requesting advice & info about calculating time away from canada for citizenship

[kelly]

Hi All,
I was wondering a couple of things about calculating time away from canada:
1) how is time away from canda calculated when one travels to the USA for work for a canadian company? meaning, a canadian company sends you to the US for a few days, does this then get deducted from your time for citizenship purposes? after all, it is for work for a canadian company so would that matter, meaning time will or will not be deducted from your overall three years of physical presence?

2) when crossing the border to the US for a few days, how does that time calculated in the overall three years of physical presence, meaning, every time we crossed over on the way back besides being questioned on our status in canada no one actually looked at or scanned our PR cards, so how, if at all, is that time away calculated? is it reported another way to citizenship canada or not?

3) when you submit the citizenship application do the authorities compare their time calculations of your presence to what you submit? in other words, is there a way for us to find out what is the number of days they have listed for us so we know if it matches our calculation? after all if the numbers don't match the application won't be approved and we'll have to start from the begining so if there was a way to know all this beforehand one can be prepared.

Thank you in advance for your advice and assistance.
Kelly

[accreddy]

1) I suppose your time will not be deducted as you are employed full-time by a Canadian company.

2) It is the responsibility of the PR holder to keep a record. Canada Border Security Agency (CBSA) will not keep entries unless they stamp it on your passport. It is always good to get it stamped by CBSA everytime you enter Canada.

3) If they feel that you have less than 1095 days of physical presence a citizenship judge will evaluate your case. It will take time and may be refused.

[kelly]

Hi Accreddy,
thanks for the quick reply.  If you don't mind I'll reply to your answers with 2 more questions )
1) so since working for a canadian company will not deduct time from physical presence, how do I then deal with it when submitting the application? is there something in writing that states that indeed traveling on behalf of a canadian company does not deduct from one's presence? because I can't find anything on their site that states that, and if i don't report that time away since it was for canadian business I would hate for that to delay my application, know what I mean?

2) as far as getting cbsa to stamp your passport, are they willing to do that even at the border on return by car from the US? what happnes if you report those times that you were out for personal not business but those times were not stamped in your passport? does it matter? or do they (when you apply for citizenship) just take your calculations and your reports of time out of canada and approve or deny solely based on what you submit?

Thanks again

kelly

1) I suppose your time will not be deducted as you are employed full-time by a Canadian company.

2) It is the responsibility of the PR holder to keep a record. Canada Border Security Agency (CBSA) will not keep entries unless they stamp it on your passport. It is always good to get it stamped by CBSA everytime you enter Canada.

3) If they feel that you have less than 1095 days of physical presence a citizenship judge will evaluate your case. It will take time and may be refused.

[accreddy]

1) Check this manual (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/cp/cp05-eng.pdf), specifically look under (5. Residence - Policy for persons who have absences from Canada).

2) You can ask CBSA and see if they stamp it or not. I suppose it is an honor system. I am not sure if they have any other means of keeping track of when you entered Canada. You can probably call CIC and ask them about this.