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Leaving Canada after applying ???

MWM

Star Member
Jun 1, 2014
143
7
hello all

pls help me with answers , my wife needs to apply for citizenship very soon , with physical days in Canada more than 1700 days in the last 6 years , she needs to leave Canada with our children to stay with her mom , as her mom is so sick , and she begged her to stay with her in her last months .

My questions is as follows :

1- is there any rule which prevent her from leaving after applying ????

2- is there any risk on her application for example ( delay , questioner .... etc )

3- do we need to inform CIC that she left after applying .

4- The address that we should leave , should we leave our leased home here in Canada or keep it .

5- her driving licence and medical card will expire within 3 months , we will send the copies of her current driving licence and medical card , but when she go to the interview she will have another copy which is the renewed ones is there any problem .
 

HamiltonApplicant

Hero Member
Apr 3, 2017
488
122
Hamilton
Visa Office......
Munich, Germany
App. Filed.......
Jan 2007
Med's Request
Dec 2009
Med's Done....
Jan 2010
Passport Req..
Apr 2010
VISA ISSUED...
May 2010
LANDED..........
25-11-2010
hello all

pls help me with answers , my wife needs to apply for citizenship very soon , with physical days in Canada more than 1700 days in the last 6 years , she needs to leave Canada with our children to stay with her mom , as her mom is so sick , and she begged her to stay with her in her last months .

My questions is as follows :

1- is there any rule which prevent her from leaving after applying ????

2- is there any risk on her application for example ( delay , questioner .... etc )

3- do we need to inform CIC that she left after applying .

4- The address that we should leave , should we leave our leased home here in Canada or keep it .

5- her driving licence and medical card will expire within 3 months , we will send the copies of her current driving licence and medical card , but when she go to the interview she will have another copy which is the renewed ones is there any problem .
1- is there any rule which prevent her from leaving after applying ????
Ans. No...

2- is there any risk on her application for example ( delay , questioner .... etc )
Ans. Theoretically, No...

3- do we need to inform CIC that she left after applying .
Ans. It is better to inform

4- The address that we should leave , should we leave our leased home here in Canada or keep it .
Ans. This is the trickiest part! If you don't have an address in Canada, I am not sure how CIC can process your application. Please note that the citizenship application is processed by the nearest CIC office, not centrally. So it is important to have a Canadian address...

5- her driving licence and medical card will expire within 3 months , we will send the copies of her current driving licence and medical card , but when she go to the interview she will have another copy which is the renewed ones is there any problem
Ans. Not a problem
 

kam47j

Star Member
Jul 27, 2017
118
42
I was wondering, if I have my answer regards to my expired health card which I sent its copy as one of my ID cards with my documents, Is there any problem? I noticed when I already sent them !
Thanks,
 

links18

Champion Member
Feb 1, 2006
2,009
128
My questions is as follows :

1- is there any rule which prevent her from leaving after applying ????
No.

2- is there any risk on her application for example ( delay , questioner .... etc )
Yes. It has always been the case that leaving Canada after applying could potentially cause delays, non-routine processing, more intense examination of declared absences, etc. There are also major logistical problems--very short notice of tests, etc. Possible missed correspondence.

3- do we need to inform CIC that she left after applying?
There is nothing requiring you to, although IRCC suggests you inform them if you will be gone for more than two weeks.

4- The address that we should leave , should we leave our leased home here in Canada or keep it .
Are you leaving too? What exactly are your intentions? As someone else said, its not clear if IRCC will even process an application without a Canadian address--even if there is actually no requirement to live in Canada to qualify for citizenship. This remains to be tested. Do you want to be the test case?

5- her driving licence and medical card will expire within 3 months , we will send the copies of her current driving licence and medical card , but when she go to the interview she will have another copy which is the renewed ones is there any problem .
Probably not. But at one time anyone applying with an ID that was issued within 3 months of application was given an RQ. That probably isn't in effect anymore. But there could be problems if IRCC suspects you are misrepresenting your address.
 

dpenabill

VIP Member
Apr 2, 2010
6,252
3,018
IRCC does not merely suggest applicants notify IRCC of a change in address. The verification the applicant signs includes a promise to notify IRCC if any information in the application changes. Actually most of the information in the application is historical, so cannot and does not change. Change of home or residential address, along with information about prohibitions, are among the very few items of information in the application which can change . . . and if they do change (like if the address where one is actually living changes), failing to notify IRCC can be misrepresentation by omission.

Lax enforcement should not be mistaken for the rule, particularly where the lax enforcement is mostly due to concealing information from IRCC and getting away with it. So sure, many applicants fudge information like home address and with the help of family or friends manage to get notice of events like the test and oath, and become citizens without getting caught. That is not the same thing as saying it is OK or that if caught it will not cause problems.

