Hello everyone,
We would like to apply for Canadian Citizenship but we hold the expired passports.
Short timeline: came to Canada in start of 2011 and became PR at middle of 2015. Our passports has been expired since end of 2015.
We never leave Canada since we came-in in 2011.
We don't want to renew our passports for several thing, we run away from our home Country.
Can we apply for Citizenship , and if yes is not going to hit officer's trigger and delay application?
Yes, you can apply without a currently valid passport. You will need to explain why you are not submitting a copy of a passport valid from the date of your expired passport until the date of the application. In the current application form this is item 6.E. This may change (but probably not) when the new 3/5 rule takes effect and a new form is available.
Be sure, of course, to keep and submit your expired passport.
You will not be eligible, of course, until the 3/5 rule takes effect, which should be sometime this fall (under current rules you will not be eligible until mid-2019).
What influence this passport situation might have in processing your application depends on many, many individual factors. That is, how it is likely to go depends on your history and circumstances, including your explanation for why you have not renewed or obtained your home country passport. An important aspect of this is just how apparent it is to IRCC that you have in fact remained in Canada without once going abroad.
Which is to say, depending on the details and overall situation in the particular case, not having a current passport may have no negative influence at all, or it could be part of broader concerns or even suspicions which trigger elevated scrutiny or even a full blown RQ.
If in your particular case, not renewing your home country passport makes sense (as you explain in the application), and all the other details fit into a cohesive picture of a qualified applicant, there should be little or nothing to worry about.
Note: obtaining a renewed passport now will still leave a gap. If, for example, you obtained a new passport issued August 15, 2017, that will still leave a gap between the end of 2015 and August 14, 2017, for which you will not, because you cannot, submit a passport covering that period of time.
So whatever your circumstances, you will still need to
provide an explanation in item 6.E. (or however it is numbered in the new form). So, what is more important for you, probably, is what your explanation is, and how solidly your application is otherwise (if you have been full-time employed, for example, that really helps to make a more solid application, since that tends to solidly show actual presence in Canada . . . this is not a bias in favour of workers, but a matter of what shows presence . . . indeed, if it is a family application, and the spouse is a stay-at-home parent, the full time employment of one spouse will help make a solid application for both).
Refugees or protected persons: Reminder, refugees and protected persons should NOT apply for or otherwise obtain a home country passport.
Reminder: if a refugee obtains a home country passport the refugee is presumed to have reavailed himself or herself of home country protection, which is grounds for cessation of protected person status, and cessation of status in turn
automatically terminates PR status, automatically terminating any eligibility for citizenship.
Unfortunately, more than a few refugees and protected persons have been erroneously ill-advised to obtain their home country passports. (Note, this includes, per a number of reports, such wrong advice obtained from CIC/IRCC help line representatives.)
Some further observations about disconnecting from the home country:
You state "We don't want to renew our passports for several thing, we run away from our home Country."
In some respects there are more than a few Americans in Canada who may be wont to say the same thing (obviously for good cause). In contrast, at the other end of the spectrum, a refugee or other person who has sought protected person status in Canada, could also say this. The difference in their situations is, however, huge. And likewise the impact.
As noted above, refugees or such should not obtain or renew a home country passport.
An American citizen, whose political and/or social discontent with the U.S. (which would be well-founded, to say the least) underlies this attitude, would more than likely be subject to elevated scrutiny if he applied without renewing his U.S. passport. Just the claim of never having traveled outside Canada for five years would suggest the need for further verification of the facts. It may not lack credibility on its face, but it is enough of an anomaly or otherwise unusual, that IRCC would be, in effect, compelled to probe the applicant more thoroughly.
In contrast, it makes total sense that a refugee, protected person, or even a person who has otherwise escaped a country for more or less apparent reasons but not formally a refugee, has not renewed that country's passport, has not traveled home even once.
Obviously there is a wide range in-between those scenarios. Within this range, the reason for not renewing the home country passport, and the other circumstances attendant the applicant's life in Canada, will influence whether IRCC has some questions or concerns. A reasonable explanation for an applicant in a situation for which not renewing the passport makes sense, should not raise much if any concern.
