Traffic history report and CEC

[clodaoc]

Hi everyone,

I applied for CEC residency last November and received my email on 24th January saying my file was going to the 2nd visa office (Ottowa). My common law partner lived in Australia for 2 years back in 2008-2010 and because he lived in Queensland I had to apply for a traffic history record for him. This was not included with my paperwork when I sent it to the visa office in November (thats ok - they are aware that it is on its way). I received the traffic report today and I have a few questions i'm hoping someone can help me with....

Firstly what bearing does the outcome of a traffic report have on the CEC application? I lived in Australia for 12 months but as I was in NSW I just had to provide a police check. I am the main applicant.

My boyfriends traffic record has a list of things on it such as 14 points (4 for speeding, 3 for failing to stop at a red light and another 3 for disobeying a directional road sign, 3 for not wearing a belt, and 1 for driving a defective car) These are spaced out over 2008 and 2009. He also has a 3 month suspension on his licence which happened in 2009. It looks like all fines etc....were paid according to the report.

What exactly does this mean for our CEC application? Could this be grounds for refusal? And is there anything I can do or include with the report before posting it to Ottowa? Neither of our Australian police checks have any offences.

 

[gladaki]

No body cares about traffic history in CEC. Unless you are involve in accident that leads to killing some one.

 

[LPS]

It may get complicated if the three-month suspension involved drink driving.

As you know only applicants from Queensland and Victoria need the additional traffic history report - I assume this is because drink driving offenses in these states don't show up on the national police check for some reason, but Canada still wants to know about them.

 

[clodaoc]

Thanks for your comment. Reading through his traffic history again i'm actually not sure if all the fines were paid. All the information is abbreviated so its hard to know and he can't remember if he paid them all off. I'm going to get him to call the road authority office in Brisbane today to check (for my peace of mind) but would something like an unpaid ticket be an issue do you know?

 

[clodaoc]

He said its nothing to do with drink driving. He was on 11 points and then his last offence over there pushed him up to 14 points. The max you can be at is 12 (i believe..) so because he was up to 14 i presume that is the reason he was suspended for 3 months. I explained each of the penalty points in my initial post. I'll get him to call Brisbane later anyway to double check everything but...if his driving suspension was just as a result of the 14 points he clocked up, is it safe to assume it will all be overlooked and will not affect our application?

 

[LPS]

Right. You can lose an 'open' licence if you rack up 12 or more points in three years.

I doubt the Canadians are concerned about minor offenses like speeding, even if they accumulated to the loss of a licence, because what they are really looking for are grounds for criminal inadmissibility - including whether you have committed an act overseas that would be a crime in Canada (which includes drink driving and 'dangerous' driving).

 

[clodaoc]

Excellent thanks for your answers and fingers crossed its smooth sailing from here!

 

[clodaoc]

Hi again - i just wanted to double check if you think its ok to send the traffic record as is, or should i provide some sort of an explanation as to why he was off the road? Or show some evidence of us now trying to pay these fines off?

 

[LPS]

Hi again - i just wanted to double check if you think its ok to send the traffic record as is, or should i provide some sort of an explanation as to why he was off the road? Or show some evidence of us now trying to pay these fines off?

I would send the transcript as is. As I said the big things they're looking for are drink driving and dangerous driving convictions. They're probably not fussed about a couple of unpaid fines.

 

[clodaoc]

Thanks again. I think I will just post it and in the meantime if the office in Brisbane get back to me and confirm exactly how much he still owes and how we can go about paying it off (if we have to) then I can always organise that and email through the evidence to the office in Ottowa then at a later stage.

 

[clodaoc]

Hi - I just wanted to add a message to this thread so whoever can provide some advice thanks in advance.

The 6 outstanding driving tickets my boyfriend has from his time in Australia (2008-2010) amount to AUD $955. I have been in touch with the office in Brisbane to get this cleared and they have set up a repayment plan over 12 months, $80 per month to start April. I have contacted an immigration consultant in Toronto just for a bit of knowledgeable advice and asked if she thought providing evidence to the visa processing office in Ottowa that this outstanding debt is now being paid off was worth while. After she heard the amount was AUD $895 she suggested just paying it off in one lump sum (seeing as its a relative small amount for a debt) and providing evidence by email to the visa processing office in Ottowa instead of letting them believe that we are doing nothing about this.

