Let's not forget that not so long ago, the requirement was 4 years, a period of which also had to be consecutive.
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Is meeting naturalization residency obligations a hardship for you? Why?
- Thread starter Lyon37
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And the intent to reside in the country was a requirement too. I wouldn't be surprised if they revive this rule back from the dead (if the conservatives are elected to power).
most countries (if not all) require a certain time of residency to get naturalized: Canada 3 years out of 5 years, US 5 years, Australia 3 years out of 4 years. There might be some countries that don't require residency to get naturalized, please let me know if you know any? if not, I don't think Canada will even try to be an outlier for this general rule
To give you some perspective: physical presence and continuous residency are two different metrics. US for instance requires continuous residence, but much less physical presence. There are many countries that require tax residence, instead of physical presence. Even in Canada, this has been a big part of political debates, as well as the concern of several court precedents.
For Canada, physical presence is a metric to judge attachment/ties to the country. It's a messy metric, because a lot of people don't get attached or have ties, despite physical presence, and then there are others that fake it and also commit tax fraud.
If we get out of the wormhole of mansplainers on this forum, there are many genuine cases of people that struggle with this requirement and some people that would make excellent contributors to Canada that eventually renounce their PRs. I was curious to see what some of the experiences were. But unfortunately, this thread so far has evolved into random opinions, without anyone actually seeking to answer the question asked.
oh well, Law is law, Canadian citizenship law is also law, if you can't change the law, better follow it or leave (yes, I know at least two immigrants give up their PR due to these residency requirements and go back to their home country, mainly because Canada having fewer opportunities to make money and/or boring/cold life here, so not worth to stay in Canada physically )
Grateful if you can share why your acquaintances decided to give up their PR. What were their reasons for struggling with physical presence requirements?
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.... actually I think you added to your answer - so neither had any ties to Canada. It was not just the physical presence requirement that was an issue, there was no connection to or residence in Canada. Well, then renouncing the PR makes sense.
The first part of this is easy.
"I am trying to better analyze in terms of policy if the physical residency requirements (3 out of 5) are problematic to achieve for certain immigrants and why."
YES. Emphatically yes. Even meeting the 2/5 Residency Obligation to keep PR status is "problematic" for some. "Why" varies. Some of the reasons have been mentioned. They range from personal priorities and choices to personal difficulties, from family matters to business and employment and other financial matters. There is no shortage of anecdotal reporting in this forum about many, many aspects of the problems many immigrants face in meeting the obligations to keep PR status let alone meet the actual physical presence requirement for a grant of citizenship.
Clarification: the current rule is not a "physical residency" requirement. It is a physical presence requirement. Canada had a "residency" requirement, a 3/4 residency requirement, from the 1980s until, technically, June 2015. I say "technically" because by around 2008 the Harper government had begun interpreting and applying the law to be a 3/4 physical presence requirement, without actually changing the letter of the law and thus subject to some pushback by some Federal Court justices. Want to talk about messy, that was incredibly messy. A long, involved story rife with injustice, scores and scores of inconsistent outcomes, conflicting interpretations and applications of the law. It is not likely there is much, if any appetite, to revise the law to again adopt a residency requirement and revisit that morass. An actual physical presence requirement is almost certainly here to stay for a long while.
Otherwise, I do not follow the admonition " If you're here to rewrite/reshare the law of naturalization, please don't bother." Aren't you specifically suggesting rewriting the law of naturalization? Isn't that what the subject here is about?
It warrants emphasizing that the current law is intended to implement current policy; the law typically can be changed more easily, and has changed quite a lot since I came to Canada. There have been some policy changes as well but these are largely marginal, more in the nature of tweaking the system (except for the major change to implement an actual presence requirement rather than a residency requirement), and typically more about the manner in which immigration law and citizenship is enforced. Yes, the change from a residency requirement to requiring a PR to be physically present IN Canada at least 3/4 of the time to qualify for a grant of citizenship (Harper government interpretation and application of the 3/4 rule before Harper's government adopted the SCCA), then the change to a two-thirds of the time rule adopted in the SCCA (which took effect in 2015), and then to the current just 60% of five years requirement, are each significant, but these all come, nonetheless, under an umbrella policy which has remained consistent and which is based on implementing and furthering the purpose of encouraging immigrants to settle and live IN Canada PERMANENTLY.
