nadeem55 said:
. . . provisions that have yet to come into force include:
. . .
I can't see anything about previous temporary days spent in Canada would not consider, so, I can assume that after the new residence requirement will come in effect, I guess we can still count the days spent as temporary status?
I recognize,
nadeem55, that if you are not able to get an application made based on 1095+ days APP prior to when the revised section 5(1) pf the
Citizenship Act comes into effect, and have to apply after that date subject to the revised residency requirements, you continue to harbour hope that CIC will still credit time spent in Canada prior to the date of landing and becoming a PR.
Sorry, there is
no doubt, no uncertainty, about this: once the revised section 5(1) comes into force, for applications made that day or after, there will be NO credit for pre-landing days. So no, under the new provisions applicants will
NOT be able to still count days spent in Canada with temporary status.
This particular aspect does not require an amendment of the
Citizenship Regulations, as it is clearly prescribed in the
Citizenship Act itself.
In particular, subsection 5(1)(c) (as revised by Bill C-24) contains the three elements of required residency and specifically prescribes that these must have been met "
since becoming a permanent resident." There is no ambiguity in this at all.
Note that the "regulations" are subordinate to the statutory provisions, and are largely adopted for the purpose of applying or putting into effect what is prescribed by the statutory provisions. Thus, for example, the specific regulation proposed regarding authority of CIC to obtain the SIN from applicants, and for CIC and CRA to share information, clearly has a purpose (primarily) related to subsection 5(1)(c)(iii) (which I cite in my previous post), which prescribes that applicants must have complied with tax laws for four of the six years preceding the date of application.
In any event, again, there is no doubt: once the new residency requirements take effect, for those applicants time spent in Canada with temporary status will
NOT count toward meeting the citizenship residency requirements.
bambino said:
The other day I had some business with an agency related to the CIC, and had the opportunity to talk to a guy who used to be a citizenship officer. I had mentioned him in an older post; he is now with the CBSA.
While we were hanging out during a break I asked him how he thinks the new citizenship rules will affect their administration, especially in light of how friggin' useless CBSA travel histories can be. If Canada had decent border controls and records (like let's say Australia), establishing a person's physical presence would be pretty simple and straightforward. His response was kind of funny. He made sort of a sinister face and said, basically, oh don't you worry, changes are a-coming. He may have referred to these new regulations and the Entry/Exit system that the CBSA is developing currently, but even after it's online it will be useless for quite a while. The new citizenship rules require looking back 6 years, which means 6 years of spotty travel history reports. How is that going to do any good?
It seems to me as if lately, an applicant, especially if he was red-flagged, is no longer required to prove just "on the balance of probabilities" that he meets the residence requirements. The level of proof that CIC requires in RQ cases is more like "beyond a reasonable doubt", and perhaps even a burden not even known to law, "beyond any shadow of a doubt". That's not right.
The proof-of-residency versus border-control-records issue has been oft debated and continues to be one for which the opposing viewpoints are not likely to find a consensus. But it is a largely academic debate since there is no sign that Canada is going to switch to a system totally reliant on border-control-records. When CIC identifies a
reason-to-question-residency, and issues RQ, for at least the foreseeable future this will entail a profoundly intrusive request for personal information and supporting documentation.
That said, in recent years Canada has indeed been increasing the extent to which it is capturing border-crossing information from travelers, including records of exit from Canada, including sharing this information with the U.S., and later this year is scheduled to extend this to Canadian citizens as well.
As these proposed regulations illustrate, among other regulations (current and coming) affecting other agencies of government, including those adopted pursuant to IRPA, Canada is also dramatically expanding the range of data-sharing between agencies. Enforcing compliance with both citizenship residency requirements and the residency obligation imposed on PRs is an explicit objective. But enforcement of qualifications for certain benefits and entitlements in Canada are also targeted, including welfare and EI, probably health care insurance, among others.
