Your earlier comment suggest that age is locked at ITA which is incorrect.
Now you are sharing CIC link about public policy exemption which clearly says “officer may grant exemption”. So it’s not mandatory exemption.
I would still recommend OP to submit his application before his birthday to ensure his scores are valid on AOR.
Rest, it’s his call anyways.
In his particular case where he
will fall below the cut-off due to aging, the officer indeed "locks" his age at the time of ITA and not AOR like regular cases. It's to answer his
explicit and specific concern ragarding the cut-off, which is not incorrect. It's in the particular context of
"falling below cut-off" that I answered him. That's why I posted the link.
Concerning the choice of wording and language that you want to point out, yes,
"Officer may grant exemption", just like he
"May" grant you Permanent Residency if he/she is satisfied with all our document. Nothing is certain of course, let alone
"mandatory", just like in 100% of all our PR applications here. But everyone can safely assume that if all documents are 100% correct, one can be confident in the PR approval, wouldn't you agree? The
"May" is omnipresent during the whole PR process, not just for the exemption here...
Likewise, the official text is written suggesting that if the fall below cutoff is
solely due to aging, there should be no issue, hence the link here.
Of course, submitting APR before birthday is the right thing to do. If he can, that should definitely be the way to go.