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Citizenship Interview Took a Wrong Turn

frotenacs

Hero Member
Feb 8, 2011
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I believe, you have confirmed to officer that you knew your friend is settling in Toronto and he came on SINP Program. I believe this is not a small issue and it may become a challenging to prove your innocence. I think, the following two points will be the key points:

1. Did you know SIMP rules?
2. If you knew he is settling in Toronto, then why did you give your address (because it is possible and easy to provide the address to IRCC after landing and getting settled down in Canada)?

You may be able to convinve IRCC your innocence relatively easily on point no 1 that you didn't know the SINP rules and you had no idea that your friend is planning for misrepresentation intentionaly but point no 2 may become challenging. I would suggest you to work around these two points at least using Lawyer to prove your innocence.
1. Honestly I did not know anything about SINP rules or responsibilities.
2. I gave him my address only to help him during his PR landing, because he was introduced to me by a relative. I know this is the biggest mistake I have committed. I am contacting my relative and gathering all the conversations that this person had with my relative before. It appears that this person found out about me and wife that we are Saskatchewan residents on facebook, then he approached my wife's cousin who was a classmate of him. I easily trusted this person when I spoke with him on the phone after I received a reference from my relative.
I agree I would need a lawyer to prove my innocence. Thanks
 
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winpro

Star Member
Dec 1, 2017
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1. Honestly I did not know anything about SINP rules or responsibilities.
2. I gave him my address only to help him during his PR landing, because he was introduced to me by a relative. I know this is the biggest mistake I have committed. I am contacting my relative and gathering all the conversations that this person had with my relative before. It appears that this person found out about me and wife that we are Saskatchewan residents on facebook, then he approached my wife's cousin who was a classmate of him. I easily trusted this person when I spoke with him on the phone after I received a reference from my relative.
I agree I would need a lawyer to prove my innocence. Thanks
Well, First of all you need to stop being hysterical about the whole situation and need to review the facts a little.

First of all, do not hire a lawyer until you hear back from CIC, because your status is not in jeopardy. And as for the other people, they are sure to face crap from CIC. And I do think that they are staring at a removal order and should be ready for CBSA to contact them. Not the best of situations but you did not play any hand in it.
And as for this all the helping my friend of a friend story. It is going to fall apart under close examination by anyone. So spare us that part.

You are not in danger of loosing your status and should sit back and wait for the result of your application. At worst, they will ask you for additional documentation and make you wait a while but nothing else to worry about.
 
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Alurra71

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Oct 5, 2012
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1. Honestly I did not know anything about SINP rules or responsibilities.
2. I gave him my address only to help him during his PR landing, because he was introduced to me by a relative. I know this is the biggest mistake I have committed. I am contacting my relative and gathering all the conversations that this person had with my relative before. It appears that this person found out about me and wife that we are Saskatchewan residents on facebook, then he approached my wife's cousin who was a classmate of him. I easily trusted this person when I spoke with him on the phone after I received a reference from my relative.
I agree I would need a lawyer to prove my innocence. Thanks
Based on your version it sounds as if this person knew exactly what he was going to do from the first moment of contact. You were dragged in without ever being aware. I suspect that IRCC will conduct a minor background check on you to ensure this hasn't happened in the past and will more than likley grant your citizenship. I can't see how your honest mistake here will harm you, other than to slow your process down a bit.

Now, as far as the person who took so blatant advantage of you. He is likely in for a world for issues with IRCC. I only hope that he gets what is coming to him as well, because too many take advantage of an already very generous country and it is really a shame.

Best of luck to you, I think you should rest easy and just wait for IRCC to conduct their checks.
 

Lawrence137

Full Member
Oct 28, 2017
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Toronto
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PNP
first of all, I don’t think your friends was illegally using your address to recive PR card And I don’t think they voilate the rule or SINP nomination neither. As PRs, your friends are totally free to choose where to live and where to work, just the same right as a Canadian citizen.

However, when they apply for SINP, they need to express their intention and convince the imm officer they will live and work in SK. there is no such a agreement for them to sign state that they must live and work in SK after landing Because it against the baisc right of a PR.

Your friends may be safe for now. But when they renew their pr card or apply for citizenship in the future. They have bigger chance to Be questioned by imm officer. However, as long as they meet the requirement of citizenship and have a reasonable answer, they will be fine too.

I will recommend your Friend to move back to SK ASAP and stay for a least one year. Then they can explain that it was just a short trip to Toronto.

For you, you are totally innocent. Sit tight. And wait for the result.

Good luck man.
 

canuck_in_uk

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May 4, 2012
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first of all, I don’t think your friends was illegally using your address to recive PR card And I don’t think they voilate the rule or SINP nomination neither. As PRs, your friends are totally free to choose where to live and where to work, just the same right as a Canadian citizen.

