If you have a visitor stay for lets say 6 months...on a visitor visa... then they leave before it expires for a while, do they have to wait a specified amount of time before trying to enter on a visitor visa again? (eg: same amount of time they were in the country)?
Hi
justifun Wrote:If you have a visitor stay for lets say 6 months...on a visitor visa... then they leave before it expires for a while, do they have to wait a specified amount of time before trying to enter on a visitor visa again? (eg: same amount of time they were in the country)?
Nope, but CBSA starts getting very suspicious if you appear to be living permanently in Canada as a visitor.
PMM
We'll still just waiting to get our police clearances back before submitting the full PR paperwork. Its taking a long time!
My stepmother is Norweigen and she lived with my father in Ontario as a 'visitor' for the last 15 years. She left the country every 6 months and would come home the same day. (my Dad is a pilot and would just hop on a flight with him) They would stamp her passport for another 6 months and she would go on her merry way. Last year she finally applied for PR and received it.
That, I believe, is definitely a rare exception. Even in the old days, before 9/11, so-called flagpoling (leaving the country, as in going past the flagpole, and promptly returning) was common but not encouraged, not really condoned, just not screened for very diligently . . . but if it was obvious or otherwise became apparent, it would usually be a problem and would not be allowed.
Even after 9/11 they did not crack down on long-term, repeat visitors much until about two or three years ago, though it was mostly a gradual increase in enforcement soon following 9/11 and then suddenly racheted up when they spent a great deal of money upgrading their computer systems so that more individual information was being stored and PIL/POE personnel could more easily access that info.
Main thing is what PMM said: the question is almost always what the CBSA officer perceives the person's intent to be . . . if they suspect someone of "living" in Canada, or planning to live in Canada, without status, they can and often will deny re-entry. There is no magic formula. Even though technically it is mostly about where one's "ties" are, it is often simply, mostly, related to how long one has been staying in Canada and how long one has been away, but again there is no guarantee . . . in the past I left and returned the same day (though it was one such trip that triggered a heightened interest in me, and thereafter I was subjected to increased scrutiny), or, more often, I left and returned within a few days, but at the end of my border straddling lifestyle (I am now firmly settled on the Canadian side) they were paying a lot more attention to just how long I had been in Canada compared to how long I had been in the States . . . and though the last time I entered Canada in that way (subsequently I became a PR) it was clear that I had spent a lot, lot more time in Canada than outside Canada, they let me in but with a very stern caution that I would probably be turned away the next time unless I was clearly outside Canada for longer than I had been in Canada. Still, that would not be binding the next time (assuming I had not applied for and become a PR), and I might have been allowed in despite only a brief stay outside Canada (I had, after all, previously received fairly severe admonishments and yet not faced the burdens they said I would the next time) or I might have been denied entry even if I had stayed out of Canada for six months. Depends. No guarantees. Impressions make a difference.