For this application to have any chance of success you need to have been physically present at least 1095 days within the preceding five years AS OF THE DAY THE APPLICATION WAS MADE.What if today, I have 1102 days actual days in Canada after including all my trips in the calculator. Can I still "update" this ongoing application or do I have to withdraw it an reaplly, lose the fee and wait seven more months, redo the test to get in this phase ?
If you made errors in the physical presence calculation you submitted with the application, or there are errors in IRCC's conclusions about the number of days you were present, YES, you can update the application to correct those errors. And if after correcting all the errors, you calculate that AS OF THE DAY THE APPLICATION WAS MADE you had been physically present in Canada for 1102 days within the preceding five years, of that date, you can require IRCC to continue processing your application.
In this event, if IRCC disagrees with your calculation, and concludes that there is a possibility you did not meet the minimum physical presence requirement, the application would then go to a Citizenship Judge who will decide the facts. If the CJ concludes you were physically present 1102 days AS OF THE DAY THE APPLICATION WAS MADE, and you meet all the other requirements, the CJ will approve your application and then IRCC can decide whether to schedule you for the oath or to appeal the CJ's decision to the Federal Court (IRCC has a right of appeal).
If it goes to the CJ and the CJ does NOT conclude you have submitted adequate proof you were physically present at least 1095 days, AS OF THE DAY THE APPLICATION WAS MADE, the CJ will deny approval. Applicants do not have a right of appeal, but they can make an application to the Federal Court seeking leave to obtain judicial review.
My impression, and it is apparent others have responded based on this interpretation of your query, is that what you are really asking is whether you can update the application to ADD days physically present in Canada for days you have been in Canada since the date you applied. NO. No, you cannot change the date for calculating your physical presence. The date the presence calculation is based on is the date the application is made. Days in or out of Canada after that date do NOT figure into the calculation.
If as of TODAY you have been actually physically present in Canada for 1102 days, within the preceding five years, that would meet the physical presence calculation as of today. If as of today you otherwise meet all the other requirements, you are eligible to apply for citizenship. 1102 days is cutting-it-close, not leaving much of a margin, especially for a frequent traveler, but if you can definitively, for certain, identify every travel date precisely accurately, you could APPLY AGAIN TODAY. You do not need to withdraw the other application first. But if you were to do this, to apply again now, you will want to submit the request to withdraw the first application soon, just to avoid confusion (IRCC could, for example, put the second application on hold pending the outcome of the first).
I do not know what the "seven more months" is about.
REMINDER:
The operative information underlying your query is not complicated. Since June 11, 2015 Canada has adopted a strict physical presence requirement as a qualifying element for grant citizenship. The minimum number of days was reduced to 1095 as of October 11, 2017. There are some wrinkles in how days are counted, such as the current allowance of half-day credits for pre-PR days PHYSICALLY PRESENT in Canada (within the five year eligibility period, subject to a maximum credit of 365 days), and such as the current policy to count a day as a day physically present in Canada if any part of the calendar day was physically spent IN CANADA (thus, the day an individual leaves Canada, and the day the individual returns to Canada, both count as days IN Canada).
That is, what is clear, what is certain, is that for a day to in any way count, the applicant must have been PHYSICALLY PRESENT in Canada for at least some part of that day, and (per current law) that day must be within the FIVE years preceding the date the application was made.
The days you are traveling in the U.S. pursuant to an assignment by your Canadian employer do count toward days present in Canada FOR THE PURPOSE OF COMPLIANCE WITH THE PR RESIDENCY OBLIGATION. Unfortunately many are confused by the difference between what counts for citizenship and what counts for meeting the PR RO. The job of CBSA officers screening traveling PRs is to check for PR RO compliance. So, for a CBSA officer, the days count. CBSA officers have no role in assessing qualifications for citizenship (albeit, to be clear, their records can be and often are accessed and considered by IRCC personnel handling a citizenship application).He is a truck driver, indeed. So, can I call it discrimination ? Because of the job that I am doing I am being discriminated. I pay taxes on all days worked in the US as a truck driver to the Canadian goverment. And the worst part is that if you ask CBSA they tell you that those days will count as spent in Canada. Waiting to see what MP can do about it. There are thowsends, like me, doing this job, and not aware of how the job is going to impact the application. What options do we have ? Quit the job and do what ? It's nonsense.
I do not understand the discrimination argument. Since June 11, 2015 the law governing requirements for citizenship have been clear in regards to imposing a minimum physical presence requirement. This applies to everyone, to all PRs, except those engaged in certain Crown Service abroad and members of the military.
There are policy arguments about the fairness of a strict physical presence requirement. And, in contrast, for several decades there was instead a residency requirement pursuant to which a Citizenship Judge could give credit for days abroad so long as the applicant maintained residency in Canada and the applicant's life was centralized in Canada. BUT that approach tended to be unevenly applied and was widely criticized, and the resounding consensus was that a strict physical presence requirement would be more fair . . . even though, as with all qualifying criteria under law, the effect would result in extra hardship for some . . . international airline personnel, truck and bus drivers, off-shore oil rig workers, some sales representatives with international clients, among others.
In any event, Parliament considered the policies involved and implemented a strict physical presence requirement. Even though this did not actually happen until June 2015, it was long-known, and widely known, this was coming, as many Federal Court justices were loudly clamouring for it for a long time, a physical presence requirement was set out in formally tabled legislation at least a decade earlier, and when the Harper government got a majority government in 2011 this was a priority in their platform. What the liberals did, when they got a majority government, and effective as of last October, was to mitigate the harshest aspects of what the Harper government implemented, by reducing the minimum requirement (to 1095 rather than 1460 days) and allowing for a more liberal ratio of time abroad to time in Canada (current law will allow PRs to become eligible for citizenship even if they spend up to forty percent of their time abroad). The general consensus in Canada is that this version is actually quite liberal if not outright generous.
In any event, the current law will allow international airline personnel and truck drivers with regular routes into the U.S. to qualify for citizenship as long as they are not absent more than approximately 140 days a year. That is plenty to accommodate routes almost exclusively into the U.S. assuming a pattern similar to relatively standard work-weeks, holidays, and vacation time. This is actually more generous than the old residency requirements, since under those a CJ could still impose a strict presence requirement and essentially preclude a truck driver from ever qualifying if he or she was driving in the states more than 60 to 90 days a year. Under that law, the PR would get one day less credit for each trip, since there was credit only for days leaving or days returning, not both . . . so if the PR made 40 overnight trips a year into the U.S., that was 40 less days credit than the trucker now gets, so just 32 three night trips into the U.S. annually would drop the trucker below EVER qualifying . . . whereas now a trucker could make more than 40 FOUR night trips into the U.S. per year and still qualify.
So, for a trucker with regular cross-border routes, it takes longer to meet the minimum than it will for someone whose employment is entirely in Canada. But the path is there.
Edit to clarify old residency requirement comparison:
To be clear, even though old the law allowed credit for residency that was totally discretionary. CIC and CJs could impose a strict presence test under the old residency requirement. And that was a 3/4 rule, so a total absence of 366 days in the four relevant years would preclude eligibility. And for every trip, either the day leaving or the day returning counted as a day absent. For frequent travelers (like truck and bus drivers with U.S. routes), those days added up.
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