However, when they apply for SINP, they need to express their intention and convince the imm officer they will live and work in SK. there is no such a agreement for them to sign state that they must live and work in SK after landing Because it against the baisc right of a PR.

Your friends may be safe for now. But when they renew their pr card or apply for citizenship in the future. They have bigger chance to Be questioned by imm officer. However, as long as they meet the requirement of citizenship and have a reasonable answer, they will be fine too.

I will recommend your Friend to move back to SK ASAP and stay for a least one year. Then they can explain that it was just a short trip to Toronto.

For you, you are totally innocent. Sit tight. And wait for the result.

Good luck man.
These people lied in their application because they applied through SINP saying that they would settle in Saskatchewan while knowing full well that they were going to live in Ontario. That was misrepresentation.
 
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Vivallo

Full Member
Feb 17, 2018
22
12
These people lied in their application because they applied through SINP saying that they would settle in Saskatchewan while knowing full well that they were going to live in Ontario. That was misrepresentation.
Out of curiosity. Many people who has arrived as PR and move to another province after year or more. Is that considered an immigration fraud or misrepresentation later when they apply for citizenship?
 

Lawrence137

Full Member
Oct 28, 2017
36
8
Toronto
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These people lied in their application because they applied through SINP saying that they would settle in Saskatchewan while knowing full well that they were going to live in Ontario. That was misrepresentation.
no no, no judge.
no one could guarantee their residency in the future. What they demonstrated on the SINP application is just their intention to live in SK. However, intention is just intention, You can not call it a lie. Probably at the moment when they got off the plane their intention was gone and they changed their mind. Lol > <

If there is an agreement states the Sinp applicant need to “conduct ” the obligations of residency in certain years but they did not. then, it is a lie.

Anyway, cic officer is powerful enough to do whatever they want to do on your case. It is obviously not wise to have them felt to be tricked by you Even though your reason to leave SK is more than reasonable.
 

dpenabill

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Apr 2, 2010
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What they demonstrated on the SINP application is just their intention to live in SK. However, intention is just intention, You can not call it a lie
To badly paraphrase the shortest short story ever published, by a vastly under-appreciated author (with my apologies for butchering the actual story):

"You can imagine how hard it is to live in a tiny apartment with a man who plays the trumpet without rest," she said handing an officer the gun.

Intent is a fact.

A statement of fact, if material and not true, is a material misrepresentation and as such will be grounds for the consequences imposed under IRPA for misrepresentation and potentially a basis for criminal prosecution.

There is no doubt, lying about one's intentions is misrepresentation. It is a misstatement of fact.

It appears that like many others you confuse the difficulty of proving intent based on subsequent acts contrary to a prior declaration of intent, versus what can otherwise constitute sufficient evidence of intent contrary to the intent a person has declared.

Leading me back to Brautigan's super-short story and the well-worn trail of convictions based on the proverbial smoking-gun. Rarely works for the person who pulled the trigger, who is holding the smoking-gun, to protest "I did not mean to kill him." A dead body and the smoking-gun in hand is generally enough evidence to prove intent otherwise.

And there is all sorts of potential evidence which could show that a person's intent was to take a job in Ontario BEFORE landing and becoming a PR, if in fact the person did have an intent to take a job in Ontario before landing.

If indeed a new immigrant pursuant to a provincial nominee or sponsorship arrives in Canada and THEN changes his or her mind, and then takes a job in a different province, that does not change what the individual's intent was prior to and during the process of becoming a PR. Thus it is true that the mere fact a provincial nominee takes a job in a different province does not prove he or she lied about his or her intent.

BUT such circumstances might trigger questions, concerns, suspicions, leading to inquiries and an investigation. I have not seen many reports of this, but the possibility looms real, and the OP's situation suggests that perhaps there is more attention being focused on this now than before.

If there is an investigation, all it would take is evidence of an application to an employer in Ontario, a job offer, and an acceptance of the job, all of which might be evidenced by little more than an agreed upon start date, to show an intent to take a job in Ontario. Thus, if this is dated BEFORE the landing formalities, that could be the smoking-gun which proves fraudulent intent.

Just one example among many potential sources of evidence which might show what a person's actual intent was before arriving in Canada.

