Quality Assurance Group

[jamie hito]

I'm curious to know if anyone who has had to go down the quality assurance route has had to provide entry/exit records for the US? I travel between 1 and 3 times a week to the US as part of my job as a truck diver and in the past 5 years will have hundreds of trips and as a result of that am currently in the long wait for an FBI criminal record check because I've had over 183 days there.
I'm wondering what I'll do if they chose me for quality assurance once I apply, as the entry into Canada is deemed an exit record for the US side and vice versa, when you drive over the border you only stop at the customs of the country you are entering, not the one you are leaving. I've checked my US entries and exits on their website and it doesn't seem accurate at all. There are lots of double entries into the US with no exit to Canada in between, suggesting that the Canadian border guard didn't scan my PR card in to the system or such like on the return to Canada between the two trips into the US in question.
On my physical presence calculator all my dates are 100% correct as per my drivers log book so are accurate, but if Canada customs for whatever reason haven't swiped my card in on some occasions to show my entry into the country on their system, what am I supposed to do about that?
Just a hypothetical question as I haven't even mailed my application yet, I just don't want to be caught on the back foot should the worst happen and a QA request heads my way in the future.

Your drivers log book is a legal document.

 

[Fiore2017]

Hello, here is my timeline:
Application Sent- Oct 17
Application received- Oct 19
In Progress since Dec 8
Quality Assurance Letter dated - Dec 8
Quality Assurance letter received- Dec 20
FP Done Dec 22
QAE documents submitted - Feb 8, 2018
I hope that will be the end of the Random Quality Assurance Exercise!
Wish me a good look for the next step!

 

[robinhood_1984]

Hello, here is my timeline:
Application Sent- Oct 17
Application received- Oct 19
In Progress since Dec 8
Quality Assurance Letter dated - Dec 8
Quality Assurance letter received- Dec 20
FP Done Dec 22
QAE documents submitted - Feb 8, 2018
I hope that will be the end of the Random Quality Assurance Exercise!
Wish me a good look for the next step!

Do you mind me asking what kind of additional information they asked you for as part of the Quality Assurance process?

 

[Fiore2017]

Do you mind me asking what kind of additional information they asked you for as part of the Quality Assurance process?

No one... I don't have any additional information request outside the QA.

 

[robinhood_1984]

No one... I don't have any additional information request outside the QA.

What does the QA consist of?

 

[dpenabill]

What does the QA consist of?

The contents of the PPQ-QAE and CIT 0205 in particular are discussed in depth in the topic titled:
RQ versus Physical Presence Questionnaires, including CIT 0205

See posts at this page for example:

https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/rq-versus-physical-presence-questionnaires-including-cit-0205.534082/page-2

Sample from posts in that topic:

The package that i have received includes:

- A covering letter
- Form CIT 0205 (05-2017) E - Physical Presence Questionnaire - Quality Assurance Exercise
- Appendix - Required Documents
- Request for fingerprints
- Request for a non-family member Canadian citizen as a reference who has known me for at least 2 years
- A consent form for a disclosure of the history of arrivals and departures in the Unites States

Speculatively, I am from a Visa except country and have travelled to the US through the land border several times during the eligible period (for single day meetings). In the list of required documents this consent for disclosure form is specifically refereed to as "Consent to I-94". This could, potentially, be one of the reasons for this process in the case of my application.

There is nothing particularly surprising in the list of requested documents:
- Colour photocopies of all pages of passports from the relevant period
- Entry/ Exit records issued be the countries of your citizenship and/or all countries of current or past (permanent or temporary) resident status other than Canada.
- Provincial / Territorial Personal Health Claims summary
The a longer list of other if scenarios and required paperwork for rentals, home ownership, studying, employment / benefits claims, business ownership / self employment, and professional association memberships.

 

[dunten]

I understand your frustration and I personally hope I won't be selected, but how else would you do it?

Here are the options:
(A) the current process, where applications are randomly selected who have to prove what they wrote on the form
(B) you would let case workers make the call if people should be requested proof. This opens the doors to discrimination based on nationality, race, social situation,...
(C) Don't do any of this and simply believe everything that an applicant writes in their application.

So what would you like IRCC to do? (C) clearly isn't an option.

Again, I get the frustration, but I can't see what they can do differently.

This a real mature and logical contribution. I didn't look at the situation like this way before.

The process is fair but I still feel the pain of the selected individuals.

 

[dpenabill]

Here are the options:
(A) the current process, where applications are randomly selected who have to prove what they wrote on the form
(B) you would let case workers make the call if people should be requested proof. This opens the doors to discrimination based on nationality, race, social situation,...
(C) Don't do any of this and simply believe everything that an applicant writes in their application.