You appear to be advocating a rather radical shift in policy. That is a much larger, complex, and frankly difficult subject. And for the foreseeable future largely academic since even the most open-border positions among all the major political leaders in Canada (much like their counterparts in many other countries which encourage immigration but also limit it, even if there are significant differences in the details), and the overwhelming majority of their constituents, do not appear to lean at all in that direction.
It warrants remembering that current policy is incredibly complex, embracing the full gamut of immigration (from tourism and international trade, to providing a safe haven for refugees and uniting families), within which encouraging permanent immigration with a path to citizenship (citizenship largely a carrot to encourage immigrants to pursue settling and living IN Canada PERMANENTLY) is just one facet. But the latter is, for sure and nonetheless, a key element in the overall policy.
I am guessing you are referring to the requirements under the SCCA, governing applications made between June 2015 and October 2017. Presence in Canada under that rule, a 4/6 rule, did not need to be consecutive.
And as @scylla pointed out, the current 3/5 rule does NOT require consecutive presence.
Whether the 4/6 rule posed a higher, more difficult hurdle than the rule preceding it, a 3/4 rule, depends on the relative situation for particular individuals. For someone whose employment or lifestyle necessitated being abroad more, being physically in Canada 67% of time (the 4/6 rule) is more manageable than the previous rule which required being in Canada 75% of the time (current rule, 60% of the time, allows immigrants much more flexibility); but for those PRs who did not need to spend a significant portion of their time abroad the path itself, under the 4/6 rule, was significantly longer (minimum four rather than three years) .
Which brings up the ego-centric focus of the OP's query. It is focused on the particular difficulties, or "hardship," that SOME PRs encounter. The OP said, in particular, "I am asking this question from people for whom this is a hardship, not to those for whom it is not." It is not clear why the OP believes the policy and law "should" be revised to accommodate those with this particular type of hardship, for those who "want to be naturalized, but struggle with physical presence requirements," compared to the expansive range of hardships faced by scores and scores of people who would love to make Canada their home but cannot overcome the hurdles impeding that dream.
Regarding which some context is warranted. After all, once a person becomes a Canadian Permanent Resident, that person can keep that status for life despite living and working outside Canada more than half the time. PRs can spend 60% of their days outside Canada without having to explain why, no justification at all needed, and they can do this for life. (I have acquaintances who have been PRs for decades, and had one good friend who remained a PR for nearly five decades, until his recent passing.)
It is sometimes overlooked, or at least understated, that there are TWO important portals restricting who can successfully immigrate to a country, including Canada. The policy and law of the destination country is just one of these portals. Open-border proposals aside (again, Canada is not likely to so much as entertain hints of going that route for the foreseeable future), what the requirements "SHOULD" be (in practice rather than theoretically or academically) will be dictated by policy and what the country's politicians determine will best accomplish the purposes underlying that policy. For now, and for the foreseeable future, it is clear that the purpose underlying Canada's policy, in this regard, is to encourage immigrants to settle and live and work IN Canada permanently.
The other portal is largely individual. Who wants to immigrate to Canada is, of course, a big element in this. But looming just as large, and for the majority of people in the world who might want to make Canada their home, probably more daunting than Canada's regulation of immigration, there is the fundamental capacity to make a successful move to Canada, which for many imposes a major hurdle, the oft times impossible hurdle. A book length narrative might scratch the surface of this element. But there is plenty of discussion about this in this forum, including other discussions related to this very topic, such as discussions about how difficult it can be for many immigrants to find meaningful employment for fair compensation in Canada.
Leading to . . .
