Police Certificate clarification

[PS2011]

Hell All,

The CIC website for spousal sponsorship states:

Police certificates
The principal applicant and each family member 18 or older (who aren’t already Canadian citizens or permanent residents), must submit police certificates from the following country or countries with the application:

• Current country of residence if you (or they) have lived there for 6 months or more.
  and
• The country where you (or they) resided for most of your (or their) life since the age of 18.

I can't find any further details regarding the second bullet point above. I know for other PR applications you need to provide police certificates from countries where you have lived for 6 months or more after the age of 18, but for spousal sponsorship it simply states that you need the police certificate from the country where you resided for "most of your life" since the age of 18. To me, most of the life means more than half of the life since reaching the age of 18. Has anyone gone through this question and figured it out? Thank you.

 

[goldfinger]

This seems pretty literal/cut-and-dried. Where have you spent most (over half) of your life since you were 18? Provide a police certificate for that country. Are you currently living somewhere that is different than the answer to the last question, and have you been living there for 6 months or more? Submit that certificate too.
I mean, if you’re really paranoid about it, you can get multiple certificates if you have a corner case in your personal history, but I’d go by the letter of the request.

 

[bigdaycoming]

In my case, because of those instructions precisely, I did not had to submit PC for ALL the places where I lived since 18 or for the previous 10 years. I was only meant to submit a PC for the country where I spent most of my life since 18, which happens to be a country where you cannot get a PC upfront. Therefore, I submitted no PC with my application, but rather a letter stating these facts and that I would wait for them to give me instructions to get it. I received AOR and my PC requests, including one for a country where I lived 10 years ago for 1 year, and for the country where I've spent most of my life. Just follow the instructions and you will be fine.

 

[PS2011]

Thank you all for your response! The principal applicant is 22 years old and has lived in one of the European countries for consecutive 6 months + 3 days. Other than that she has lived in her country of origin the entire time. So my interpretation is that she does not need a PC from that European country where she has lived for 6 months + 3 days. Would you agree? Thanks.

 

[bigdaycoming]

Thank you all for your response! The principal applicant is 22 years old and has lived in one of the European countries for consecutive 6 months + 3 days. Other than that she has lived in her country of origin the entire time. So my interpretation is that she does not need a PC from that European country where she has lived for 6 months + 3 days. Would you agree? Thanks.

Yes, that's how I would interpret it, as she is not currently living in that European country so there's no need to provide it according to the sponsorship rules. However, be aware that there is a possibility that, later in the process, she WILL be asked for that certificate, as it would have been in the previous 10 years and they have the right to request it (just like in my case).

 

[twinmama15]

You have to provide a police certificate for any country you have lived in 6 months or more since you have turned 18. It is very misleading but it does need to be provided. We lived in Th UK for a year from 2018-2019 and we had to provide a police certificate from there as well.