How do I prove my days of presence in Canada?
Short answer
In Canada, s. 28 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act places the burden on the permanent resident to show that they comply with the residency obligation, whether prospectively or for the preceding five years.
In detail
Section 28 is framed in terms of compliance that has to be established. It is not for the government to reconstruct a person's movements: it is the permanent resident who must be able to demonstrate their situation.
The demonstration is about dates: periods of presence and periods of absence, across a five-year window. It therefore rests on documents that carry a date and that tie the person to a place.
The documents that help are the ones that already exist in everyday life. Their value comes from their continuity over time, more than from what kind of document they are.
What to document
Passports (every page, including expired passports), boarding passes, travel history, leases and utility bills, bank statements showing transactions in Canada, notices of assessment, records of employment and school records. Build a chronological file year by year, while the documents are still available.
Put your facts in writing, free. Writing your version down early, keeping your documents dated and preparing your questions for a lawyer: the tool is there to document, never to advise.
Open the application Up to 3 files, no card · see the plans
Official sources
Related questions
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- If we separate does my sponsorship undertaking end?
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What this page is not
This is general legal information about the law of Quebec and Canada, dated and sourced. It is not legal advice, not a strategy, and not a prediction about the outcome of a case. In Quebec, only lawyers and notaries may give legal advice (Act respecting the Barreau du Québec, ss. 128 and 133). Laws and amounts change: the official source always prevails over us.