Giving the benefit of the doubt, nonetheless, and addressing "the question" as if it is a sincere inquiry, many of the posts above have answered that question, largely in the negative, no, at least not in some fundamental way, not in the context of Canada's current immigration system. So, to make it clear, what I read in most of the posts so far is:
To be clear, that is not my opinion about what the policy or the law should be. That's a description (yeah, rather roughly I confess) of how this "should" question would likely be framed and decided in the context of Canadian policy making regarding immigration and citizenship.
Leading to this:
Canadian courts generally do not entertain questions about what the law should be. That's for Parliament.
The most contentious period regarding the residency requirement was during the years the Harper government interpreted and attempted to apply that requirement as if it was a strict physical presence requirement, and appointed Federal Court justices who agreed and interpreted the law that way . . . up to when the Harper government adopted the SCCA and definitively established a physical presence requirement.
To be clear, about this, within Parliament there has been NO questioning, no real debate, about whether Canada should keep a physical presence requirement. The Harper version of requirements was judged too strict, too harsh, and so one of the very first tasks the Liberal majority undertook was to revise the requirements. So it was just the 6th bill tabled by the Liberals soon after forming a majority government following the fall 2015 election, their first major legislation. And in drafting that legislation there was virtually no proffer, let alone any serious political debate, about which, as you say, "metric" to employ; it was no mere consensus but pretty much universally accepted that the metric should be a physical presence requirement.
As I noted before, there is ZERO hint that Canadian politicians have any appetite to revisit a residency requirement. The physical presence requirement is more or less hardwired in now and for the foreseeable future.
I recognize you were not much interested in rehashing what the current law is. But it makes no sense to talk about what the law should be without recognizing and addressing the basis for how the law has changed, and why, and acknowledging that the debate about what metric to employ has been had and, within the current and foreseeable Canadian immigration scheme, definitively decided. With virtually no dissent in Parliament.
The only related issues remotely in the forecast for realistic consideration is how long (currently its 3 in 5 years) and what counts (currently pre-PR presence in Canada can count for some), and whether or not to implement provisions requiring applicants to continue residing in Canada, up to when they take the oath, to maintain their eligibility. Again, this is not about my opinion . . . this is a fairly sober and accurate estimate of the political landscape. The way it is. The real life practical parameters for calculating what "should" be the rule.
Finally:
And yes, some aspects of the Canadian immigration system are intended to encourage immigration by individuals who can be expected to be "excellent contributors" to Canada. But that's only a slice of the overall immigration scheme. So far that plays no role, ZERO, in assessing who is eligible for citizenship. In particular, in following the many debates regarding legislation proposed, some even tabled, in the years prior to the debates about the SCCA, and the discussions about Trudeau's Bill C-6 (not to be confused with the current Bill C-6), there has been no hint, not the slightest, that Canada's politicians would consider adopting a metric based on such a factor. Not in the ballpark.
Let's be honest. Scores of people qualify to immigrate to Canada and attempt to do so, but the hardships encountered make it too difficult or otherwise not a practical choice. To a significant extent Canada's immigration and internal social policies attempt to mitigate some of these hardships, but only partially. And, indeed, even though the 2/5 PR Residency Obligation allows PRs to live abroad more than in Canada, for very long stretches of time, even for life, the primary purpose of the liberal RO is to be flexible enough to allow PRs an opportunity to deal with the difficulties, the hardships, often encountered in making the move to settle in Canada. Bottom-line: both policy and law are structured to impose a significant degree of responsibility on the individual, both in terms of evaluating the practical capability of managing to immigrate to Canada, and in terms of determining priorities. As was discussed in another topic here recently, as just one example, a recently landed PR was struggling to decide whether keeping PR status was worth giving up far more lucrative employment abroad. For those highly skilled with fungible, readily marketable abilities, it can be a matter of personal priorities. For those escaping an untenable, oppressive state of affairs and allowed the opportunity to take refuge in Canada, the personal calculation is very different. And yet a different calculation still for family members with strong ties elsewhere.
