Zoe Bell

As some of you I frequent other boards in an attempt to undo some of the frankly appaling advice that is touted on them.

In the past couple of days I have found the same bit of info posted on two different boards , by two seemingly unrelated people. I really doubt the truth of it and would like it verified by our experts whom I trust a LOT more!!

In answer to the inevitable "What happens if I need to leave Canada before I get my PR card? Can I have it mailed to me?"

Someone has replied that it is A FEDERAL OFFENSE to mail a PR card outside of Canada.

Personally I think that's B***ocks but would like some confirmation.

God I'd \love to let Judy loose on some of these forums.

Andrew Miller

... that's B***ocks ...

Zoe Bell

Cheers Andrew , I suspected as much!!!

I said as much (although a bit politer , I've gotten into trouble before for calling people idiots!)
the Muppet claiming as such has posted this to back up his reply. Claims it is from IRPA

Offences Related to Documents

Documents

122. (1) No person shall, in order to contravene this Act,

(a) possess a passport, visa or other document, of Canadian or foreign origin, that purports to establish or that could be used to establish a person’s identity;

(b) use such a document, including for the purpose of entering or remaining in Canada; or

(c) import, export or deal in such a document.

So to correct what I said previously, your cards will POSSIBLY be seized by CBSA pending an examination. If it is determined that nothing wrong is going on, they may be released.

Also:

"Persons who claim to be Permanent Residents of Canada and who do not have a Permanent Resident card because they left Canada having failed to apply for one, having applied but not yet received the card, or, their card was lost or stolen, cannot return to Canada unless they apply for and are granted a Travel Document by a Canadian Visa Office abroad."


to my mind , that is basically saying you can't possess WITH THE INTENT TO USE a PR card that is not your own.

what d'you reckon?

sprucemoose

I have also been told by someone normally quite reliable that it is illegal to send your passport over international boundaries in the care of someone else. (i.e., courier)

Andrew Miller

Yes Zoe, your mind is correct.

The key phrase in R122(1) is "in order to contravene this Act" - it means in order (or with intention) to use it illegally.

Sending Canadian documents to be used legally is legal - do you think that visa posts when returning passports with visas are breaking the law? Seems ignorants read what they want to read, the way they want to read and without having any legal expertise misinterpret the law.

Of course if someone doesn't have valid PR card for whatever reason then s/he must apply for Travel Document to return to Canada as a PR. Although people from visa waiver countries, providing that they convince airlines to let them board the plane, can show up at the Canadian port of entry with COPR papers and they will be admitted as returning PR's, as long as they document compliance with 2/5 residency obligations.

Andrew Miller

If you carry someone else's passport across borders, without authorization of the holder then you may get into troubles in many countries.

Zoe Bell

Any chance I can get a certificate with that on it

Andrew Miller

Zoe, all unmoderated forums on the Usenet (regardless what portal is being used to access them) are full of trolls, wannabe-experts and plain idiots. Many of them attacked Jim, Berto, myself and other experts posting in those open forums in an attempt to destroy our reputation and take over particular forum. Some did it just for fun, while some idiots wannabe experts were doing it falsely thinking that immigration forums are great source of clients and they wanted a piece of imagined pie.

This is why BritishExpats Canadian immigration forum which was until 2004 also just a portal to unmoderated Usenet forum misc.immigration.canada severed connection with open Usenet and established moderated forum, inviting experts to move here. So, few of us moved here, while majority of other real experts simply stopped posting advice or moved to other moderated forums.

Thus, if you are reading any advice in an open, unmoderated forum then you can be sure that it is all b*****t written by wannabes. And as you already know the discussed here posts you found in other forums belong to same bs group.

Zoe Bell

What really worries me is that the particular forum I'm currently having this "discussion" on has a regular poster who is a fully CSIS registered Immigration consultant.
I'm obviously not naming names here but I find their advice to be sometimes accurate , sometimes incomprehensible and other times just bizarre.

I would post examples but then I suspect I'd be very close to identifying the person involved

Andrew Miller

Now in order to become a CSIC member person needs to attend course, pass exams and meet few other criteria - but experience is not one of requirements. Many CSIC members are simply too new to this field to know more than what they learned in theory (some may have learned for exams and forgot since) and with lack of years of experience (or even without any) they may not always be correct in their answers.

Like I said - most of attacks on experienced and reputable experts few years ago in unmoderated forums were done for fun by trolls, but some were done by wannabes who wanted to get rid of established experts in order to become new "experts" there. And some of them may be today CSIC members. If you see plain wrong advice given in those forums by CSIC member then you may simply report postings to CSIC directly.

Jim Humphries

Just to add to Andrews reply concerning sending passports by mail or private courier: it should be noted that a number of countries, Pakistan and India to name two, make it an offense to do so, whether for "legal" usage of not.

Zoe Bell

Yeah , I'm aware of that but I've found two people saying that you can't mail PR cards. I think maybe they were Indian Nationals who assume that NO country allows mailing of these type of documents