Again: this is a very narrow tangent regarding how it goes, or how it
MIGHT go, for applicants living abroad after applying --
. . . it would be great if you could cite more than ONE reference. The one you did cite was talking about an anecdotal experience about his friend, and not his own. I used the search function to try to find other people getting RQs due to being abroad for extended periods of time but I couldn't find much other than your comments.
As I noted, such anecdotal reports are not uncommon in this forum. Using a double negative ("not uncommon") to describe quantity is far from ideal. But such anecdotal reports are also not common.
A similar quantitative description, just as vague, is applicable to anecdotal reports about the impact of moving abroad generally. Somewhere in between common and uncommon. That is, overall the number is few, so not enough to be common, but not so few as to be uncommon. Too few to draw firm conclusions based on them alone (which is part of why I reference the history and last known criteria for questioning residency). Enough, nonetheless, to see a range of reports, from no problems to some problems, including RQ or otherwise some non-routine delays, and thus enough to see that how it goes VARIES. Among those reporting *issues* there appears to be at least a few still outstanding, already delayed (before Covid) and subject to non-routine processing, and now very much in limbo as even the most routine applications are for the time being.
But the reports are, indeed, relatively few, and scattered. While you should be able to find some of the other anecdotal accounts if you searched and found other comments by me about this subject, at least if you read back through the older topics and read through the posts of others in the topics, those would be a mere slice. In contrast, many references to this pop up in other contexts, including topics for complaining about delays, topics about non-routine processing, especially those about RQ-related non-routine processing. This includes a number of times, a number of reports, by forum participants who only incidentally reference being abroad AND the issues they have encountered.
I do not keep a collection of these reports. There are enough periodically to recognize the pattern that a significant number of applicants abroad for an extended length of time are still encountering problems. There are typically enough that one can be readily found and cited, such as the one I cited here . . . which I quoted and linked merely as a representative example of these kinds of reports . . . I chose that example simply because it was the most recent, posted less than two days earlier (at the time), and it is worth noting it was in a topic that had NOTHING to do with traveling or moving abroad.
In contrast, there are also enough to see that quite a few do NOT encounter a problem. Which is why, in reference to the anecdotal report I cited, I suggested that perhaps it overstates things a bit.
Overall, over the course of recent years, there have been enough of both kinds, with sufficient context, to infer that in general living abroad after applying still tends to increase the risk of RQ-related non-routine processing.
That said, a substantial percentage of this anecdotal reporting tends to be shy in detail, lacking follow-up, and otherwise subject to the weaknesses inherent in anecdotal reporting here generally. Especially since most of these anecdotal reports arise in topics that are not specifically related to issues or questions about moving abroad after applying.
One of the most common weaknesses in the anecdotal reporting is the extent to which those involved are not altogether honest in how they characterize things. Many, and perhaps a majority of questions about going abroad and staying abroad after applying, refer to "traveling" abroad. A few will outright reference "moving" abroad. More reference "travel" abroad. As if the label changes anything.
A very high percentage of the queries here ask whether an applicant needs to notify IRCC about "traveling" abroad. The real question typically is whether an applicant needs to notify IRCC if the applicant changes the address where she lives. Which is a question so easily answered it is rarely asked. Of course the applicant needs to notify IRCC of a change in "home" address.
Except many (probably most) of those changing where they reside to an address abroad generally do not want to let IRCC know that. So, while those who change their home address within Canada routinely update this information with IRCC, with no doubt about the need to notify IRCC, in contrast many of those headed abroad are looking for alternatives which will not alert IRCC they have moved abroad. For obvious reasons.
Which leads to the lack of details in the anecdotal reporting about how it goes. Let's be honest. There is a likely explanation for this. Most are probably NOT truthfully notifying IRCC of the address where they are actually residing, abroad, but giving IRCC the address of a family member or close friend IN Canada. As fraud goes, this is not particularly egregious, and it is not something IRCC appears to focus on or pursue much. Perhaps it is a bit like going 10k or even 20k over the speed limit on the 401. No ticket, no offence, no problem. That is, as fraud goes, there is probably a lot of
getting-away-with-it among the relatively small number of applicants who move abroad after applying.
As relatively minor a fraud it is, and easy to
get-away-with, still not something most will go broadcasting much, even anonymously in a forum like this. After all, if the applicant is concealing where he actually resides from IRCC, even if that is a minor fraud, it is still fraud.
Which brings this to what your question, asking me to do the homework to identify and cite some of the other anecdotal reports here, is really about.
Framing the Question: Is your question about --
-- verifying that living abroad while the application is pending increases the RISK of RQ-related scrutiny and thus RQ-related non-routine processing, or
-- seeing other reports in order to identify or at least discern some factors which influence the nature or scope of the RISK of RQ
If the first, you'll have to trust me (in saying that such reports are not uncommon here) or go ahead and do the homework for yourself. I have very little doubt that living abroad while the application is pending increases the RISK of RQ-related non-routine processing. I regularly, even if only occasionally, see reports here of this happening.
If the question is about the latter, the second, looking for influential factors, that is a very difficult and complex question. At times I have tried to gather and collate and analyze enough of these reports to identify patterns in who gets RQ and who doesn't. The reports are simply too few, too scattered, and too lacking in detail, to support this, and that is apart from the fudging-element typical in these reports (such as characterizing moving abroad as "travel" abroad), which makes it especially difficult to extrapolate reliable conclusions from them.
If one goes back several years, back to the years when Harper was PM and CIC (as then named) was engaged in a very overt effort to identify and intensely scrutinize any applicants perceived to have
applied-on-the-way-to-the-airport, or otherwise perceived to be seeking a
passport-of-convenience, there was a stronger, more stark contrast, between those applicants living abroad after applying who encountered NO problems versus those dragged into what was then seemingly an endless delay; those who did NOT encounter problems generally seemed
to obviously be abroad TEMPORARILY . . . such as, for example, students attending a special graduate program abroad. But there was, even then, a lot of inconsistency and incongruity, relative to which applications went one way and which went the other . . . except back then, it was FOR-SURE the risk of RQ-related non-routine processing was MUCH HIGHER for any applicant who moved abroad after applying.
Much-much-higher. The Harper era government was actually rather aggressive in targeting those perceived to be
applying-on-the-way-to-the-airport in those days (and for a brief time the Harper government had amended the Citizenship Act, until the new Trudeau government repealed it, to give CIC a basis to outright deny an application based on the a determination the applicant was residing outside Canada while the application was pending).
