 Welcome to the channel. Today I'm going to give you five questions to ask yourself before you decide if you want to file a permanent resident card renewal application under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. PR card renewals under agency grounds are for people who were not able to meet the two years out of five residency requirement but because of certain factors outside of their control they decide to still submit the renewal but include information, documentation about the reasons why they were forced to remain outside Canada. So the first question to ask yourself is how many days that I actually spent in Canada because before you start your application it's important for you to have all that information because once you start filling out the forms you're going to realize that you need all those dates and it could really pause everything. So before even start saying I'm going to file this next week or something like that try write down every single day that you spent in Canada all the dates and every single day you spent outside Canada all those dates and where you were and the reason why you were there. So what we usually do at the office is we have an Excel sheet and we write in we have the specific columns and we have our clients write down all the exact dates. Then the second question to ask yourself is what's the reason why you were not in Canada was it because you had a family member that was sick and you were the only person that needed to attend to that person, didn't you have a specific work obligation and because of that you had to remain there was an urgent situation it can't just be for example oh I had a better job opportunity outside Canada it has to be something very specific. Was there like a medical condition where you may be a caregiver for somebody who was a minor or something like that and you absolutely had to be outside so the reasons can be very varied depending on everybody so important to think about that and write down the details of the situation. Third question to ask yourself is did you try to return to Canada did you do all your efforts to try to come back let's say you've been outside for a few years your PR card expired now you're going to renew it did you look for you know ways did you inquire did you put efforts because when you file your application the officer wants to see that that whatever the situation was you considered Canada to be your home and you did everything you could in your power to try to come back to Canada. Fourth question is what are your ties to Canada now that you haven't lived in Canada for a long time do you have any family members living in Canada do you have any friends do you have any employment opportunity left for you do you have ownership do you have a house a car bank accounts did you maintain your records did you maintain let's say your driver's license your health card did you communicate with people here did you basically kind of still have a life here even though you were forced to remain outside Canada or did you completely cut everything all your relationships your entire relationship with Canada and you have no documentation so it'll be good to write down all those points and the last question to ask yourself is what is the hardship that I'm going to to have if I cannot come back to Canada so when you prepare your application it's important to outline that if you cannot come back are you going to suffer is there something that you were planning to do in Canada or something you left behind in Canada or where you're living now can you no longer live there because your plan was always to come back to Canada so important to really sit down and write down your story if you decide to apply yourself you should write a cover letter explaining in detail all of the situation because that's what's the officer the officer's going to look to see if there's sufficient humanitarian and compassionate grounds to grant you the renewal if you hire a legal representative to do it then the legal representative will write a submission letter a legal submission letter it's a cover letter that's going to outline all of these questions and answers in detail so that when the officer gets your application the application is complete and strong and it's a discretionary application so the officer has full power to say yes or no so the more information the more documentation you submit and the more it's clear and precise and you really place your your story is in the file so the more it's complete then there's better chances higher chances for the officer to approve your decision so that you can return and live in Canada continue living in Canada as a permanent resident if you have any questions about pr card renewals under humanitarian and compassionate grounds you can send us an email at info at keyworkimmigrationlaw.com you can also check our website keyworkimmigrationlaw.com we have a contact form you can send us your question we'll be happy to answer you thank you