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When you apply to replace or amend either your IMM 1000 Record of Landing or your Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR), you are not issued a replacement of the original document, rather you are issued a Verification of Status (VOS).
The Verification of Status issued to you is equally valid to the document you replaced or amended. You can use it as proof of your status in Canada, like you would your landing paper. However, in our experience some institutions in Canada will not claim they cannot accept the VOS as it is not the original document.
How to Use Your Verification of Status
Though you should be able to use your Verification of Status in lieu of your landing paper or COPR as proof of your status in Canada, some institutions may claim that you cannot.
Using Your VOS with the Federal Government
The Government of Canada issues the VOS and accepts it. Provided your VOS is legible and in good condition, you should have no issue submitting it as proof of status to any branch of the federal government. Most commonly, Verifications of Status are submitted in support of applications to either IRCC or Service Canada, and both agencies accept the document.
Using Your VOS with Provincial and Municipal Governments
There are some employees of provincial and federal governments in Canada who are still unaware of the policy change from reissuing landing papers to issuing Verifications of Status instead. We are aware of multiple cases where VOS’s have been refused by provincial or municipal offices and institutions.
In order to help prove your case, we suggest printing off pages from IRCC’s website and bringing them with you to the government office, in addition to your VOS. Here are two that we think are helpful:
Make sure to include the url of the page(s) you print off so that the clerk can find the page on their own.
If this does not work, strongly suggest that the staff member call IRCC at 1-888-242-2100 to enquire about the validity of your VOS.
Tip: Contact the government by clicking here
Using your VOS with Private Institutions and Companies
It is far more likely that the staff of a private institution or company will be unfamiliar with the Verification of Status document, especially if they do not regularly deal with Permanent Residents or naturalized Citizens who do not have a PR Card/Citizenship Certificate.
We recommend the same process as dealing with provincial or municipal governments: print off pages from the IRCC website, include the urls (see above), and bring them with your VOS to the institution or company in question. If this is not considered sufficient, ask the sceptical staff member to call IRCC to verify the validity of the VOS.
