bigbigblake

If they intend to keep visiting I would highly recommend against overstaying past the 180 days. Canadians are considered Duration of Stay but border control wont give a ######. If you don't have tons of proofs that you arn't going to do it, I doubt you will get back in.
However if they are in the process of immigrating, the Duration of Stay does not count against you and you are not automatically banned 10 years based on the current memos at Montreal.
This is just our experience with it. The Interviewer didn't care at all that my wife had been in US for over 2 years before returning to Canada.
However, when we reached the border, the first person at the car booth began to question us about it, even though we had the US visa in hand. She made a bit of a fuss regarding it, and she most definitely would have been denied crossing without a visa in hand.

I really don't buy this.
Ive learned a lot from my wife about Canada health insurance and if its an emergency they will definitely treat you now. There is no 3 month waiting list.
Now if its an optional or not a "high risk" problem, you hit the waiting list.
My daughter got hit by a car last year and I got to experience all the bells and whistles of the childrens hospital in Winnipeg. Let me tell you, going from this hospital to a paid hospital in the US is night and day.
EVERYTHING was old. Like way old. The machines, the tech, everything was older and lower quality. The service was horrible, it took hours to get a nurse to come when we needed assistance. I was so very un-impressed.
I have friends in Quebec who told me a story about how they recently got an upgrades CT machine. It took years and years of them complaining about it until they convinced them to upgrade.
Once they upgraded they decided to send the CT machine to a third world country as a donation. The country they chose REJECTED the machine as being old, unsafe, and more outdated then there current machine.
That kinda stuff is what makes me shrug at the Canadian system.