Help !!! Need expert advice ...... very confused about PR obligations

[CrappyDoc]

I will be Canadian PR in few months. At the same time, I am planning to apply for residencies in the US next year. So if I got matched in the US I will not be able to meet the 2/5 years requirement to keep my PR status especially if I matched also to a fellowship.

If I managed to get the "statement of need" from Health Canada and do the residency and possible fellowship on J1, will that help in anything ? Can those years on J1 exempt me from the 2/5 years physical presence ?

I emailed Health Canada but they said they are not qualified to answer this 😡. Also, I cannot contact citizenship and immigration office while I am outside Canada now.

Please if anyone knows about a similar case, I will appreciate any advice on this.

Thanks 🙂

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[Treg]

I will be Canadian PR in few months. At the same time, I am planning to apply for residencies in the US next year. So if I got matched in the US I will not be able to meet the 2/5 years requirement to keep my PR status especially if I matched also to a fellowship.

If I managed to get the "statement of need" from Health Canada and do the residency and possible fellowship on J1, will that help in anything ? Can those years on J1 exempt me from the 2/5 years physical presence ?

I emailed Health Canada but they said they are not qualified to answer this 😡. Also, I cannot contact citizenship and immigration office while I am outside Canada now.

Please if anyone knows about a similar case, I will appreciate any advice on this.

Thanks 🙂

I think you might be stuck. In my experience you have to physically be in the country to maintain your PR status. This is one of the reasons I went ahead and did my Canadian citizenship before applying back in the US for residency this year (US citizen at a Canadian medical school, married to Canadian). I think that you have to be in Canada for 2 years to get citizenship though, and one of the years can be the one prior to PR status if you were applying from within Canada. And then it takes many months (6?) to have the citizenship come through. So...if I were you and you want to keep Canadian PR status, you should do your residency in Canada. you could leave for fellowship in the US and then come back to Canada. Otherwise you would have to start over again from square one with PR status.