Which leads back to the ego-centric core of the query itself, which tends to insinuate that Canadian citizenship policy should be based on and oriented to the needs of particular immigrants. Such as those with skill-sets facilitating a career involving extensive international opportunities. Not really how it works in Canada. Individual needs are considered, a part of the calculus, but to a significant extent the crux of the question here is more about individual preferences, and for now, and for the near-future if not longer, any assessment of what the "metric should be" will be oriented to the primary purpose of the path to citizenship aspect of Canadian immigration policy, to encourage immigrants to settle, live, and work IN Canada, PERMANENTLY. That is simply how it is.
That's about how things are.
How things should be in the grand scheme of things, in a fair and just universe, that's more or less a philosophical inquiry.
Not sure what "mansplainers" there are in this forum, and less sure why they are mentioned here, but rather apprehensive this may have been intended to be derisive if not overtly offensive.
Giving the benefit of the doubt, nonetheless, and addressing "the question" as if it is a sincere inquiry, many of the posts above have answered that question, largely in the negative, no, at least not in some fundamental way, not in the context of Canada's current immigration system. So, to make it clear, what I read in most of the posts so far is:
"Should the Government of Canada be using a different metric to assess ties to Canada?"
And the answer is basically "No." Some tweaking could be considered, perhaps, but if the question is intended to genuinely be about a practical approach to implementing Canadian immigration policy, the current metric is almost certainly the most flexible and immigrant friendly approach that is anywhere near the ballpark.
To be clear, that is not my opinion about what the policy or the law should be. That's a description (yeah, rather roughly I confess) of how this "should" question would likely be framed and decided in the context of Canadian policy making regarding immigration and citizenship.
Leading to this:
As I referenced in my previous post, Canada did have a residency requirement, which with some wrinkles (some deep and oft times unjust wrinkles) was the rule for more than a quarter century. To the extent there was, as you say "political debates" and "court precedents," those were intently focused on how unworkable and messy that was. Technically, by the way, there were no applicable "court precedents" about this. Questions about the residency requirement for a grant of citizenship never went to any court with the authority to establish precedent. Only since the SCCA was adopted, the law which definitively established a physical presence requirement, has there been access to review by the Federal Court of Appeals. So there was a morass of conflicting Federal Court decisions, none of which had the authority of precedent, regarding the residency requirement (which was finally replaced with a definitive physical presence requirement as of June 19, 2015), and no legal avenue for a higher court to decide what the law actually required. And to be clear, those Federal Court decisions did NOT address what the metric should be, but rather were conflicting views about what the law as written required.
Canadian courts generally do not entertain questions about what the law should be. That's for Parliament.
The most contentious period regarding the residency requirement was during the years the Harper government interpreted and attempted to apply that requirement as if it was a strict physical presence requirement, and appointed Federal Court justices who agreed and interpreted the law that way . . . up to when the Harper government adopted the SCCA and definitively established a physical presence requirement.
To be clear, about this, within Parliament there has been NO questioning, no real debate, about whether Canada should keep a physical presence requirement. The Harper version of requirements was judged too strict, too harsh, and so one of the very first tasks the Liberal majority undertook was to revise the requirements. So it was just the 6th bill tabled by the Liberals soon after forming a majority government following the fall 2015 election, their first major legislation. And in drafting that legislation there was virtually no proffer, let alone any serious political debate, about which, as you say, "metric" to employ; it was no mere consensus but pretty much universally accepted that the metric should be a physical presence requirement.
As I noted before, there is ZERO hint that Canadian politicians have any appetite to revisit a residency requirement. The physical presence requirement is more or less hardwired in now and for the foreseeable future.
I recognize you were not much interested in rehashing what the current law is. But it makes no sense to talk about what the law should be without recognizing and addressing the basis for how the law has changed, and why, and acknowledging that the debate about what metric to employ has been had and, within the current and foreseeable Canadian immigration scheme, definitively decided. With virtually no dissent in Parliament.
The only related issues remotely in the forecast for realistic consideration is how long (currently its 3 in 5 years) and what counts (currently pre-PR presence in Canada can count for some), and whether or not to implement provisions requiring applicants to continue residing in Canada, up to when they take the oath, to maintain their eligibility. Again, this is not about my opinion . . . this is a fairly sober and accurate estimate of the political landscape. The way it is. The real life practical parameters for calculating what "should" be the rule.
