This post will go long, as I am wont to do, and into the weeds a bit, and this is about something that very few applicants need to worry about.
Using some common-sense PLUS simply waiting to apply with a good margin, and being sure to be ACCURATE and COMPLETE, following the instructions for applying, is the key to making a successful application with the best chance of sailing through the process smoothly. Those who do that should be able to totally ignore my posts.
If the ACCURATE and COMPLETE answer is one that is likely to trigger questioning, the way to "
avoid any questioning" is NOT to fudge the answer in any way.
But also remember there is NO guaranteed way to avoid questioning. Anyone can be issued RQ-related requests.
So in that situation, in order to avoid any questioning, does the applicant have to wait 2 more days? or a whole period of time that causes those 2 days to fall out of the eligibility period?. I mean if IRCC determined that those 2 days doesnt determine that he was physically present, does a buffer of 2 days resolve that?
I am not sure I follow the premise for this query. I will offer this --
If it is remotely possible, let alone likely, that the place where a citizenship applicant was for just "two days" might be in question and might make a difference in assessing the actual presence requirement, obviously the applicant should for sure wait longer, build a bigger margin, before applying.
While many in this forum suggest a margin of ten days is sufficient, my view is that waiting an extra month is no big deal (with exceptions) and a 30+ day margin seems, to me, to be the MINIMUM prudent margin to apply with. Many may have additional factors suggesting waiting longer, to be ADDED to that minimum 30 days. As I noted already, I waited well more than an extra year to apply.
When to apply is a very personal decision. Reaching the minimum presence threshold is just one factor to consider in making the decision about when to apply. There is no shortage in tales of woe told in this and other forums by those who approached the process otherwise.
Sure, meeting the minimum presence requirement is an absolute requirement, the most important factor, but there are other factors to consider, very individually specific factors, so the decision about WHEN to apply is a very personal decision.
Most prospective applicants well understand that the key reason for having a margin over the minimum is to cover any mistakes or omissions; and the last I looked, IRCC's online information about when to apply actually recommends waiting to have a margin precisely for this purpose.
But there is another reason, and to my view it too is an important reason: so the total stranger bureaucrats making the decisions that affect how the application processing goes have no concerns, no reasons to worry, whether the applicant met the presence requirement. To make the decision-makers comfortable making decisions favourable to the applicant.
To be clear, 1095 days actual presence meets the requirement. No margin over that is necessary. But to allow those making the decisions a range of comfort so that it is more likely things go smoothly, a good margin is an obviously good idea.
Where the applicant was located for a few days following landing:
As for being in Canada two days following landing, then leaving, and then not returning to Canada for a number of months or more, there is very little risk IRCC will doubt the applicant was in Canada at that time. The day of landing is well documented in the client's GCMS, and that is indeed a day in Canada, and there is very little reason for IRCC to doubt the applicant's claim to having left Canada the next day or the day after that. Credit for those two or three days should be about as secure as credit for any days can possibly be.
But again, if just two or three days could possibly make a difference in the outcome or how things go, the wisdom of waiting longer and having a bigger margin is overwhelmingly obvious.
OVERTHINKING versus REAL RISKS:
Generally, focusing on isolated details tends to be overthinking things. An IRCC processing agent is likely to take less time fully assessing the citizenship applicant's physical presence than the amount of time I have spent writing this post.
For the vast majority of QUALIFIED applicants who have properly, completely, and accurately provided the information requested, including an accurate and complete submission of the printout from the online physical presence calculator, the processing agent or officer reviewing the applicant's physical presence will usually rely on the presence calculator output, which in turn operates on an important inference: an inference that the applicant was present IN Canada all the days between a known date of entry until the next reported or known date of exit. That is how the online calculator counts days. That is what IRCC usually relies on.
UNLESS.
That "
UNLESS" is a big topic of its own. A huge topic. BUT it plays little or NO role in the VAST MAJORITY of qualified applicant cases.
This "
UNLESS" is about IF and WHEN an IRCC decision-maker PERCEIVES reason to question the applicant's online presence calculator output. For the vast majority of qualified applicants, the processing agents or officers do NOT perceive any reason to question the applicant's presence calculation. For the VAST majority of qualified applicants NO PROBLEM.
Of course they do not do this blindly. And in addition to reviewing the presence related information in particular, they also look at other information. They compare information. They may quickly conduct some inquiries to see what other information might reveal (such as LinkedIn). They of course review and compare the information in the application, and presence calculation, with other information in the client's GCMS records, which now includes what were formally FOSS entries, among others.
So sure, if the processing agent sees some indication that the applicant's information is in some way questionable, that triggers questions, which can lead to inquiries, and some of this will lead to non-routine processing in the vein of RQ-related questions if not outright issuance of RQ-related requests for further information.
Which leads back to the ultimate key: The ONE BEST WAY to MINIMIZE the RISK of such ELEVATED SCRUTINY is to give ACCURATE and COMPLETE information.
Previous versions of CIC and IRCC internal guidelines (to the extent these were public information or otherwise were revealed to the public) specifically reference certain criteria, certain risk factors or triage criteria, that constituted
reasons-to-question-residency (now "presence" rather than "residency").
Again, that in itself is a huge, huge subject.
But what most of the criteria are oriented around are factors tending to suggest the possibility the applicant's travel history is inaccurate or incomplete, or otherwise suggesting the applicant was not where the applicant claims for some period of time.
Thus, for example, sure, a processing agent is likely to compare the address history and work history, to each other and to other information IRCC has access to, and then compare these to reported travel dates.
Leading to apparent conflicts in information given to immigration authorities at different times. Or other potential inconsistencies between what is the accurate and complete answer NOW, when making the citizenship application, versus what may be in other records. Address given at time of landing really should be NO big deal at all.
But what to do if the prospective citizenship applicant is aware he or she gave IRCC or CBSA information in the past which is not consistent with what would be a complete and accurate accounting of the facts now? This too is a big subject and complicated by the many variable circumstances in which something like this might happen.
For now, let's be clear, changing the answer now to better fit information given in the past, to avoid the appearance of inconsistency, is a BAD idea. The only sensible approach to making a citizenship application is to give the honest, accurate, and complete answer. If doing that is going to be a problem, fudging the answer is NOT a good idea. It is a BAD idea. A very bad idea.
What to do in such a situation depends on the particular facts. Way too many variables and contingencies to try to sort these out generally. Sometimes waiting longer to apply will work. BUT sometimes waiting longer, even a lot longer, will not help much. I am familiar with precisely this latter kind of case, where the PR made an important misrepresentation in the past and is now struggling with how to proceed to apply for citizenship, recognizing that being accurate in the citizenship application is quite likely to
red flag the past misrepresentation. See a lawyer is the best I can suggest.
But, in any event, if where the applicant was purported residing for two days appears to be an issue, it is not the two days that is the issue, but rather whether there is something about this that raises questions about the applicant's credibility.
In terms of "
taxing the credulity of credulous," to borrow a phrase from a jurist I generally loathe to quote (the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia), claiming to have established a
residence at an address where one merely stayed for no more than two or four days is simply not credible; the
dog ate my homework is more credible than that.