One might say the net is closing, getting tighter, that the government will be able to verify, through its own records, far far more about any given individual's life, including in particular time spent in Canada versus time outside Canada.
That said, there is nonetheless little or no sign that the profoundly intrusive RQ process will be abated. Indeed, I would anticipate that by fall the new RQ form will (at least for those who apply after the revised section 5(1) comes into force) be even more intrusive. As I have intimated before, new subsection 5(1)(c.1)(i) (the
intent to continue residing in Canada provision) will alone greatly expand the scope of what is material and relevant information and documentation, opening the door to what can be
required (not just requested as the current RQ process does) very, very wide.
bambino said:
One good thing may be that applicants won't have to submit documents with their private information. Presumably the inquiries to CRA will be if the person filed taxes in a particular year, and not for a copy of their Notice of Assessment. How much money I make or what ailments I have (the health records requirement) is none of CIC's motherloving business. I was tempted to redact vast swaths of the documents I provided in response to my RQ lite but chickened out, I must admit ;D
The first sentence here is a very good point, relative to information contained in tax filings.
"One good thing may be that applicants won't have to submit documents with their private information."
If applicants were required to file NoAs with the application, that would indeed expose a great deal of private information to numerous personnel working at CIC, including the SIN. Hopefully the procedures put into place pursuant to these regulations, once implemented, will include carefully crafted security elements to minimize the number of people at CIC who could access information obtained through sharing.
However, there is no real hope for the limited access expressed in the second and third sentences.
"Presumably the inquiries to CRA will be if the person filed taxes in a particular year, and not for a copy of their Notice of Assessment. How much money I make or what ailments I have (the health records requirement) is none of CIC's motherloving business."
Without trying to analyze and paraphase what is described in the notice for the proposed regulations, or the numerous proposed amendments and regulations to be added, it appears clear that what is intended is a tiered approach in the level of detail which will be shared. On one level, it may be largely what you allude to, that is, merely a verification of name, SIN, tax filing, and address of taxpayer, or it could be the full NoA information. I think it is the latter.
The other level, the more extensive level, is for cases in which information is being disclosed or sought related to discrepancies between information obtained from the applicant and that provided by the Agency:
". . . if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the discrepancy is a result of false representation, fraud or concealment of material circumstances made in the course of an application . . ."
This, I interpret, suggests the capacity for CIC to provide information to the CRA so that the CRA could pursue enforcement of tax laws (including criminal charges), and vice versa, so that CIC can use detailed tax filing information in assessing residency, but also potentially in pursuing charges for fraud.
Regarding the less-intrusive level: I think that what is intended is access to full NoA information because the proposed regulations are, in part, intended to replace the current request for NoAs directly from applicants (in the RQ process), so that CIC can obtain this information directly from CRA. The notice states:
There is currently no authority under the Citizenship Act or the Citizenship Regulations (the Regulations) to enable CIC to collect the SIN for the purposes of exchanging information with the CRA. As a result, for verification of residence, CIC is currently using the CRA notices of assessment, a process that is known to be vulnerable to fraud, is less reliable, and is an inefficient use of the CRA and CIC resources.
Sneaky? sneaky? or sneaky?
Note that while portions of other proposed amendments and regulations to be added are relevant to this discussion, having some relevance to information access and sharing, for purposes of this discussion the key two proposed regulations to be added are CR 26.6 and CR 26.7.
CR 26.6 simply prescribes authority for CIC (technically the "Minister") to require citizenship applicants to provide the SIN (CR 26.6(1)), and prescribes what information CIC may disclose to the Canada Revenue Agency, which in turn has two parts, one generally referring to disclosure of the SIN "for the purpose" of verifying compliance with the residency requirements. This is stated in rather general, open-ended terms. In effect, I think, this is essentially a key to unlock access to CRA information about the applicant, and I suspect this is very broad. One would have to know the regulations, rules, and guidelines otherwise governing CRA to know the extent to which this unlocks access to an individual's personal tax filing information. My sense: probably entire NoA plus some, perhaps plus a great deal.