Finally:
As acknowledged, yes, for sure, there is no shortage of PRs who struggle to meet just the PR RO let alone the presence requirement for citizenship.
And yes, some aspects of the Canadian immigration system are intended to encourage immigration by individuals who can be expected to be "excellent contributors" to Canada. But that's only a slice of the overall immigration scheme. So far that plays no role, ZERO, in assessing who is eligible for citizenship. In particular, in following the many debates regarding legislation proposed, some even tabled, in the years prior to the debates about the SCCA, and the discussions about Trudeau's Bill C-6 (not to be confused with the current Bill C-6), there has been no hint, not the slightest, that Canada's politicians would consider adopting a metric based on such a factor. Not in the ballpark.
Let's be honest. Scores of people qualify to immigrate to Canada and attempt to do so, but the hardships encountered make it too difficult or otherwise not a practical choice. To a significant extent Canada's immigration and internal social policies attempt to mitigate some of these hardships, but only partially. And, indeed, even though the 2/5 PR Residency Obligation allows PRs to live abroad more than in Canada, for very long stretches of time, even for life, the primary purpose of the liberal RO is to be flexible enough to allow PRs an opportunity to deal with the difficulties, the hardships, often encountered in making the move to settle in Canada. Bottom-line: both policy and law are structured to impose a significant degree of responsibility on the individual, both in terms of evaluating the practical capability of managing to immigrate to Canada, and in terms of determining priorities. As was discussed in another topic here recently, as just one example, a recently landed PR was struggling to decide whether keeping PR status was worth giving up far more lucrative employment abroad. For those highly skilled with fungible, readily marketable abilities, it can be a matter of personal priorities. For those escaping an untenable, oppressive state of affairs and allowed the opportunity to take refuge in Canada, the personal calculation is very different. And yet a different calculation still for family members with strong ties elsewhere.
Which leads back to the ego-centric core of the query itself, which tends to insinuate that Canadian citizenship policy should be based on and oriented to the needs of particular immigrants. Such as those with skill-sets facilitating a career involving extensive international opportunities. Not really how it works in Canada. Individual needs are considered, a part of the calculus, but to a significant extent the crux of the question here is more about individual preferences, and for now, and for the near-future if not longer, any assessment of what the "metric should be" will be oriented to the primary purpose of the path to citizenship aspect of Canadian immigration policy, to encourage immigrants to settle, live, and work IN Canada, PERMANENTLY. That is simply how it is.
That's about how things are.
How things should be in the grand scheme of things, in a fair and just universe, that's more or less a philosophical inquiry.
Circumstances for my spouse are and will be similar. Quite probably for children as well.
Neither she nor I would characterize that as 'hardship.' No more than an inconvenience - but then none of us had nor have any expectation that the process to get citizenship should be without some inconveniences, and recognize that it may require some sacrifices. To the extent we have ideas about it, it's that it should be broadly fair - and requiring eg three in five seems both fair and relatively lenient.
And to be honest, we both find the description of the above circumstance as a 'hardship' to be ... laughable. That ain't hardship. That's just a career that doesn't dovetail perfectly with personal goals; that's just the real world.
I'm sure there are some who have actual hardship reasons - and again, from our perspective, understand that, but believe a broadly fair rule is still the correct approach. Keeping PR status does have some room for true hardship situations - while maintaining that the policy is to support permanent residence - and not getting citizenship as easily (while keeping PR status) is not a hardship.
(I do have some issues with how actual citizenship applications are being handled - primarily the very long processing times - but don't have any conceptual difficulty with keeping that issue separate in our heads from the policy requirements.)
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Thanks for your thoughts. I will not delve into the various tangential assumptions / insinuations that you've made here about a pretty genuine interest in better understanding different experiences that people face.
