Interpreting stuff from operational bulletin (Citizenship Grant)

[rajkamalmohanram]

When looking through the operational bulletin for citizenship grant applications, I noticed something about clearances.

Clearances
The applicant must not be subject to the prohibitions contained in sections 21 and 22 of the Act.
Applicant must pass all clearances: immigration, criminality (RCMP) and security (CSIS).
The CPC-S initiates all clearances. Validity for clearances is as indicated below.

• Immigration: one year
• Criminality: one year
• Security: four years

I wanted to see I can get any inputs on how to interpret this. They say validity for security is 4 years.

Does this mean that the security checks done by CSIS for my PR application would still be valid if they start processing my citizenship application before the end of 4 years ? I don't know if that is the correct way to interpret this.

Thoughts?

 

[dpenabill]

Not sure I can offer a useful response, but I admire your effort to sort out how these things work (which is evident in other posts as well) and perhaps I can offer a window into the more complex underside of how things work . . . which will go long and thus take two posts.

When looking through the operational bulletin for citizenship grant applications, I noticed something about clearances.

Clearances
The applicant must not be subject to the prohibitions contained in sections 21 and 22 of the Act.
Applicant must pass all clearances: immigration, criminality (RCMP) and security (CSIS).
The CPC-S initiates all clearances. Validity for clearances is as indicated below.

• Immigration: one year
• Criminality: one year
• Security: four years

I wanted to see I can get any inputs on how to interpret this. They say validity for security is 4 years.

Does this mean that the security checks done by CSIS for my PR application would still be valid if they start processing my citizenship application before the end of 4 years ? I don't know if that is the correct way to interpret this.

Thoughts?

What I believe is the Somewhat SHORT ANSWER:

The "immigration" clearance is a separate matter, because it is done by IRCC itself. The one-year "validity" date has little import since other IRCC guidelines require the GCMS/immigration screening be done attendant each and every action taken on a grant citizenship application (I am not certain this still applies but there is no reason to anticipate this would have changed; after all, it just takes making a query into the GCMS database, which probably takes no more than a minute or five).

The "criminality" and "security" clearances are done by the RCMP and CSIS respectively. There is a referral to each agency for a clearance made attendant the procedure to commence "processing" (what happens immediately following a successful completeness check, along with the AOR). For ALL grant citizenship applications.

I believe that the references in the PDI (will address the label "PDI" separately) to these clearances being valid, for one and four years respectively, is how long the clearances obtained in response to this initial referral are valid and may be relied on. Thus, if processing the citizenship application takes more than one year, there will be a referral to the RCMP to obtain an updated clearance. If the process takes more than four years, there will be a referral to CSIS to obtain an update of the security clearance.

But there are more than a few tangled threads in this. Updates may be requested anytime. For example, the GCMS/immigration clearance procedure includes at least a name-record criminality check, and not just for Canadian criminal charges in the RCMP name-record databases, but also the U.S. NCIC/FBI name-record databases, and perhaps others. I am not at all sure, for example, but I expect this to include INTERPOL. So a "hit" in the name-record check, say attendant the test and interview, or attendant scheduling for the oath, can itself trigger a referral to the RCMP for an update even if the RCMP's clearance is less than a year old, or perhaps a referral for an updated security check from CSIS.

How does this affect a PR who underwent a CSIS security clearance attendant the PR application process less than four years previous? That would depend on what CSIS does in response to the referral for the Security clearance from IRCC. What CSIS does is behind dark curtains which in turn are behind closed doors.

The impact on citizenship applicants, MOST applicants, is largely unseen and of little or no effect. The application continues through its routine processing path and, it appears, in the vast majority of cases the clearance is returned by CSIS and is in the file BEFORE the local office begins actually processing the application, such as in setting up the test and interview event. The version of GCMS shared with the client/applicant may not show this. But it is almost always done and there (it appears there is a separate step or action in which the local office formally enters into GCMS the fact the clearance step is done). Maybe this is in large part because the bulk of what is examined and considered by CSIS is already done attendant the earlier clearance for immigration itself.

The details about how this particular aspect works matter little. With very, very rare exceptions, any applicant who runs into security clearance snags or delays almost certainly knows what that is about and why, and could have easily foreseen it coming. Applicants with no reason to worry about what might come up in a security background screening have no reason to worry that the CSIS clearance will cause so much as a single day's delay.

