Hi,
There have been some threads on Candavisa discussing you need PCC from country of origin, if in the last 4 years you lived for more than 183 days in your country of origin after becoming a PR. I think in case it should not be the case, but my company is sending me overseas for 6-8 months. I have convinced them to delay it till April 2025, so I can file for my citizenship before leaving. So just want to avoid any possible risk. Here is my timeline:
Applied for PR, from India: December 2021, got ITA in November 2021
Relocated to Canada on Work Visa: January 2022.
Permanent Residence Received: April 2022
Citizenship Eligibility: March 2025
Since I left for Canada few weeks after filing PR in India, and received PR in Canada. I have visited India twice after becoming PR, but only for vacation of 2 to 3 weeks. As per rules I don't think I need Indian PCC. Since time is limited for me to act fast.
Thanks a lot
Not sure what "
risk" you "
want to avoid."
You appear to be asking about the risk of being required to provide a police clearance based on the rules specifying when a police clearance MUST be submitted WITH the application itself (in order to make a complete application).
There is no way to totally avoid all risk of a request for a police clearance from any country in which the applicant has spent time within the four years prior to making the application or while the application is pending. To be clear, applicants may be asked to submit police clearance from a country during the processing of their citizenship application EVEN THOUGH they were NOT required to submit a police clearance with the application.
Whether the applicant needs to include a clearance WITH the application depends on how the applicant answers the second part of the address history question (that is question 10.b in CIT 0002 application form), which asks if the applicant has been in another country for 183 days or more in a row during the preceding four years. If the answer is [NO], no clearance needs to be submitted with the application (in order to make a complete application), but IRCC can still request a clearance in the course of processing the citizenship application.
Even if the applicant answers that question [YES] there are circumstances in which the applicant can choose to not submit a clearance (make a complete application despite not including a clearance). Your query appears to reference the exception for time in one's country of origin immediately prior to becoming a PR. This appears to apply to your situation as long as you have not spent six continuous months in your home country since landing. Thus (if within the four years prior to making the application you have been in your home country 183 or more days in a row) despite checking [YES] in response to the question and listing your home country, you can (probably, at least based on the information in your query here) check [NO] in the drop-down indicating that NO you will NOT provide a Police Certificate, and then you enter the explanation (citing the exception for a period in the home country prior to landing).
But that does not preclude IRCC from requesting (noting such requests are essentially a demand) a police certificate later on in the course of processing the application.
Any PR applying for citizenship may be required to submit a PCC anytime during the processing of the citizenship application. The risk of that varies depending on multiple factors but the two main factors are obvious:
-- extent of time spent in another country within the period including the four years preceding the application up to the date the oath is administered (that is, including time abroad after applying while application is being processed)
-- factors or circumstances indicating potential criminal or security issues in another country
There is no way to totally avoid the risk although the less time the applicant has spent in a country the lower the risk of a police clearance request for that country.
We do not know how much risk there is of a request for a police certificate, during processing, for a citizenship applicant who is outside Canada for a lengthy period after applying. Obviously the risk is significantly more than it is for applicants who do not spend lengthy periods outside Canada after applying, but the risk may nonetheless be fairly low.
