jamesy2

Hi guys, we had originally decided to move to Vancovuer in May but are having to delay (my COPR is valid until November) - what is the process for landing and not declaring im landing to start my residency? do I just land and not say anything or do i need to actively tell the border agent i have a COPR but don't want to activate yet?

christmasoompa

I'm a bit confused, you want to delay landing, but you're still travelling to Canada, is that right? Why can't you land then?

jamesy2

Correct, we are going to do a recce trip and there's a possibility our move gets cancelled completely so i don't want to activate it and then never go back if that makes sense?

Basically we need more time in the UK and are having some doubts so are planning to go out to Vancouver for a couple weeks and see how we feel, and then move properly before my COPR expires in Nov, probably Sep/Oct

christmasoompa

From your previous threads it looks like you've applied under spousal sponsorship, is that right?

jamesy2

correct yea

christmasoompa

In which case, I'd recommend you land and activate it. Once you've done that, you keep PR as long as you are living with your Canadian spouse, wherever that may be in the world. So you can land, get PR, then live outside of Canada for the next 10, 20 or 50 years, but you'll remain a PR. It would save you having to apply again in the future if you ever wanted to move another time.

But in answer to your original question, yes you can just tell them you don't want to activate your PR when you arrive. https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Landi..._.22landing.22

HTH.

jamesy2

Thats interesting, i did not know that! - i thought the PR expired after 5 years and i had to spend 2 years resident in Canada to keep it valid?

christmasoompa

For most people, yes. But for spouses of Canadian citizens, they keep it if they are with that spouse.

https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpce...um=1466&top=10

and

https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Resid...gations-Canada

HTH.

jamesy2

Thank you! - sorry, one more question, would doing that make me a tax resident of Canada or would i still be tax resident here in the UK

christmasoompa

You'd still be tax resident in the UK.

Twitcher1958

Wow! How lucky you’ve been that someone with the relevant experience has picked up on this and advised you. I’m just surprised it wasn’t made clear through the documentation etc that you’ve received to date?
It could be a relevant area of interest to me because my daughter is married to an American and moving to Canada (she’s dual Brit/Canadian) could be on the cards sometime. When I did a bit of ‘google research’ a while ago, I thought part of the spousal visa was a requirement to move to Canada within a certain time frame but now presume that’s an incorrect assumption or wrongly remembered, from this thread.

Snowy560

If the sponsor is a Canadian citizen living exclusively outside of Canada, the sponsor would have to declare on one of the sponsorship forims the intention to move back to Canada as soon as the spouse is granted a PR Visa. The sponsor would have to provide evidence within the application that they would do so.

On the other hand, it is also correct that a Permanent Resident maintains their status if they live with their Canadian citizen spouse outside of Canada.

Twitcher1958

Thanks for that clarification- I hadn’t checked thoroughly recently but what you’ve said makes sense - I was mixing up two situations.