I have the impression that playing games is, perhaps, more common if not widespread, and considered more acceptable by more than a few, than I have previously apprehended. I suspect, however, for all those who get away with it, there are scores who do not. And just as it goes in life generally, some are more adept at playing games than others, and those who follow in their footsteps do so at their peril.
 

keesio

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no no, no judge.
no one could guarantee their residency in the future. What they demonstrated on the SINP application is just their intention to live in SK. However, intention is just intention, You can not call it a lie. Probably at the moment when they got off the plane their intention was gone and they changed their mind. Lol > <
The intention was gone way before they landed since the friend already had job lined up in Ontario. If he looked for a job and got an offer after he landed, then it is different. But the issue was that this all happened before the landing.
 

links18

Champion Member
Feb 1, 2006
2,009
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I can't see how IRCC can obstruct OP's citizenship application because of misrepresentation someone else committed on a completely different application. The misrepresentation, to the extent that it exists, is the other party's not the OP's. From the way the OP explains it, he is a victim of the other party's predatory behavior rather than a co-conspirator in a ploy to defraud the system. OP has no fiduciary duty, (I can't see any criminal liability at all), to IRCC regarding someone else's misapplications and false statements, other than perhaps as a material witness in what occurred and the way the OP explains it, he fulfilled that duty in truthfully explaining the situation to IRCC. OP is not a lawyer and not a licensed immigration consultant, he gave permission to another party to use his address as he understood it to facilitate the receipt of a PR card. He did not represent to anyone that such party had made a residence there or intended to. Still, IRCC is entitled to investigate the facts and there may be some delay and extra scruitny of the citizenship application while this is sorted out. If it were me, I would still consult with an lawyer. As for the other party being introduced by family--well, sometimes its your own people!
 

zardoz

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As I see it, IRCC would be interested in the "conspiracy to misrepresent" aspect. That may have a completely different legal liability to "misrepresentation". My only experience with "conspiracy" is under UK law, as a juror. However, that, in the case that I was involved in, was actually more serious than the act being conspired to.
 

canuck_in_uk

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Out of curiosity. Many people who has arrived as PR and move to another province after year or more. Is that considered an immigration fraud or misrepresentation later when they apply for citizenship?
No, it is not misrepresentation when the person actually intends to live in the PNP province but eventually moves elsewhere after becoming a PR.
 

canuck_in_uk

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no no, no judge.
no one could guarantee their residency in the future. What they demonstrated on the SINP application is just their intention to live in SK. However, intention is just intention, You can not call it a lie. Probably at the moment when they got off the plane their intention was gone and they changed their mind. Lol > <

If there is an agreement states the Sinp applicant need to “conduct ” the obligations of residency in certain years but they did not. then, it is a lie.

Anyway, cic officer is powerful enough to do whatever they want to do on your case. It is obviously not wise to have them felt to be tricked by you Even though your reason to leave SK is more than reasonable.
As already stated, these people obviously never had the intention to move to Saskatchewan, so they committed misrepresentation.
 

sns204

Champion Member
Dec 12, 2012
1,234
373
I do believe that the experienced posters are probably right and that nothing bad, besides a delay, will come of OP's citizenship application. However, my point from the get go is that at the end of the day, IRCC is a government body and there will likely be an investigation. They will crawl through the PR applications to determine if there was any wrongdoing and if some is found, they will seek to find out if OP was sincere in his naivete or was part of the wrongdoing.

My point also is that doing these types of things carries RISK. Maybe it's small, but it exists.
 
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Chai_to_Double-double

Full Member
Nov 22, 2017
37
6
You're thinking too much ... you did nothing wrong... As for your friend.. he is going to be okay too but a little scrutiny for future
I had my Citizenship test and interview today. The interview was going smoothly. I was answering all the questions as I was asked. Towards the end the officer asked me why three other people living at your current address? I was surprised with the question (because no other people live at this address) then immediately asked the officer about their names. The officer left the room and came back after five minutes with the names. After hearing the names I instantly realized the names belong to the family of a friend who recently (4 weeks ago) used my address for PR landing in Toronto, although they were SK nominees. The officer asked me why they were using my address to which I replied I wanted to help them in receiving their PR cards in the mail because they did not have a home in Canada yet.

This discussion turned in an unpleasant direction, finally the officer said my friend is using my address to misrepresent PR program (SK nominee moved to ON, as he found a job in ON). In the end I was told my application will be further reviewed and I would be notified with the outcome. I left the interview room a little scared and have been thinking about this incident all day. To be honest I never thought about this before hand when my friend asked me my address.

After getting back home I have asked my friend to update his address on record. I am not sure how my citizenship application will end up? A lot of negative thoughts shroud my mind now - have I participated in misrepresenting PR nomination program? Will this lead to denial of citizenship? Will this lead to PR revoke? I am really scared. In the morning I left home excited for the citizenship test, and a few hours after I returned home nervous and skeptic. Any thoughts on what may happen to my application?

You're thinking too much ... you did nothing wrong... As for your friend.. he is going to be okay too but a little scrutiny on future applications... Good Luck !!!