For brevity's sake, I will only emphasize one point that was always at the heart of my question:
There are many careers, lifestyles, commitments in today's profoundly globalized world that require constant travel. And while Canada can be a person's permanent home, it is not easy for "certain people" (and clearly these are exceptional circumstances) to be able to meet physical presence requirements. At least one such group of people has already been addressed in the law, i.e. people that serve in the Canadian Defense Forces and in the Canadian Diplomatic Corps. The Government has also supported naturalization exceptions for athletes by ministerial decree. There are so many other careers / lifestyles that require constant travel in this day and age, from running international companies, to being foreign correspondents, to being UN staff, to being athletes of international renown. I have known many people that maintained PR for up to 15-17 years (struggling to continually keep up their ROs) while trying to maintain exceptional careers (that they could never fully commit to because of PR requirements) and were also at the same time challenged in being able to meet naturalization requirements.
Clearly, this is not the right forum for my question, because most people here think one of the below:
- If it's not a problem for me, it cannot even be a problem.
- If it's not a problem for the majority, the minority / exceptional cases should suck it up and shut up.
- And if someone does say that it is a problem, that person must be fraudulent or "egocentric," or in some way, not interested in really genuinely committing to residence in Canada. (There must be money involved, etc., a lucrative job elsewhere. Or, they must not really have any ties to Canada.)
- The law is the law is the law... (Sorry, but we study the law after it is implemented to see how it is impacting people. A work that the IRCC is currently engaged in)
- If it is unthinkable for me to imagine that someone has only one home, i.e. Canada, then being unable to manage physical presence. So, it must not be possible.
I am grateful that Canadian policy-making does not work that way and in my work, we tend to look for compassionate and effective solutions for all people, after deeply studying not only the mainstream, but also marginal cases. N'importe quoi.
Ne vous inquiétez pas. Ciao and have a good day.
P.S. Canadian values include being curious/objective and caring about others (not just yourselves), however marginal.
For brevity's sake, I will only emphasize one point that was always at the heart of my question:
Making Canada a permanent home and not being able to meet physical presence requirements are not mutually exclusive.
There are many careers, lifestyles, commitments in today's profoundly globalized world that require constant travel. And while Canada can be a person's permanent home, it is not easy for "certain people" (and clearly these are exceptional circumstances) to be able to meet physical presence requirements. At least one such group of people has already been addressed in the law, i.e. people that serve in the Canadian Defense Forces and in the Canadian Diplomatic Corps. The Government has also supported naturalization exceptions for athletes by ministerial decree. There are so many other careers / lifestyles that require constant travel in this day and age, from running international companies, to being foreign correspondents, to being UN staff, to being athletes of international renown. I have known many people that maintained PR for up to 15-17 years (struggling to continually keep up their ROs) while trying to maintain exceptional careers (that they could never fully commit to because of PR requirements) and were also at the same time challenged in being able to meet naturalization requirements.
Clearly, this is not the right forum for my question, because most people here think one of the below:
- If it's not a problem for me, it cannot even be a problem.
- If it's not a problem for the majority, the minority / exceptional cases should suck it up and shut up.
- And if someone does say that it is a problem, that person must be fraudulent or "egocentric," or in some way, not interested in really genuinely committing to residence in Canada. (There must be money involved, etc., a lucrative job elsewhere. Or, they must not really have any ties to Canada.)
- The law is the law is the law... (Sorry, but we study the law after it is implemented to see how it is impacting people. A work that the IRCC is currently engaged in)
- If it is unthinkable for me to imagine that someone has only one home, i.e. Canada, then being unable to manage physical presence. So, it must not be possible.
I am grateful that Canadian policy-making does not work that way and in my work, we tend to look for compassionate and effective solutions for all people, after deeply studying not only the mainstream, but also marginal cases. N'importe quoi.
Ne vous inquiétez pas. Ciao and have a good day.
P.S. Canadian values include being curious/objective and caring about others (not just yourselves), however marginal.
