Hi jdCanadian,
I know you didn't direct your question to me but, for purposes of the police clearance certificates validity dates for Express Entry, "short visit" and "stay" mean the same things. People assume that, because they weren't 'living' there, they were just 'visiting', it doesn't count, but it does. The point is that, if you go back to a country even for 1 hour after you get the PCC, the results of your PCC aren't complete (because they don't cover that 1 hour) - you could have committed a crime in that 1 hour of visiting, and the PCC wouldn't reveal it, so it's not valid. This is not true, You PCC is valid if you received it before leaving a country and visited it again, as long as it is under the six month period. There is nothing in the express entry section on Police certificates that explicitly state that you can only have a PCC under 6 months old for a country, if you are a current resident. It states that if you have lived there in the PAST(6 months prior or longer) - Then the PCC should have been issued after you lived there.
Your background check is simply not complete once you submit your PCC to CIC. They very likely follow up with their own verification with the country that processed your PCC(I am not completely sure about this though, I am assuming based on the progress in my file). My Biometrics and possibly FBI checks were verified with the US gov, where I used to live before I applied for EE and I received my PCC before leaving the US.
I was informed by CIC reps and lawyers that this PCC would be sufficient and my case was not rejected. I am a resident now. I have been following this issue for a while but I haven't come across one case where CIC rejected an application because the PCC was issued before someone left a country.
Therefore (unless you're currently living in that Country, in which case the rule is that the PCC just needs to be less than 6 months old), if you went back to a country for a short visit after the PCC was issued, it's invalid and you may have issues with your application if IRCC realizes this.
There are some people on this forum, though, who state that, if you already submitted your eAPR and received AOR, then it is fine, as IRCC wouldn't expect you to now either stop travelling until your PR is approved, or get a new PCC after submitting your application...I don't know how true this is though...