So what would you like IRCC to do? (C) clearly isn't an option.

Again, I get the frustration, but I can't see what they can do differently.

There is another option, and it is the option which is actually employed: screening applications utilizing triage criteria (identified risk indicators) and standard assessment tools (such as cross-checking information in the application itself). Typically (at the least for many years, and probably still, even though the precise procedures are not public information, so this is not certain), the applicant's submissions are screened against triage criteria at least three times:
-- once by the CPC-Sydney office, and
-- again by a processing agent in the local office in preparation for the interview, and
-- again in the course of the interview.

(Last known version of the File Requirements Checklist revealed to the public, which outlines this process, dates from 2012, but it is very likely the current process at least roughly follows a similar outline if not largely the same FRC.)

This option includes required-information in the application that goes well beyond the scope of qualifying requirements, which information allows IRCC to evaluate the accuracy of the qualifying information in context.

Work history is the obvious example. There is no employment qualifying requirement. There is no answer to the work history questions which will disqualify an applicant except an answer which constitutes a material misrepresentation. This information is required precisely for the purpose of using it to screen the specific qualifying requirement information.

Even the travel history itself, submitted as part of the presence-calculation, is structured to facilitate verification through other sources. (It is not enough for an applicant to declare he was present 1095 days; actual dates of exit and entry are required, and these are checked in various ways.)

Applicants' declarations as to prohibitions are always subject to verification by RCMP and CSIS background checks.

Applicant's address history may be researched in GCMS for suspect postal codes.

As noted in depth elsewhere, IRCC can (and apparently fairly often does) research open sources such as those on the Internet (LinkedIn is among the most noted) to check an applicant's information.

Then there is the interview, and most interviewers are trained to identify signs an individual is not being entirely forthright let alone overtly dishonest.

In other words, the current application form and procedure incorporates multi-layered verification mechanisms.

All of which is standard operating procedure for decision-making of this sort.

The PPQ-QAE can (and probably is intended to) serve two purposes:
-- spot-checking individual applicants, to interdict some instances of fraud, and
-- collecting information which can be used (hopefully) to evaluate the efficacy of currently employed triage criteria (the risk indicators) and determine if other criteria would be better, or to identify other means of interdicting fraud

In any event, it would be a mistake for those who do not get PPQ-QAE to think that IRCC does not employ a range of tools to verify the information they have submitted.

 

[Patrice83]

Resident of Toronto
Application for Canadian citizenship (grant of citizenship) on October 16, 2017
QA received from Mississauga Citizenship official on December 10, 2017
Required documents sent on February 10, 2017 through express post, with a letter of explanation
Good luck to all of us

 

[dpenabill]

Resident of Toronto
Application for Canadian citizenship (grant of citizenship) on October 16, 2017
QA received from Mississauga Citizenship official on December 10, 2017
Required documents sent on February 10, 2017 through express post, with a letter of explanation
Good luck to all of us

Please consider joining the conversation, and posting updates in how this goes for you, in the topic titled:
RQ versus Physical Presence Questionnaires, including CIT 0205

 

[Patrice83]

Please consider joining the conversation, and posting updates in how this goes for you, in the topic titled:
RQ versus Physical Presence Questionnaires, including CIT 0205

I just joined it. Thanks for the advice

 

[Moood]

Hi all
I applied on oct 16
IP dec 5
Quality assurance letter Dec 15
Submit all document for Quality assurance on jan 20
Test invitation march 20
Office kitchener
Thank you

 

[Moood]

HI MY UPDATE
APPLICATION RECEIVED 16 OCT 2017
IN PROCESS 5 DEC 2017
FULL RESIDENTIAL QUESTIONNAIRE 15 DEC 2017
REPLY FOR RQ 22 JAN 2018
TEST 4 APRIL 2018
DECISION MADE 5 DEC 2018
CEREMONY 15 JAN 2019
TOTAL JOURNEY 15 MONTHS
THANK YOU EVERY ONE I HOPE YOU WILL GOT YOU SOON

 

[kvr]

My cousin submitted his citizenship application in Oct 2017 from Edmonton and his file was picked up for Quality Assurance.
He got the letter and submitted all the documents in January 2018. he didn't get FP request, but all other documents like exit entry, address proofs and what not.

It did take a while for his application to be processed and he didn't bother to follow-up nor send any web form. I remember him ordering GCMS notes twice while the application was in process. But, he got the test invite and the oat date on the same day. He did his test and oath on the same day in November 2018.

There sure is light at the end of the tunnel.