Are they strict on the no-older-than-3-months requirement for police checks?

[alasken]

So I finally, a year after I started working on this stupid thing, have everything put together and I plan to send it off tomorrow. However, the two national police checks that they require from me are both close to 4 months old. The traffic history printout they require with the NPC from Australia is from November 2010, but I don't even have an Australian driver's license and I haven't been there since 2009. I'm kinda freaking out about how old these documents are, but I'm planning on sending in the application anyway and that they will be lenient. However, I'm curious if anyone here knows anything about how strict they are with these requirements? Is it stupid of me to send it off even though they my documents are not as recent as they ask for?

Thanks.

[toby]

I am almost 100% certain that Canada accepts police reports up to 6 months old. In many countries police reports go stale-dated at 3months, but Canada (again) accepts them up to 6 months after issue.  Nice of Canada, eh?

[scylla]

The official CIC rules state that the police certificates cannot be over three months old. There's no question about that since it's printed in black and white.

Having said that, there does appear to be some wiggle room. We submitted the following:

1 PC that was 5-6 months old
1 PC that was 5-4 months old
4 US State certificates that were less than two months old

We weren't asked to re-do the two that were over three months old.

Unfortunately I can't comment on how often these types of exceptions are made - and if what we experienced was normal or unusual.

Hope this helps!

[alasken]

Thank you, that helps a lot Scylla! I cant believe Im almost ready to send this thing in. Have everything put together now, just need to do a final check to make sure theres no mistakes. It has taken me a full year to get his done!

[toby]

The official CIC rules state that the police certificates cannot be over three months old. There's no question about that since it's printed in black and white.

I'm sorry for misleading people.  Can you direct me to where it says 3 months, Scylla?

[scylla]

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/security/police-cert/intro.asp

Who needs a police certificate?

In general, you and everyone in your family who is 18 years of age or over need to obtain a police certificate. You must obtain a police certificate from each country or territory where you have lived for six consecutive months or longer since reaching the age of 18.

The certificate must have been issued no more than three months before you submit your application.

If the original certificate is neither in English nor in French, submit both the certificate and the original copy of a translation prepared by an accredited translator with your application.