The other proposed regulation to be added of interest here is CR 26.7. It may be worth quoting it in its entirety:
26.7 (1) The Minister may disclose the identity or the status of a person to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to any provincial or municipal police force or to any other investigative bodies with which the Minister has entered into an arrangement or agreement for the disclosure of this information.
(2) The Minister may collect information with respect to a person for the purpose of the administration of his or her programs and the enforcement of the Act from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, any provincial or municipal police force or any other investigative bodies with which the Minister has entered into an arrangement or agreement for the collection of this information.
Lest it be overlooked, both elements, that is as to who CIC may disclose information to and who CIC may collect information from, include the incredibly open-ended, broad reference to "any other investigative bodies."
As torontosm expressed, this is probably welcomed by many, many if not most feeling that indeed these changes were long overdue and it is "about time some of these government agencies started integrating their systems to close the many loopholes that people have been exploiting for years."
For the good this will accomplish however there is indeed a price, a cost.
That cost is, obviously, a profound compromise of personal privacy, not just for those who actually commit fraud, but for all the rest of us as well. In this regard, make no mistake, most of what is done pursuant to these provisions will be behind the curtains, largely undisclosed to those affected, protected by the "investigatory methods and practices" exception to Access to Information rights.
Thus, bambino, your view about not wanting to share detailed personal information with CIC is even further compromised, as there will be direct access (pursuant to these regulations, assuming they are in fact adopted) to it . . . and perhaps even to information about you that you are not even aware of.
I am not offering any opinion about whether this is good or bad. I will let others judge. I am mostly reporting some news.
That said, this is stuff I believe Canadians (including Canadian PRs) are entitled to be informed about. I recognize that many apprehend that such information is oft times exploited by the unscrupulous to better scheme ways to work around the system. I certainly do not mean to condone let alone support that. Just like compromised privacy is a cost of giving government sufficient tools to combat fraud, the disclosure of information to the public which can be used by the unscrupulous is part of the cost of a democratic, transparent government.
Overall, though, it does appear that the enforcement net is getting stronger and tighter. More border controls, more internal cross-checking data sharing access, and more stringent qualifying requirements, will undoubtedly have a significant impact. The avenues for exploitation, however, will not entirely disappear, especially for those with substantial financial resources.
Concluding remark regarding timing of when the revised residency requirements will come into force:
While I agree some with the observation by MUFC that this notice suggests we are indeed approaching the range within which the revised residency requirements will come into force, that was increasingly so anyway. While we long knew it could be anytime this year, and we are now well into this year so we are into the period of time in which the changes could become effective any day, there really is no suggestion that the best bets, or best guesses are no longer the best bet or best guess. June 1st or July 1st, with more betting on the latter, still seem to be the best guesses. That said, May 1st may loom as perhaps a better bet than it was, not nearly as good a guess as July 1st or June 1st, but certainly well within the realm of possible.
All of which is not to actually predict the date it will happen. By September 1st almost for sure, but otherwise it is still just guessing.
Which brings up this post:
na123 said:
man I can apply as early as May 26, but I will apply on June 2nd to give my self a couple of extra days. about 10 weeks left until June, I hope the government will give us at least a 30 days notice.
If it is May 1st, ouch. On-the-cusp wrong side.
But you are absolutely right, about hoping for some real, reliable notice of what will be the date. No guarantee, I am just guessing, but my guess is there will be at least a week's notice, probably at least a couple weeks, maybe a little more.
And relative to getting an application submitted before or after June 1st, yep, that could be critical. My personal guess (emphasis on it being just a guess) is that June 1st might very well be the date. (If I was in your shoes, though, my gut would be growling a bit about the possibility of May 1st.) So, for you, and undoubtedly for many thousands of others in a similar situation, some real notice is important.
