Hi all,
As I'm sure many of you have also experienced, it's not that crystal clear whether to submit PCC's with your application or not. As I recall, the PR process was fairly straight forward when it came to this. Just hoping some of you can provide me with a bit of guidance. Here is my situation.
I'm a British Citizen, who lived in Australia prior to getting my citizenship.
April 2017 - became PR of Canada.
May 2020 - became eligible for citizenship
July 2020 - Submitting application for citizenship.
My four year period therefore covers from July 2016 to July 2020. From July 2016 to March 2017 I lived in Australia (total of 9 months). From March to April 2017 I lived in the UK for a month.
My question is, does Australia count as my country of Origin in this circumstance? I submitted British and Australia PCC's with my PR app. If it doesn't then I know I need to submit an Australian PCC, but if it does, my question is do I need to?
Any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Gary_87
Australia is not your country of origin, so it does not meet that exception.
Since you clearly were in another country for at least 183 days during the four years prior to the date of applying (per planned date of applying), you need to check the [Yes] box for item 10.b) in CIT 0002 (referring to December 2019 version), and then list Australia in the chart.
While your scenario does not fit precisely into what is described in Example 1, in the drop-down help in the pdf version of the application, it fits well enough there should be little or no confusion applying it to your situation. Applying that example, whether you can enter an "explanation" in the box provided for that, in the chart, OR include a police certificate with the application, then depends on
-- whether you submitted a clearance from Australia with your PR application (you report you did), and
-- whether you have returned to Australia since you became a PR
Thus, if you have not returned to Australia since you became a PR, you can state, in the explanation box, something to the effect that you submitted a clearance from Australia during the PR application process and have not returned there since becoming a PR. If you have returned to Australia, you need to submit a clearance.
That is, according to Example 1, you would need to provide a clearance from Australia IF you did not provide one with your application OR if you have been back to Australia since becoming a PR.
Quote of Example 1:
You lived in France for one year (365 days) before you became a permanent resident 3 years ago. You did not travel to France after you became a permanent resident. You would answer "Yes" to the question and you would need to provide a police certificate from France if you did not provide one with your immigration application. If you provided a police certificate from France with your immigration application, tell us this in the box provided at Question 10b.
NOTE: Apart from this question, it might be prudent to consider waiting longer to apply anyway.
While the situation could change any day, and is likely to be changing somewhat soon, right now it appears that IRCC is NOT opening applications. Sure, it is very likely that applications are being stored in the order of receipt, so when they do resume opening applications, the sooner the application arrives the closer it will be to the beginning of the queue of applications to be opened. But any application now is already MONTHS behind in that regard. And it is likely that when this aspect of processing resumes, they will work their way through the backlog of unopened applications with some degree of diligence.
Odds are that waiting to apply now will not add much to the overall timeline. In contrast, adding more days to your margin of actual presence over the minimum could help the application go more smoothly once processing has been resumed.
Moreover, in the meantime, if you make a mistake that might result in the application being returned, you will not know about it until IRCC actually opens the application. Right now, for example, some of those who applied in March this year will have their applications returned, but they are not likely to know about this for awhile still, not until IRCC resumes that stage of processing. By then their applications will be stale and need to be completely redone, rather than just resubmitted with whatever correction is needed.
