No. NO.
Arrrrgghhhhh.
This is not so complicated.
With isolated exceptions, it does not matter in which part of the year a PR arrives in Canada, by the time the PR meets the 1460 days total in Canada requirement he or she will most likely have already met the 4 X 183 requirement.
If the PR lands during the early part of the year, the year of landing can count as one of the four calendar years (so long as the PR stays in Canada enough that year to total 183 days for the calendar year).
If the PR lands after July 2, there are not enough days left in the year of landing for that year to count as one of the 183 days in Canada calendar years, but the year the PR goes to apply can count, and the PR will at the least have to wait until the fourth year anniversary of the day of landing anyway, which if after July 2 gives him or her the days in that year necessary to meet the 183 days requirement for that year . . . probably, in practice, a date before the PR meets the 1460 days total requirement.
For the PR who lands July 23, 2013, days present in Canada during 2013 count toward the 1460 days total.
But 2013 cannot be one of the years he or she meets the 183 days in the Calendar year requirement . . . rather 2014, 2015, 2016 could be years it is met (so long as the PR is in Canada 183 plus days in each of those years), adding up to three of the necessary four years, and in 2017 the PR will meet it in that year as soon as he or she has spent 183 days of 2017 in Canada . . . potentially as soon as July 3, 2018, that is on the 184th day of 2017.
In the meantime, though, the PR must still meet the 1460 day requirement as well, so it will be later in 2017 when that requirement is met . . . July 23, 2017 if the PR never left Canada, or add the number of days outside Canada to that.
For example, PR who lands July 23, 2013 who in turns spends December each year back home:
The 4 X 183 rule is satisfied by the four years: 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, and thus meets this rule in total as soon as the PR has been in Canada 183 days in 2017, potentially by July 3, 2017. But this PR will not meet the 1460 days requirement until January 2018, given the 155 days total abroad from each respective December.
The 4 X 183 requirement is met in July 2017 but the 1460 requirement not met until January the next year.
There are some scenarios in which an applicant can be pushed into needing an additional calendar year or at least longer than it takes to meet the 1460 day requirement, but those will arise due to extended absences (totalling more than six months) in at least two years in addition to a post July 2 arrival in the first year, or in at least three years otherwise. For an applicant who is physically present more than 183 days every year, that applicant will meet the 4 X 183 day requirement as soon as the fourth year (plus any necessary additional days to make up for any absences earlier in that particular year) . . . which usually will be much sooner than an applicant with absences meets the 1460 day total requirement.
At the risk of belaboring this, I make a concerted effort to couch my comments in an appropriate frame of reference, including relative to degrees of confidence.
I do not know what the precise example was that the CJ offered an opinion regarding. I do not know what the basis for the CJs opinion was. Perhaps the next year eligibility was based on section 5(1)(c)(iii), regarding the obligation to comply with tax law, which also references four calendar years. And indeed, while I am fairly confident about how that will work, I am less than certain given that it is subject to some interpretation depending on what is meant by having "met any applicable requirement . . . "
Note: 5(1)(c)(iii) as added by the SCCA states that the PR must have . . . "met any applicable requirement under the Income Tax Act to file a return of income in respect of four taxation years that are fully or partially within the six years immediately before the date of his or her application"
My understanding, about which I am fairly confident but not certain, is that one will not have to wait until the end of the calendar year (as in wait until January 1 of the following year) for that to be a year in which the PR is in compliance.
The 4 X 183 rule, however, is explicit and straight-forward, its language simple enough to not involve interpretation, albeit of course one does need to know the meaning of the terms used . . . like "calendar year" (which again is the year from January 1 through December 31).
And the arithmetic is straight-forward. Once the PR is landed, all that needs to be done is to count the number of days the PR is in Canada during each respective calendar year. If that total is 183 or more in a given year, that year will count as one of the necessary four years in which the PR was present at least 183 days.
The example of the PR who landed July 15, 2014 and never leaves Canada is in particular straight forward, the arithmetic very simple:
PR in Canada since July 15, 2014, never leaves . . . 2014 cannot count as one of the calendar years meeting the 183 day requirement since this PR will be in Canada only 170 days in 2014.
But for 2015, PR in Canada for 365 days, so 2015 meets the 183 day requirement for one year.
For 2016, the PR is in Canada for 365 days, so 2016 meets the 183 day requirement for another year, now two in total.
For 2017, the PR is in Canada for 365 days, so 2017 meets the 183 day requirement for another year, now three in total.
Then, in 2018, as long as the PR remains in Canada, as soon as he has been in Canada for 183 days (which will happen as of July 3, recognizing that January 1 through June 31 are 181 days, plus two more in July, total is 183 days in 2018), the PR meets the 183 day requirement for this year, and added to the others that totals the necessary four years.
Statute explicitly allows the qualifying year to be a partial year, so no need to wait until the end of the year for the year to qualify.
. . . so as of July 3, 2018, this PR will meet the 183 days in Canada for 2018 and thus as of July 3, 2018, this PR will have met the requirement to be in Canada at least 183 days in four calendar years, those calendar years being 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.
There is no doubt about the above. There is no reason why the PR's 183+ days presence in each of the years 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 would not count and satisfy the requirement. And again, the statute itself explicitly says it can be a partial calendar year, so there is nothing in the statute which requires waiting until the end of the year for it to count.
This PR will still not be eligible for citizenship as of that day, July 3, 2018 when the 4 X 183 requirement is satisfied, since there are other requirements that also must be met. For example the requirement to be present for 1460 days total. He cannot reach that until July 15, 2018.
There is also the requirement about meeting tax law filing obligations. Perhaps it was about this upon which the CJ based his or her conclusion about not being eligible until January 2019. I would disagree with that as well, but could not state this so definitively or stridently as I can state the observations regarding the 4 X 183 requirement. In any event, however, if the tax filing requirement will preclude the PR landing on July 15, 2015 from becoming eligible until January 2019, that is not about the 4 X 183 requirement.
I was going to say it is worth recognizing that the CIC web site actually described the before and after provisions relative to Canadian income tax as the new law requiring the payment of income taxes . . . but I notice that the new version of the before and after is different than the one CIC had posted for nearly a year, in which it said that the new requirements required the payment of Canadian income taxes . . . now the language is closer to the statute itself, which requires adult applicants to file a return, if required. Big difference.
Perhaps the CJ who offered an opinion was looking at the way CIC had this posted (until last night) and concluded that a PR who landed in July 2014 would have to pay taxes for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and thus would not be eligible until January, 2019 at the earliest. Since I knew what the statute said precisely, I was fairly confident that the earlier description by CIC was overly broad (it was in other regards as well, saying for example that any criminal conviction precluded eligibility, which is way overbroad).
But since I do not know the CJ's reasoning for the opinion expressed, I cannot fully explain it.
