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Citizenship interviews - Tips, Recent experiencess and impressions

GiantPanda

Star Member
Jun 14, 2017
69
29
I attended the interview today at the Mississauga office. The person interviewing me was very to the point and did not spend time in any casual talk. She looked at my passport, insisted on seeing my driver's license and my health card and then proceeded to go through all the stamps on my passport and correlated that with the residence calculator. I have had a lot of travel in the last several years and much of it has been to the United States, using the Nexus card. She mentioned that they would need to run another check, which she pronounced as 'ICES' and would get back to me.
She also made me sign a form, which she filled out for me, ticking off a whole lot of Yes and one No. I felt pressurized to sign and form and didn't look carefully at what I was signing. Need to know if anyone else had the same experience. Thanks in advance.
 

delta304

Hero Member
Feb 6, 2014
546
15
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
Today i received CIT 0520 in the mail. The officer asked for the following documents:
1. Rental agreements, leases or mortgage documents for the entire eligibility period
2. Records of employment or pay stubs for all jobs held
3. Itineraries, boarding passes, proof of entry into any country, other than Canada during the eligibility period
4. Credit card and bank statement for the 2012 and 2013
5. any passport and/travel documents valid or expired(color copies of every page). All passport stamps must be translated including visas. This includes any entries that fall outside the eligibility period.

Now here is the problem.
1. I was sharing rooms with my friends and was not on the lease till 2014. what can i do?
2. I used a travel document before and was renewed. Passport Canada retained the old document before issuing the new one. How can i get hold of this document.
3. While going through my emails i came across a trip which i forgot to mention cause it was on the old document retained by passport Canada. It will not affect the residency days required. What can i do about this?

Thank you.
did officer ask all documents among the checklist of this form? normally they put tick what they want
 

pascastel

Full Member
Jun 29, 2017
22
5
Questions:
Do we all have an interview ? 100% of applicants ?
Is it always the day of the test ?
 
Last edited:

dpenabill

VIP Member
Apr 2, 2010
6,252
3,018
Questions:
Do we all have an interview ? 100% of applicants ?
Is it always the day of the test ?
Nop. Minors don't have an interview.
All adult applicants are required to have a "Program Integrity" interview.

There is NO one rule for all minors. Minors MAY be interviewed. It appears that minors 14 and older are ordinarily interviewed BUT this is perfunctory and ordinarily happens when the minor appears for the Oath ceremony, apparently during the process of checking in to take the Oath.

Generally there is no interview for a minor under the age of 14, and such a minor does NOT need to attend an oath ceremony. Instruction guide for applications for a minor, however, state that "the minor may be asked to come to the IRCC office for a review of the original documents submitted in support of the application, as well as all passports and travel documents relevant to the five (5) year period immediately before the application or since the minor became a permanent resident. See https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/application-forms-guides/guide-0403-citizenship-minors-subsection-5-1.html

That is basically a brief description of only PART of the Program Integrity Interview. For full description of the PI interview see https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/admininistration/decisions/interviewing-adult-applicants.html
Generally the PI interview is the day of the test (and even for those exempt from the test, it is generally scheduled attendant a test event). Many might be interested to read and consider the differences between the PI interview, which all adult applicants must attend, and an "In-depth residence interview" which MAY be required, which is also discussed at the linked web page.

The PDI for interviewing minors applying for citizenship can be seen here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/grant/conducting-interviews-hearings-minors-applications-received-case-processing-centre-sydney-on-after-june-11-2015.html
(Again, applicant under 14 are generally NOT interviewed, and to the extent that minors 14 or older are interviewed, that is ordinarily attendant their appearance for the oath ceremony.)


General caution about current IRCC information in its PDIs:

However, it is worth noting that the link (not the reference, but the link) to this PDI has been removed from the IRCC web page with links for citizenship decision making PDIs . . . see https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/admininistration/decisions.html

And, in turn, this page of PDI links for citizenship decision making is NO longer easily reached by a link from the general citizenship links IRCC provides. see https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship.html

Moreover, the PDIs do not necessarily reflect current policy or practice. The system is, to be frank, a mess. It is poorly maintained, poorly organized, and fails to offer much real transparency. Most information found in the PDIs is readily confirmed by anecdotal experiences reported in this forum and is otherwise consistent with the statutory provisions. But not all anecdotal reports are consistent, and to the extent the PDI describes internal procedures and related policy, and practices, which are not clearly confirmed by reliable anecdotal reporting, it can be difficult to know how much one can rely on any information in a PDI that is not otherwise also affirmatively stated in other IRCC sources.
 

punk

Hero Member
Feb 15, 2010
532
56
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
Guys. I've around 80 international trips. I've boarding passes for the majority of the trips. I also have tickets in the digital copy for them. Should I print them off or just take the laptop/iPad to show it to them if they ask for it? It would be a lot of prints.
 
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qorax

VIP Member
Nov 21, 2009
9,523
3,002
Brampton, Canada
Category........
FSW
Visa Office......
London
LANDED..........
May-2010
Guys. I've around 80 international trips. I've boarding passes for the majority of the trips. I also have tickets in the digital copy for them. Should I print them off or just take the laptop/iPad to show it to them if they ask for it? It would be a lot of prints.
You don't need to. All they'd like to do is tally your Entry/Exit stamps (Your passport/s to the PPC sheet you submitted). They should match up. And if any of those are not in either of the two Canadian official languages ~ then you need a certified translation of it/them. An easy exercise is to make a "Passport Stamps Check-List" as I described in my Interview Experience thread.
 

punk

Hero Member
Feb 15, 2010
532
56
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
You don't need to. All they'd like to do is tally your Entry/Exit stamps (Your passport/s to the PPC sheet you submitted). They should match up. And if any of those are not in either of the two Canadian official languages ~ then you need a certified translation of it/them. An easy exercise is to make a "Passport Stamps Check-List" as I described in my Interview Experience thread.
Yes I've made it accordingly. Actually I even added more information just if incase. But are we allowed to use our electronics to pull up any record just if incase they ask for
 
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kushari

Hero Member
Oct 3, 2012
801
86
Category........
Visa Office......
CPP-Ottawa
NOC Code......
6221
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
App. Filed.......
09-10-2012
AOR Received.
30-11-2012
IELTS Request
22-06-2012
Med's Request
12-12-2013
Med's Done....
18-12-2013
Passport Req..
19-03-2014
VISA ISSUED...
24/03/2014
LANDED..........
27/03/2014
Yes I've made it accordingly. Actually I even added more information just if incase. But are we allowed to use our electronics to pull up any record just if incase they ask for
Probably yeah, but if they need proof, they would ask for them printed out anyway. If you want, have them ready electronically, and be ready to print. However, they would only ask for that if the stamps are not in English/French, or they don't match up with what you've told them. So I think you should be fine.
 

punk

Hero Member
Feb 15, 2010
532
56
Job Offer........
Pre-Assessed..
Probably yeah, but if they need proof, they would ask for them printed out anyway. If you want, have them ready electronically, and be ready to print. However, they would only ask for that if the stamps are not in English/French, or they don't match up with what you've told them. So I think you should be fine.
Thanks. There has been couple of records where the stamp was off by 1 day due to officer mistake so want to be sure. I've made a folder of all the tickets just if incase. Good that they do allow electronics