Immigration Forum / Canada / September 2008

Are you talking about starting your application while you are in
Canada as visitor or staying in Canada and claiming Canada as
your place as residence while applying for PR?

For the first one, that's easy. Does not matter where you are,
you can always send PR application using your country of
nationality or permanent residence. Obviously the application
need to be sent to visa office responsible for your country of
nationality or permanent residence.

For the second one, in general it only possible if you apply
under an in-Canada PR application class, such as Spouse /
Common-law Partner in-Canada Class and Humanitarian and
Compassionate Class. There are other in-Canada classes such as
refugee, live-in caregiver, and the newly Canadian Experience
Class but these generally require you to have status other than
visitor when applying.

Otherwise, you need to be able to keep extending your status as
visitor, which mean while you asking CIC to stay longer, you
must prove that you have no intention to stay and will leave
Canada when your visit is over, all this while having a PR
application in progress. Difficult to do unless you are a really
rich man - such as Conrad Black before his conviction - or have
very good connection with Canada political elite.