In any event, what you reference and link is not an Operational Bulletin. And while such information published by IRCC online is valuable, a good deal of caution should be exercised in interpreting, let alone applying, what these sources say. Much of what they say is relatively simple, easily understood, consistent with other sources, and can be reliably applied. BUT not all.

So, in another post, I will offer some further observations at the risk of going well beyond what you want let alone what you have asked for.

 

[dpenabill]

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS:

First, it is encouraging to see the effort to do real homework. Many others here do the homework as well, but . . . well, no need to go there.

Second, SORRY, this is a tangent, and doubly sorry since I'm not a particularly good writer, I fumble a bit in the articulation, so things tend to go long, as this will . . . at the risk of referencing sources you are already familiar with . . .

As already noted, what you reference and link is not an "operational bulletin." Operational Bulletins are labeled as such and have an "OB ###" For example, see the list of Operational Bulletins for 2017 here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ational-bulletins-manuals/bulletins-2017.html
and there are links there to the archive of Operational Bulletins for other years, going all the way back to 2006. (Which is no where near complete; there was a hugely important Operational Bulletin, OB-407, which dramatically changed how citizenship applications were processed back in 2012, which is not listed; it can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/95lglo5 .)

There is a separate list of "updates" to Operational Bulletins and Operational Manuals; see
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ational-bulletins-manuals/latest-updates.html

Both the Operational Bulletins and Operational Manuals are being replaced by Program Delivery Instructions, which the information you reference and link probably is. Hard to know for certain since these are not so clearly labeled as Operational Bulletins are, and previously used Operational Manuals were (some Operational Manuals are still applicable to enforcement related processes, including PoE examinations and enforcement of the Residency Obligation for PRs, for example).

Unfortunately NONE of these resources is an entirely reliable source. Including recently issued updates let alone those from previous years. Which is why I have digressed on this tangent first. And while in many respects they are useful, often very useful, they are not definitively reliable, and definitely NOT official statements of the rules or policy, that is, they are informational and NOT binding, definitely NOT representative of let alone a statement of the governing law.

What has made it rather difficult to follow is that the PDIs have been adopted and implemented piecemeal, and the organizational presentation is way short of comprehensive, with some exceptions.

Thus, for example, the most comprehensive list of PDIs related to processing citizenship related matters, including grant citizenship and proof of citizenship applications, appears to be here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ew/functional-guidance-on-table-contents.html

Which itself is not an easy web page to find. Unless, like many of the other pages with links to PDIs, it just happens to pop up in this or that search.

Compare this list of citizenship related PDIs to what is provided at:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...l-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship.html
which is easily reached through links from IRCC's main pages but is a much smaller list of links to grant citizenship related PDIs, and does not contain direct links to some rather important PDIs (such as the one you reference and link), but also does not even link to many pages where in turn one can find links to other important PDIs.

The structure of IRCC's citizenship related PDIs is quintessentially bureaucratic. Odd how that goes, what a bureaucracy does tending to be rather bureaucratic in nature.

Which leads to a discussion about their content. Likewise permeated with bureaucratic generalities, vagueness, and outright inconsistencies. Not quite so baffling and impenetrable as to deserve the "Kafkaesque" label, but other than the more obvious instructions, many are intricate and tricky enough to demand a big dose of caution against reading too much into them, and CONTEXT looms large.

Which in turn leads to interpreting particular information such as what you quote. Here, in reference to the formal background clearances. Leading back to what I offered as a short answer. That, for example, the four-year validity of the "security" clearance probably means that in processing a grant citizenship application IRCC will rely on and not ask for an update to the INITIALLY obtained security clearance UNLESS four years have passed (we do not see this much these days, but back in 2010 to 2014 such lengthy processing timelines were somewhat common), recognizing HOWEVER that other things may nonetheless trigger a referral for an update in a lesser period of time.

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

@dpenabill Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it.

And this link you provided is extremely detailed. It is beyond me why IRCC has made it so hard to find these links. The link that I hyperlinked in my post was hard enough to find - had to do some digging through google.

 

[dpenabill]

It is beyond me why IRCC has made it so hard to find these links.

Did I mention anything about how odd it is that a big bureaucracy tends to do what bureaucracies are notorious for doing, being rather bureaucratic in nature?

On a more serious note, there are real world reasons why internal bureaucratic guidelines, policies, rules, and practices, tend to be intricate, complicated, constantly evolving, and rather often including tangents which wander into confusing or outright inconsistent complexities. In my above posts I did not even mention the FAQs and particular Instruction guides and other IRCC informational publications, most online but some published in print.