Subject only to not being actually qualified or failing to follow the instructions, it is readily apparent that compromised credibility is one of the more common reasons why applicants run into trouble with processing in their application.

Temporary travel outside Canada, however, is no big deal at all, except there are still logistical hurdles relative to getting notice in time to attend scheduled events.
 

Niette

Full Member
Apr 2, 2015
31
5
Temporary travel outside Canada, however, is no big deal at all, except there are still logistical hurdles relative to getting notice in time to attend scheduled events.
The question is what is considered to be a temporary travel? If one needs to leave for a year to take care for his aging parents and of course he can not leave his residential empty , so he decides to rent it out or sell , does it mean he left for good / relocated?
And if one fulfilled all requirements to be eligible to apply but left the country before applying and now living abroad for a while decides to apply (lets put aside the issue with expiration of PR) According to the law he can do it , and how exactly officers can prevent from him getting certificate?
 
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Stef.

Hero Member
Apr 5, 2017
603
164
The question is what is considered to be a temporary travel? If one needs to leave for a year to take care for his aging parents and of course he can not leave his residential empty , so he decides to rent it out or sell , does it mean he left for good / relocated?
And if one fulfilled all requirements to be eligible to apply but left the country before applying and now living abroad for a while decides to apply (lets put aside the issue with expiration of PR) According to the law he can do it , and how exactly officers can prevent from him getting certificate?
I do not think this is a question of "preventing" somebody who fulfills all criteria to eventually receive the citizenship but it could trigger a process by which it might take much longer to receive the citizenship. It is called- non-routine processing, something that we are all trying to avoid.
 

HamiltonApplicant

Hero Member
Apr 3, 2017
488
122
Hamilton
Visa Office......
Munich, Germany
App. Filed.......
Jan 2007
Med's Request
Dec 2009
Med's Done....
Jan 2010
Passport Req..
Apr 2010
VISA ISSUED...
May 2010
LANDED..........
25-11-2010
The question is what is considered to be a temporary travel? If one needs to leave for a year to take care for his aging parents and of course he can not leave his residential empty , so he decides to rent it out or sell , does it mean he left for good / relocated?
And if one fulfilled all requirements to be eligible to apply but left the country before applying and now living abroad for a while decides to apply (lets put aside the issue with expiration of PR) According to the law he can do it , and how exactly officers can prevent from him getting certificate?
Officers cannot stop the applicant from getting the certificate; they can make the process non-routine, prolong it, and make the applicant do way more paper work than otherwise required, is all...
 
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links18

Champion Member
Feb 1, 2006
2,009
128
IRCC does not merely suggest applicants notify IRCC of a change in address.
And nobody said IRCC merely suggested that.The question was whether one must notify IRCC if they are temporarily away (a period of "months" was suggested by the OP). While there is a suggestion that applicants who are away for more than two weeks tell IRCC in various instructional material so as to avoid logistical problem, I do not see any legal requirement to do so.

Of course, this raises all kinds of questions about the meaning of "temporary," when one actually makes a change of residence, etc.
 
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dpenabill

VIP Member
Apr 2, 2010
6,252
3,018
Officers cannot stop the applicant from getting the certificate; they can make the process non-routine, prolong it, and make the applicant do way more paper work than otherwise required, is all...
It is not clear what this comment is about. Naturalized Canadian citizens, and citizens by birth but born abroad, are of course entitled to be issued a certificate of citizenship. The context of the discussion here, however, is the impact of leaving Canada while an application for a grant of citizenship is pending. Citizenship Officers have the authority to deny such applications if the applicant fails to sufficiently prove qualification for the grant, except that in cases where the issue is whether the applicant met the physical presence requirement, the Citizenship Officer can only decline to grant citizenship and make a referral to a Citizenship Judge, who in turn will determine whether the applicant met the presence requirement.

While time abroad after applying is not and cannot be deducted from the calculation of presence, which must be based on days present in Canada during the relevant time period, which is defined based on the date the application is made, an applicant's extended absence after applying can affect and be considered by IRCC in assessing the applicant and the application. Depending on the particular circumstances and facts in the specific case, this may have no impact, or it may merely trigger non-routine processing, or it can be relevant to a determination that ultimately results in the denial of a grant of citizenship (negative impact on credibility for example). Thus, while the most common impact living abroad will have, if any, is that it triggers non-routine processing, it warrants cautioning that it can play a role in the ultimate decision.


I know there are a lot RQs in C-24 period, but did not hear any since 2016. I am wondering if anyone got RQ recently?
There have, indeed, been very few recent reports of RQ, but there are such reports periodically, including one quite recently (within the previous month). It is readily apparent that some applicants are still being issued CIT 0171, the full-blown RQ. It is less apparent that CIT 0520, some times referred to as RQ-lite, is being used, but there have been reports of it since the changeover to IRCC (that is, since the Liberals formed the government).

