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Huge mistake was made during PR renewal, how will it affect my citizenship application?

Yumiko

Newbie
Mar 29, 2018
2
0
I just realised that I've made a huge mistake during my PR card renewal 3 years ago: I forgot to declare one passport that I never used at that time.

I'm planning to apply citizenship within this one or 2 months and I'm afraid this mistake will affect the application. I'm really scare now. Is there anyway I can report this mistake? Will IRCC charge me for misrepresentation? Should I use a lawyer at this stage?
 
Last edited:

spyfy

Champion Member
May 8, 2015
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I just realised that I've made a huge mistake during my PR card renewal 3 years ago: I forgot to declare one passport that I never used at that time.

I'm planning to apply citizenship within this one or 2 months and I'm afraid this mistake will affect the application. I'm really scare now. Is there anyway I can report this mistake? Will IRCC charge me for misrepresentation? Should I use a lawyer at this stage?
If you really just forgot to list it, you didn't misrepresent or anything. Also since you didn't use it, am I right understanding that the info in that passport was basically irrelevant for your PR card application? If so, this is not that big of a deal.

Note that I am no lawyer, so my opinion is only so and so reliable. But I would say you don't need to be concerned about it.
 

btbt

Hero Member
Feb 26, 2018
541
209
So yeah, what spyfy said.

I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice and worth about as much as you paid for it (maybe less). The omission seems unlikely to cause you major problems, especially because you had not used the passport at the time you applied for your PR card. So I don't think there's a reason to go talk to a lawyer right now, but it's your call.

Misrepresentation is an issue particularly if it could have changed IRCC's decision ("material misrepresentation"). The passport not having been used means there's no absences from Canada that you hid from them, or trips that could raise security concerns, or anything of that kind. So I think that is not likely to be a problem.

IRCC may give your application closer scrutiny when they realize you omitted something from a previous application (if they feel it suggests you may not be completely reliable), but that doesn't mean your application would be denied or something like that. It would mean they may ask you for additional documentation to prove the claims in your application are true and complete.

IRCC may not do that. They do know that mistakes happen, so they may just consider it a minor mistake and nothing will come from it. We have no way to predict what they'll decide to do.

(If you want to know what kind of information IRCC tends to ask for, you can read some posts about RQ and PPQ. There's a thread about those here. Some people gather that information once they submit their application, just so they have it all on hand, in case a request arrives. That may be work that turns out to be useless if IRCC never asks for the information, so whether or not you want to do this is your choice. If you do gather the documentation make sure it covers your entire eligibility period, so know that some documents can't be requested until you've signed your application.)
 

Yumiko

Newbie
Mar 29, 2018
2
0
Thanks all for the advises. It seems that nothing much can be done to correct the mistake now so I might just have to leave it. When things really go wrong in the later stage of the application then I think that's the time to call for a lawyer then.