GuyanaGirl
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I haven’t read through all of the posts on this topic but I wanted to add that cross border Truckers usually face hardship . The decision often comes down to choosing between never applying for citizenship OR changing their entire route and the type of trips they accept to minimize the amount of time out . Changing the load distance, etc will result in a significant cutback in pay because truckers are paid by load and their mileage, which means hardship on families and professional hardship especially for owner operators who have the hefty expense of truck, maintenance and fuel payments hanging over them. I have not found very many posts from truckers applying for their citizenship on this forum , but of the let’s say 5 I have found . One made the physical presence requirement and the others applied with less than required days and eventually got RQ’ed etc ..and I’m not sure how these cases ended up after all was said and done.
I know there are cases where the hardship is self induced because the applicant is trying to ride the system and eat their cake and have it too, but then there are also genuine cases where it’s extremely difficult to meet the requirement even though the applicant is a dedicated Canadian PR with ties only to Canada.
I know there are cases where the hardship is self induced because the applicant is trying to ride the system and eat their cake and have it too, but then there are also genuine cases where it’s extremely difficult to meet the requirement even though the applicant is a dedicated Canadian PR with ties only to Canada.
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So you claim to have a genuine interest; dismiss the views of others; and, rather baldly state that those views indicate those who expressed them are insufficiently Canadian because they're not, I guess, sufficiently curious or objective about the views of others.
I assume your list of Canadian characteristics doesn't incorporate self-awareness.
I wouldn't waste anymore time responding to the OP.
The OP is clearly not receptive to opinions and wants the forum to only post/comment what s/he wants to hear. Also, when someone indulges in a genuine conversation, the OP tends to have an insatiable craving to dismiss those and call it 'mansplaining'.
I've already mentioned in my post to the OP that the policies of the government (and I'm not just talking about immigration) will never satisfy everyone involved and even if the government decides to decrease the physical presence requirements to 2 years or something less than that, people will STILL KEEP COMPLAINING! I also provided comparisons with the requirements of other Tier-A countries where the requirements are much tougher than this.
This is not the first time we've seen such people and won't certainly be the last.
Raj out!
I do not disagree, and was hesitant myself given the "mansplaining" remark, suggesting an attitude reinforced by the OP's later post totally mischaracterizing what others, including me, have offered. Which goes with the territory.
And you are probably right that . . .
Beyond giving people the benefit of the doubt, which I imperfectly try to do, such questions can be useful in at least a couple ways. One is to better illuminate and, as is oft time needed, to delineate not only what the rules are but what influences how they are interpreted and applied, to more fully map the process immigrants navigate.
The actual questions asked by the OP were not difficult to answer, even if the crux of the answer was not well received. The OP asked two questions. One question was whether any other PR had difficulty meeting the actual physical presence requirement. For which the obvious answer is indeed YES. The other question was whether the government of Canada should use a different metric, other than a physical presence requirement, in determining who should be granted naturalized citizenship. Setting aside cosmic standards for what "should" be, in an ideal word, the practical answer to this question is just as obvious since the government of Canada has in fact wrestled with what metric best fits its immigration and citizenship scheme, and with virtually no dissent resoundingly concluded that a physical presence requirement (plus all the other requirements) is what the metric should be.
So the particular answers to the OP's two questions are simple and direct enough. Yes, to the first, and NO to the second.
To be so trite as to misquote the bard, as I am wont to do, it is in explaining why wherein "lies the rub." But therein is also the opportunity to, again, illuminate and, as is oft time needed, to delineate not only what the rules are but what influences how they are interpreted and applied, to more fully map the process immigrants navigate. To offer information real people can use to make real decisions in their own journeys.
As noted, there is another way in which addressing questions like these can be useful which is illustrated by the very real scenario described here:
This is just ONE example, among scores, for why the answer to the OP's first question is yes. And it does indeed illustrate a particular . . . I think "hardship" is a fair description . . . for some PRs more or less fully settling in Canada.
There is no doubt about how the rules apply. @GuyanaGirl is not sure how things turned out for those who applied for citizenship with less than the required credit for days in Canada. Other than potential error, which of course happens, there is no doubt about how such cases turn out. If IRCC determines the applicant is one day short of meeting the physical presence requirement, the application MUST be DENIED (for any application made after June 10, 2015). IRCC has NO discretion, NO authority to grant citizenship in such cases.