As there is no black and white rule about this I'm just looking for a bit of advice from any of you who can help. A few traffic tickets for speeding, driving without a seatbelt etc.... should not be grounds to refuse someone PR however.....it doesn't reflect well on anybody to have outstanding debt. Lots of people have credit card debt, loans etc.... and it's all fine as long as you pay it off. This traffic history report is going to show on paper that my boyfriend has ignored some outstanding debt so my worry is whoever is looking at our application will have the authority to make the decision to refuse our PR based on that.

Do you think sending through confirmation of a direct debit is enough with a monthly payment plan starting from this month? Or will they want to see it cleared in one lump sum?

This is something relating to our application that we can control so rather than wait and see what happens, and then potentially get refused because of it, I'd prefer to nip it in the bud now and have one less thing to worry about. We received our email on the 24th Jan saying the application was processing to the office in Ottowa and based on timelines of a lot of my friends who got their PR in the last few weeks we should have an email about our medical (fingers crossed) by end of July/start of August.

If its likely to be something that could potentially affect our application then I will pay it no questions asked. But if it's not something that can affect their decision making then we will stick with the direct debit.

Thanks for your advice in advance!

 

[Matt the Aussie]

As a fellow Queenslander I know how frustrating it is to have to do that little bit extra to get the traffic report. Luckily I did not have any offences.

I can see both sides of this. From your boyfriend's perspective these offences have nothing to do with criminal culpability, they are just road violations and the tickets have been assessed accordingly. No court dates, the suspension was probably automatic, you get it back at the end of the 3 months with no issues.

From the IO perspective, it is troubling that a) there are so many road violations in the 3 year period and b) the debt remains outstanding since the last ticket issued in 2010. If I was the IO, this is clearly not enough to outright decline his case, but it certainly is a red flag that would make me want to check the rest of his application very carefully...

 

[jes_ON]

.=
If its likely to be something that could potentially affect our application then I will pay it no questions asked. But if it's not something that can affect their decision making then we will stick with the direct debit.

Thanks for your advice in advance!

Neither debt nor minor regulatory infractions are relevant to the CEC application. As Matt says, tho, it may cause the VO to look a little harder at his background documentation. Just make sure everything is good -

 

[clodaoc]

Hi guys, thanks for your advice! My bf has since contacted SPER and set up a repayment plan. They suggested an amount of $80 every 4 weeks which is more than doable. It took about a week or two for them to take the first payment but it happened on 18th April. Since we then had evidence that the debt was being addressed I emailed a copy of my bf's bank statement showing the deduction (and the info with it said clearly that it was going to the SPER office) to the visa office in Ottowa, and a copy of the repayment plan on the Australian govt headed paper. I explained briefly in my email that the debt remained unnoticed until we received the traffic history report and since then we have been in touch with SPER and the debt is now being managed.

I'm hoping this will be enough. I am repaying a loan since uni and I make montly installments like I suppose alot of people do so i'm presuming this debt will be looked at in the same light. As long as it's being managed that's the main thing? It's the only thing hanging over my head with this application at this stage so fingers crossed it doesn't affect our 2nd attempt at getting Canadian residency!!

 

[classic123]

HI @ clodaoc,

My Situation is Just like your boyfriends. There were fines on my Name. But only thing differ here is that fines were nominated to my Name, I never Drove a Car there, even I held the license, My friend misused my Licence Number even after i Left Australia in 2007. Few Fines were of 2009 date, I contacted Vicroads.

1. Even the fines were not mine, i still paid them - Fines appear in the Traffic history, shows nothing like paid or not paid.
2. Applied PCC after Paying fines and came cleaner

Now I am worried on two things, Will this cause rejection to my Case.
Even fines were not fined, i had already files the revocation for those, how that will pay a role in that.

Fines were mostly

1. Speed exceeding 10 km and above - 9 times
2. Disobyed Traffic rule - 1 time
3. Speed Exceed less than 25 kms - 1 time

Above 3 made complete demerit of my licence,


Please share your Thoughts guys, I wanna know about it, will it effect me