Hello everyone,
I am applying for citizenship this October 10, 2018 and by that time I have 1100 days already. I came here in Canada November 9, 2013, became PR on 6 September 2016. I just calculated my days credit and the result in online physical presence is that my eligibility period is 10 October 2013- 10 October 2018. I guess they counted it exact 5 years on your submission date. The question is I am not in Canada yet on 10 October 2013 since I came here November 9, 2013. And there is a question in form CIT 0002questions 10a and #11 of where did I stay during my eligibility period. Should I start writing only the day when I was physically present in Canada (November 9, 2013) or include October 10, 2013 even though I was not in Canada yet? I would appreciate your reply. Thanks
I concur in the short answer by
@Seym
And offer a longer answer:
Follow the instructions. Answer the questions truthfully. For every month of the last five years you were living somewhere. You were doing something somewhere. It is just information. Obviously it needs to be truthful information.
If IRCC asks, answer.
For applicants who were not yet present in Canada as of the beginning of their eligibility period (yes, the eligibility period is exactly the five years prior to the date of the application, as entered by the applicant in the presence calculator, and make sure that is the same date the application is dated), there are varying opinions about how to approach that in declaring travel dates outside Canada.
BUT you have an easy and prudent solution that applies to both the questions in the application and to reporting travel history in the presence calculator:
WAIT until at least November 9, 2018 to apply. A full five years after your arrival in Canada. It is prudent to have a significant margin of presence over the minimum before applying. In practical terms, five days is not really much of a margin, and particularly not for someone who has traveled abroad occasionally or for many weeks. (Obviously you have, otherwise you would have reached the minimum threshold before now.)
Waiting the extra month to apply will not only give you a comfortable margin . . . call it buffer-insurance . . . it simplifies how your information maps into the five year eligibility period. Makes for a neat, tidy package. Bureaucratic processes tend to like that sort of thing. Wrinkles tend to cause jams.
There are two types of buffer-insurance benefits:
-- Shortfall Protection. This protects the applicant from small mistakes which, if deducted from the calculation might otherwise make the applicant ineligible. If you think you are infallible, you are wrong, and actually more prone to making a mistake than those who recognize they make mistakes. If you are in fact infallible, congratulations, BUT of course almost no one else is, including the total stranger bureaucrats who will be assessing your application, including the CBSA personnel who were involved in recording information into your travel history in their databases. Shortfall Protection not only provides a margin to cover the applicant's possible errors (many mistakenly declare exit dates based on entry stamps into other countries, which are often off by a day or even two, for just one example of easy to make errors) but can protect the applicant from potential small errors by any of the total stranger bureaucrats that are involved in processing the application.
-- RQ-related Risk Management Protection. There is NO guaranteed way to for sure avoid non-routine processing or RQ related document requests and processing. BUT the risk can be dramatically reduced by minimizing errors and by having a margin over the minimum which will make those total stranger bureaucrats more comfortable in concluding it is indeed likely the applicant met the minimum. That is, a good size margin makes it easier for an IRCC processing agent or officer to conclude there is NO reason to have concerns about whether the applicant actually met the minimum, no reason to request additional documents. RQ related non-routine processing invariably increases how long it takes to get to the oath. And in many cases it will increase the timeline by a lot. A good margin helps reduce the risk that will happen.
The second of the two benefits of a margin generally involves a somewhat bigger margin. Enough of a margin for a total stranger bureaucrat to look at the total presence calculation and shrug, and easily conclude '
sure looks like she easily met the requirements.'
Overall, waiting awhile longer to apply can mean the applicant actually takes the oath and becomes a citizen SOONER.
This forum is rife with tales of woe and consternation told by scores and scores of those who focused almost exclusively on the date they passed the minimum threshold and failed to adequately account for several other factors to consider in deciding WHEN is the right time to apply. Most only suffer a longer timeline. Some, however, suffer the consequence of a short fall . . . which even if just by one day will mandate denying the application and starting over.
