hi All,
I am living at an airbnb whose owner decided to bypass airbnb and let me stay monthly. Benefit of that is, I can leave anytime I want. No lease nothing and also get free room service and cleaning and regularly maintained home. I do eventually plan on leasing an apartment by finding job and know which area would be best.
But an acquaintance of mine told me that even though I am physically in Canada, it will be difficult for me to prove to CIC that I lived in Canada since there is no lease.
My question is, doesn't CBSA track our entry and exit at the border? Do we still have to provide proof?
OVERALL: THERE is LITTLE reason to worry . . . as long as you follow the instructions, provide COMPLETE and ACCURATE information, including ALL dates you enter and leave Canada (even day trips to the U.S.), and apply with a reasonable margin of days OVER the minimum (many say a week to ten days is sufficient; my suggestion is that a full month or more is better . . . subject to individual situations in which waiting even longer would be prudent -- I waited a full extra year given some particular circumstances for me personally).
There is little reason to worry is especially true if you are regularly employed IN Canada during most of the time you live here.
Longer and more in-depth observations:
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U.S. Records of Entry into the U.S. --
If you are a U.S. citizen, Canada does not have the same access to records of your entries into the U.S. that it has for other PRs. While this has either recently changed or will be changing in the near future, expanding the access Canada has to U.S. entry records for U.S. citizens, the entry into the U.S. constituting, in effect, a record of exit from Canada, for days in the past Canada may not be able to independently verify exit dates from Canada into the U.S.
And, apart from that, continued anecdotal reporting suggests that a significant percentage of citizenship applicants with extensive U.S. ties (citizens, GC holders, and others with history of living or working in the U.S.) are getting requests for their U.S. sourced records (type of record depends on whether individual is a U.S. citizen or not; other forum participants are better informed about these particular records than I am). Which can slow processing if the applicant has not already obtained a copy of these records from U.S. authorities. (Hard to guess what percentage of applicants with U.S. ties this happens to; did not happen to me.)
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Burden of Proof Generally on Applicant --
Additionally, the burden of proving dates of physical presence in Canada is ON the APPLICANT regardless what records or other sources of information IRCC has access to. In particular, IRCC looks to other records, such as the PR's CBSA travel history of entries into Canada, for the purpose of cross-checking the applicant's declaration of travel history in the actual physical presence calculation submitted by the applicant with the grant citizenship application. That is, IRCC uses such records to verify what the applicant reports. (Worth noting that in the past CIC has actually used evidence of an applicant's presence IN Canada that the applicant did not declare in the application AGAINST the applicant, to show that the applicant's account is NOT accurate and thus NOT reliable, casting doubt on the applicant's representations altogether; and this was upheld by a Federal Court.)
BUT NOT TO WORRY. Few applicants are required to submit documentation supporting their travel history. For the vast majority of qualified applicants, IRCC relies on the applicant's actual physical presence calculation, which works on the presumption that the applicant was actually physically present IN Canada all days between a known date of entry and the next reported date of exit. Very few applicants are asked to provide leases or other documentation to support their declaration of address history.
Which, however, illustrates how important it is to get the travel history as close to perfectly right as possible. While isolated mistakes or omissions amounting to just a day or two generally will not trigger RQ (Residency Questionnaire) related requests or processing, there are reports that even omitting a single day trip to the U.S. can sometimes trigger RQ-related requests for additional proof.
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IN CASE of RQ Related Requests: --
Any applicant may get RQ related requests, so the prudent PR will keep records related to place of abode, employment, travel, and other activities IN Canada. You should be able to keep a record of the payment for the rental, for example, or eventually ask the landlord for a letter affirming the period of time you have rented the address.
Actually, the records a person should keep anyway are generally sufficient to show a paper or digital trail of a life being lived IN Canada.
Evidence of going to a place of employment IN Canada during a period of time can make up for not having documentation to show rental or ownership of a place of abode during that time.
The main thing is that even a little evidence can be enough UNLESS IRCC has reason to doubt the applicant's credibility, to question the information the applicant has provided.
Applicants who have trouble proving actual physical presence to the satisfaction of IRCC have generally done something which triggers outright suspicion.
