so, I went on holiday to Canada during the summer whilst still waiting for the London office to finish the paperwork.
Got back and still nothing after 2 months so I contacted them...turned out that MICC hadn't forwarded the relevant forms. So, they wuickly sorted this and I now have the permanent residence form but it's only valid until mid January.
So, now I have to go back to Canada just to get the card and then return to UK again because I have job commitments in the UK.
What a pain!

Is there anyway round this to extend it until summer next year, which would be the ideal time to move?

Flight to Canada just to get the card is gonna be at least £600 rtn

There isn't any way for you to extend it. You will need to to pay the money if you still want to come to Canada.

What he said. ^^^

You have to land within a year of the date of your medical, or lose it. But just wanted to clarify that you won't be getting your PR card, that'll be sent on to you at a later date. You are just activating your PR status.

HTH.

guess I'm going skiing then

You also need a Canadian address to have your PR card sent to, it won't be sent overseas.

I need one or they need any address?
Surely it can go to the sponsor's family address?

Any street address in Canada, not PO box, to send the PR card.

So, where's good to get cheap deals just to fly over and activate it and then return shortly after? I'm hoping there might be some cheap late package charters that I might be able to get...

is there no way to have a new medical and extend the validity?
this forces everyone to pay for an extra flight or move to canada very quickly? you have to have medical at the time of applying then wait 8-10 months giving you a 2 month buffer to activate the residence!

There is no way to extend, no. It's quite clear up front that you have to land physically in Canada within one year of the medical, so if you did your medical (presumably) in January 2012, you knew a year in advance you'd have a trip to Canada at some point before January 2013. You can't extend the date, you'll have to pay the money to go in person.

As for getting cheap trips, you can take a chance and try to fly standby, but given December is busy for travelling, it's not likely that this will happen. You can try but it depends if you want take the chance.

The other option to get cheaper fares is to try to fly on Christmas Day and New Years Day - I just looked at flights LON-YYZ return on 25 Dec to 31 Dec, that comes up as £491 with a stopover each way.

The other suggestion is if you're not going to stay, look at some of the cheaper airports - maybe Halifax? Not sure if it is, just guessing, it's a shorter flight - all you have to do is cross the Canadian border, doesn't matter where. Lastly, you could instead fly somewhere like New York or somewhere close(ish) to the border and drive across, though you won't be able to cross in a rental car...

Good luck.

2 months is actually quite a long time compared to some of our other forum members - we've had people who have only had one or two weeks to get their PR activated before the medicals expire!

That's the annoying thing, I already went to Canada on holiday as I was still waiting but then they approved it not long after I got back.

So, I just contacted the embassy, they said they could extend it (due to their delays) but doesn't this mean my medical will expire?
...unless they plan on extending everything.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, you have to enter Canada within one year of your medicals being done - you have to have valid medicals to have your PR granted upon entry.

I suppose if they've said they'll extend it, you'll have to have a new medical done in order to move the date out, but that costs you however much these days (£250+?) so why not just fly over and get the landing finished? You also run the risk of them not processing the extension before the deadline... but I don't know enough detail about it.

As for this:
Not much CIC can do about that - you could have booked your holiday to Canada for later to be sure you had your approval by then... my husband and I booked our trip home in December knowing that that was when the medical expiry would be, and we figured that the process would be done within 1 year, instead of cutting it close... but that was just us.

If you're asking on this forum, you're going to keep getting the answers you've gotten - you have to land within a year. But if you've contacted CIC and they tell you something different, then they know better than us.

it is now possible for them to extend the validity of the medical exam without the need for doing a new medical

See here http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resourc...2012/ob423.asp

This is fairly new, but should save you the cost of a new examination

If CIC has accepted that you do not have enough time to land before the expiry of your Visa, congrats. but this is usually only done in very exceptional circumstances.

That's not true. You can take a rental car across the border, you just can't do one way rentals, so the OP would need to return the car to the States.