Part of it is undoubtedly rooted in the piecemeal manner in which IRCC has been rolling out the PDIs, but is also inherent in the process of adopting and implementing guidelines, policies, rules, and practices when the conditions are constantly changing (look at how the covid-19 situation has affected so many aspects of what IRCC does, as just one example), and there are periodic amendments and additions to the governing laws and regulations.

But yes, indeed, what those of us in the public are left to deal with, to the extent we are interested in knowing as much as we can about how things actually work, is a rather large quilt consisting of a multitude of parts, more than a few of which are irregular, many not especially well-drafted, many of those parts drafted and adopted independently of previously drafted and adopted guidelines and such, and most written in very general terms which offer little instruction as to their meaning and application in particular situations, and offering virtually no insight into all the potential vagaries and nuances real world cases pose.

And over the years more and more of what IRCC does has been withdrawn from public access, both in terms of what is overtly considered "confidential" and is thus more or less secret, and in terms of offering less easy access to the public.

Back when I began following these matters closely, for example, CIC regularly published detailed information about processing times, application statistics, citizenship judge hearings and decisions, mandamus applications including those resulting in agreed to outcomes (which would not show up in judicial decisions for example). The Operational Manuals for Citizenship, especially CP-5 (which regarded assessing the residency requirement), provided a lot of detail about internal processing that is now totally behind the confidential-information-curtain.

While the Harper government is largely responsible for moving a lot of the processing information behind the confidential-information-curtain, in addition to generally reducing easy access to much that is not confidential, the Liberals have not done much to re-open access.

Fortunately there are more than a few here who make the effort to do the homework. In the last few years I have greatly narrowed the scope of what I follow and make an effort to keep up with. Even this tends to demand a real effort, real time.

But, yeah, bureaucracy is what bureaucracy does. Even Canadian bureaucracies. And the bigger the bureaucracy, the more labyrinthine it tends to be.

 

[rajkamalmohanram]

Did I mention anything about how odd it is that a big bureaucracy tends to do what bureaucracies are notorious for doing, being rather bureaucratic in nature?

On a more serious note, there are real world reasons why internal bureaucratic guidelines, policies, rules, and practices, tend to be intricate, complicated, constantly evolving, and rather often including tangents which wander into confusing or outright inconsistent complexities. In my above posts I did not even mention the FAQs and particular Instruction guides and other IRCC informational publications, most online but some published in print.

Part of it is undoubtedly rooted in the piecemeal manner in which IRCC has been rolling out the PDIs, but is also inherent in the process of adopting and implementing guidelines, policies, rules, and practices when the conditions are constantly changing (look at how the covid-19 situation has affected so many aspects of what IRCC does, as just one example), and there are periodic amendments and additions to the governing laws and regulations.

But yes, indeed, what those of us in the public are left to deal with, to the extent we are interested in knowing as much as we can about how things actually work, is a rather large quilt consisting of a multitude of parts, more than a few of which are irregular, many not especially well-drafted, many of those parts drafted and adopted independently of previously drafted and adopted guidelines and such, and most written in very general terms which offer little instruction as to their meaning and application in particular situations, and offering virtually no insight into all the potential vagaries and nuances real world cases pose.

And over the years more and more of what IRCC does has been withdrawn from public access, both in terms of what is overtly considered "confidential" and is thus more or less secret, and in terms of offering less easy access to the public.

Back when I began following these matters closely, for example, CIC regularly published detailed information about processing times, application statistics, citizenship judge hearings and decisions, mandamus applications including those resulting in agreed to outcomes (which would not show up in judicial decisions for example). The Operational Manuals for Citizenship, especially CP-5 (which regarded assessing the residency requirement), provided a lot of detail about internal processing that is now totally behind the confidential-information-curtain.

While the Harper government is largely responsible for moving a lot of the processing information behind the confidential-information-curtain, in addition to generally reducing easy access to much that is not confidential, the Liberals have not done much to re-open access.

Fortunately there are more than a few here who make the effort to do the homework. In the last few years I have greatly narrowed the scope of what I follow and make an effort to keep up with. Even this tends to demand a real effort, real time.

But, yeah, bureaucracy is what bureaucracy does. Even Canadian bureaucracies. And the bigger the bureaucracy, the more labyrinthine it tends to be.

Thank you.