Not sure what you mean by the C-24 period. RQ peaked in 2012 in the wake of OP-407 which implemented pre-test RQ and prescribed a draconian list of risk indicators, or "triage criteria," which automatically triggered RQ. And RQ was otherwise widely issued prior to that, including to applicants who appeared, as characterized primarily by Conservatives, to be applying-on-the-way-to-the-airport (that is, those who left Canada to live abroad while the application was pending).

There are many reasons why there has been a dramatic drop off in the number of RQ'd cases, not the least of which is that the change to a strict physical presence requirement for a longer period of time (at least four years presence), implemented by Bill C-24, resulted in a huge, huge reduction in the number of applications being made for at least a year plus some (meaning until the latter part of last year), and it also eliminated what was referred to as the short-fall application (prior to Bill C-24, PRs were eligible for citizenship once they had been a PR for three years even if they had not been physically present in Canada for three years; but such cases necessarily required a qualitative assessment of residency, which almost always required RQ during the Harper years). In other words, during the C-24 period the issuance of RQ has been way, way down . . . at least in large part due to far fewer applications and the elimination of the short-fall applicant.

Note, in particular, that RQ these days inherently means that IRCC has concerns the applicant failed to accurately report all travel abroad. The application would be summarily returned to the applicant as incomplete if the applicant fails to declare presence for the minimum required (currently 1460 days), so any applicant issued RQ is necessarily being examined for potentially failing to report all absences.


Of course, this raises all kinds of questions about the meaning of "temporary," when one actually makes a change of residence, etc.
Sort of. It is not as if there is any definitive element at stake. It is less about the meaning of terms like "temporary" or "residence," and more about whether an applicant appears to be willfully misleading or evasive. This does not depend on the precise meaning of any particular term. In this regard, it is worth remembering that IRCC tends to allege misrepresentation only when there are very specific false facts involved, and will not directly base a determination on a finding of compromised credibility unless there are fairly specific discrepancies which appear to have been intentionally made, but can approach an applicant far more skeptically based on circumstances which less definitively compromise the applicant's credibility. And this can have a huge impact, in a negative way, on how things go.

Fudging information, including by omission, is simply a bad idea. There is little refuge to be found in what many refer to as "can I say . . . ?" That's not a good approach.
 

HamiltonApplicant

Hero Member
Apr 3, 2017
488
122
Hamilton
Visa Office......
Munich, Germany
App. Filed.......
Jan 2007
Med's Request
Dec 2009
Med's Done....
Jan 2010
Passport Req..
Apr 2010
VISA ISSUED...
May 2010
LANDED..........
25-11-2010
It is not clear what this comment is about. Naturalized Canadian citizens, and citizens by birth but born abroad, are of course entitled to be issued a certificate of citizenship. The context of the discussion here, .....
My message dealt with the sub context of message #8. Basically I was trying to answer whether someone can apply while abroad, and, whether the officer has the authority to deny the citizenship grant solely on the basis of the sojourn abroad while applying. Not dealing with a case of naturalized citizen, but an aspiring one...
 

links18

Champion Member
Feb 1, 2006
2,009
128
Sort of. It is not as if there is any definitive element at stake. It is less about the meaning of terms like "temporary" or "residence," and more about whether an applicant appears to be willfully misleading or evasive. This does not depend on the precise meaning of any particular term. In this regard, it is worth remembering that IRCC tends to allege misrepresentation only when there are very specific false facts involved, and will not directly base a determination on a finding of compromised credibility unless there are fairly specific discrepancies which appear to have been intentionally made, but can approach an applicant far more skeptically based on circumstances which less definitively compromise the applicant's credibility. And this can have a huge impact, in a negative way, on how things go.

Fudging information, including by omission, is simply a bad idea. There is little refuge to be found in what many refer to as "can I say . . . ?" That's not a good approach.
I agree with you here, but there are often contentious factual matters that need to be taken into consideration. Consider the OP: First, he talks about his wife being away for a period of months to be with a sick mother. OP makes no mention of leaving themselves, suggesting the wife will maintain residential ties with Canada during a relatively short period away. That sounds there will not be a change of residence and there is no need to report anything to IRCC. But then, OP talks about disposing of the family residence in Canada, suggesting totally different intentions. Which one is it? The correct course of action depends on a clear understanding of the facts of the case--something which posters often have a hard time doing here. Similarly, a subsequent poster asks about renting out their residence while temporarily away-- in this case, while the absence may be "temporary," it is not clear whether there are any residential ties left with any particular location in Canada during the period they are away. In this case, it would seem that reporting an address change would be mandatory raising the question of whether or not IRCC will even process an application from someone with a foreign residential address and if so how? What local office handles such applications, if any?