Which leads to this observation by the OP:
Yes. That is true. And again, one example among many is described by @GuyanaGirl.
That does not change the answer to the OP's second question, which is still "NO." The Canadian government has considered, at length and in-depth, what the metric should be and concluded it should be actual physical presence. And there is no hint, none, that this government, let alone the next elected government (which could seat Erin O'Toole in the Prime Minister's chair), has the slightest inclination to revisit this issue. As previously noted, what counts and how long may be tweaked, but as anyone at all familiar with Canadian politics is well aware, the current scheme is almost certainly the most liberal, flexible, and immigrant-friendly scheme Canada will have for well into the foreseeable future.
Bringing this back to the truckers described by @GuyanaGirl. And the importance of making it clear what the rules are and how they are applied, and giving them a clear map they can follow in navigating their way through the system. Including making personal job or career decisions, understanding the consequences. That is actually one of the benefits of the current metric: immigrants can know with a fair degree of certainty what the rules are and what they need to do, both in terms of keeping PR status by complying with the Residency Obligation (which should not be problematic for truckers actually based in Canada notwithstanding extensive routes in the U.S.) and in terms of qualifying for a grant of citizenship.
As unfair as it might be in an individual case, and yes it can be unfair, such scenarios were known and understood, and discussed, going back to the early proffers of legislation TWO DECADES ago, to when the government was wrestling with what the metric should be given that the then residency requirement was not working well (which would get much worse, much more messy, when the Harper government aggressively tried to interpret and apply it as a physical presence requirement). By around 2005 or so the consensus was a physical presence metric SHOULD be implemented, but with little consensus as to what its precise requirements (what counts, how long, and such) should be. By 2015 the consensus expanded to near unanimity that physical presence SHOULD be the metric, while the how long and such debate continued, so there was the 4/6 rule and then, up to now, the 3/5 rule.
To fully understand the reasoning one would need to go well beyond the legislative record, since the legislators were turning to and relying on input from a wide range of sources. Just reviewing the legislative record over the years leading up the changes finally made would be a lot work . . . it was a lot of work just following that stuff as it was happening. But there is no doubt, this is an issue fully explored, examined, discussed, researched, analyzed, and it can be fairly stated, as I stated before, the debate about what metric to employ has been had and, within the current and foreseeable Canadian immigration scheme, definitively decided.
Once again bringing this back to the truckers described by @GuyanaGirl, and comparable situations for others, including it appears, the OP. And why I referenced the OP's query as "ego-centric." Connotations aside, as they were not intended, I was using the term to reference the point-of-view, contrasting what is better for an individual (thus ego-centric) versus the point-of-view for decision-making by a governing body, like the government of a nation. Not that the Canadian government ignores what is better for individuals. On the contrary, this country's immigration policies, laws, rules, and practices, address not just the needs but the preferences of individuals, from the ego-centric perspective of the individual. But that is merely a part of the calculus. No advanced degrees in political science necessary to recognize that the bigger influence in dictating policy, and the laws intended to implement that policy, in a government like Canada's, is addressing and dealing with matters, including problems, from a point-of-view that is much, much broader than what works best for this or that individual, broader than what is better from an ego-centric perspective.
Otherwise, the OP's recent abusive mischaracterization of what others (and I) have offered does suggest a lack of good faith warranting passing by. Which is unfortunate, since the difficulties encountered by some are real, and warrant a genuine discussion about what options are available, about how they can better navigate the system. Noting and understanding, nonetheless, that NO, the government is NOT going to entertain changing the "metric" itself, the use of a physical presence requirement.
Such a great example - thank you for sharing @GuyanaGirl - this one makes a lot of sense and was one scenario that I hadn't thought of. I can imagine that there are truckers that have been PRs for long periods of time and have not been able to naturalize.
I do recognize that there are people that are just in it for the passport that don't really care to have any ties to Canada. And then, there is also the problem of ghost immigrants and physical presence fraud. But those are different discussions that I will leave be.