PR Card Renewal with H&C Attend Child Birth

[vincent017]

Hi Everyone,

My PR card is set to expire on April 2, 2026, and I am preparing to renew it. However, I am concerned that my upcoming travel plans may affect the 730-day residency requirement.

To date, I have been outside of Canada for a total of 1,076 days out of the allowable 1,096 absent days. This means I have exactly 20 days remaining to be outside of Canada until April 2, 2026. Of these 1,076 days abroad, there were two periods:

1. 1,044 consecutive days for business and family visits.
2. 32 consecutive days to attend my child’s birth and complete the necessary marriage and birth certificate documentation to sponsor my wife and child to Canada.

My main question is whether I can claim these 32 days under humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds to extend my remaining allowable absent days to 52 days (20 + 32).

Additionally, I am dealing with mental health issues, and I have a doctor's note confirming that I am dealing with high level of stress and I was also approved by work to take short-term disability. I would like to return home for my recovery and spend more time with my family, as the current 20-day limit feels insufficient.


Would claiming these 32 days under H&C grounds be a valid approach? Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[scylla]

Hi Everyone,

My PR card is set to expire on April 2, 2026, and I am preparing to renew it. However, I am concerned that my upcoming travel plans may affect the 730-day residency requirement.

To date, I have been outside of Canada for a total of 1,076 days out of the allowable 1,096 absent days. This means I have exactly 20 days remaining to be outside of Canada until April 2, 2026. Of these 1,076 days abroad, there were two periods:

1. 1,044 consecutive days for business and family visits.
2. 32 consecutive days to attend my child’s birth and complete the necessary marriage and birth certificate documentation to sponsor my wife and child to Canada.

My main question is whether I can claim these 32 days under humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds to extend my remaining allowable absent days to 52 days (20 + 32).

Additionally, I am dealing with mental health issues, and I have a doctor's note confirming that I am dealing with high level of stress and I was also approved by work to take short-term disability. I would like to return home for my recovery and spend more time with my family, as the current 20-day limit feels insufficient.


Would claiming these 32 days under H&C grounds be a valid approach? Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

H&C doesn't really work this way. You would need to present H&C considerations for all of the time you have spent outside of Canada. So you would need to explain the 1044 consecutive days as well as and provide H&C explanations for this time too.

 

[scylla]

Hi Everyone,

My PR card is set to expire on April 2, 2026, and I am preparing to renew it. However, I am concerned that my upcoming travel plans may affect the 730-day residency requirement.

To date, I have been outside of Canada for a total of 1,076 days out of the allowable 1,096 absent days. This means I have exactly 20 days remaining to be outside of Canada until April 2, 2026. Of these 1,076 days abroad, there were two periods:

1. 1,044 consecutive days for business and family visits.
2. 32 consecutive days to attend my child’s birth and complete the necessary marriage and birth certificate documentation to sponsor my wife and child to Canada.

My main question is whether I can claim these 32 days under humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds to extend my remaining allowable absent days to 52 days (20 + 32).

Additionally, I am dealing with mental health issues, and I have a doctor's note confirming that I am dealing with high level of stress and I was also approved by work to take short-term disability. I would like to return home for my recovery and spend more time with my family, as the current 20-day limit feels insufficient.


Would claiming these 32 days under H&C grounds be a valid approach? Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

The other thing to be aware of is that you must be living in Canada in order to sponsor your spouse and child for PR. If you leave Canada for an extended period of time, you will no longer qualify as a sponsor.

 

[canuck78]

Hi Everyone,

My PR card is set to expire on April 2, 2026, and I am preparing to renew it. However, I am concerned that my upcoming travel plans may affect the 730-day residency requirement.

To date, I have been outside of Canada for a total of 1,076 days out of the allowable 1,096 absent days. This means I have exactly 20 days remaining to be outside of Canada until April 2, 2026. Of these 1,076 days abroad, there were two periods:

1. 1,044 consecutive days for business and family visits.
2. 32 consecutive days to attend my child’s birth and complete the necessary marriage and birth certificate documentation to sponsor my wife and child to Canada.

My main question is whether I can claim these 32 days under humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds to extend my remaining allowable absent days to 52 days (20 + 32).

Additionally, I am dealing with mental health issues, and I have a doctor's note confirming that I am dealing with high level of stress and I was also approved by work to take short-term disability. I would like to return home for my recovery and spend more time with my family, as the current 20-day limit feels insufficient.


Would claiming these 32 days under H&C grounds be a valid approach? Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Would also look at the terms of claiming short term disability and whether you still qualify if you leave Canada. Many of your absences would be viewed as personal choice so a very risky to try to renew PR card based on H&C. Processing is also often over a year and you would not want to leave during processing. You would also highly your lack of compliance with sponsorship conditions. 2 out of 5 years is very lenient residency obligation to begin with. You also may not be meeting the terms of things like qualifying for healthcare in your province given your absences.

 

[vincent017]

The other thing to be aware of is that you must be living in Canada in order to sponsor your spouse and child for PR. If you leave Canada for an extended period of time, you will no longer qualify as a sponsor.

I only plan to leave Canada for a period of 1-2 months, not sure if that is long enough to disqualify as a sponsor. However, leaving over 20days will indeed impact my ability to renew PR as I will have less than 730 days by the time to renew it.

 

[vincent017]

Would also look at the terms of claiming short term disability and whether you still qualify if you leave Canada. Many of your absences would be viewed as personal choice so a very risky to try to renew PR card based on H&C. Processing is also often over a year and you would not want to leave during processing. You would also highly your lack of compliance with sponsorship conditions. 2 out of 5 years is very lenient residency obligation to begin with. You also may not be meeting the terms of things like qualifying for healthcare in your province given your absences.

Thanks for the heads up, I will have to check with my STD insurance provider about leaving Canada. I am not planning to leave Canada for too long, maybe 40-60 days in total that's why I only look to claim for the 32 days outside of Canada I used to attend my child's birth. I understand that there is no clear answer on this as H&C are case by case basis.

 

[scylla]

I only plan to leave Canada for a period of 1-2 months, not sure if that is long enough to disqualify as a sponsor. However, leaving over 20days will indeed impact my ability to renew PR as I will have less than 730 days by the time to renew it.

Recommendation is to keep it to three weeks but ultimately your choice.

If you don't meet the residency obligation this can also impact the sponsorship application.

 

[canuck78]

Thanks for the heads up, I will have to check with my STD insurance provider about leaving Canada. I am not planning to leave Canada for too long, maybe 40-60 days in total that's why I only look to claim for the 32 days outside of Canada I used to attend my child's birth. I understand that there is no clear answer on this as H&C are case by case basis.

Typically if you are well enough to travel you are often not sick enough to claim STD. You should also be undergoing some sort of treatment plan to address your health during the period off of work so that you can return to work as soon as possible. The issue isn’t that you are claiming time to attend your child’s birth it is that you didn’t plan in advance to have enough time to attend your child’s birth and meet RO which is already very lenient. You should have spent more time in Canada if you wanted to attend your child’s birth. Leaving and not meeting your RO when trying to attempt to sponsor family is not a good idea.