currently waiting for our visas to do our one way flight to Alberta. My passport expires in 2010, do I need a new UK passport when out there, do I need to renew my visa or do I hang on for PR status and then use my canadian passport.

Does this make sense, it did to me when I typed it.

Steve_P

You won't be eligible for a Canadian passport with just PR status, you have to be a Canadian citizen.

You can't apply for Canadian citizenship until you have been a PR for at least three years.

So it looks like you'll need a new UK passport.

lof

assuming you are talking about pr...

the visa inserted in your passport is a single-entry visa, it is accompanied by a paper named confirmation of permanent residence (copr).

once you come to canada, your pr-status is activated at the port of entry (poe). your single entry visa will be invalid after that first entry as a pr.
you sign your copr in front of the officer, and if you are able to give him/her a canadian address (a friend's will do, but afaik they don't accept po-boxes), they send the first part of the copr to cpc sidney on your behalf. there your pr-card is being processed, which you should receive about 4 to 6 weeks after landing. in meantime the third part of the copr, stapled into your passport, is proof of your status in canada.

you need to fulfill your residency obligations - ie, you have to be physically in canada for 730 days (2 years) in every 5 year period.

to be able to apply for canadian citizenship you need to be a pr and physically in canada for 1095 days (3 years) in the 4 years preceding your application.

as always there are some exeptions / slightly different rules for some of the above steps - specially, if you've already been in canada on a temporary visa before you got your pr. but that is roughly how it works.


i can't help with the question if you HAVE to have a current british passport while being in canada. i know that some posters here decided to let theirs run out - but they are already canadian citizens.

let's assume, you don't need to have a valid uk passport as a canadian pr:
if you calculate on the basis of the steps mentioned above, you won't be able to apply for canadian citizenship before probably early 2012 (if you come over end of this year and stay in the country all the time), you can count on at least another half a year before you would be canadian citizen and therefore able to get a canadian passport. so let's say you won't have a canadian passport before end of 2012.
depending on when in 2010 your uk passport expires, you wouldn't have a passport for around 2,5 to 3 years. you wouldn't be able to leave canada in this time for any reason at all - even a short hop into the states would be impossible (the agency of homeland security require passports for all foreign nationals these days), not to mention an emergency call from the uk...

tbh, if it would be my personal choice it would be absolutely clear.



edit: just realised that stevep beat me to it.