. . . Sometimes, however, common sense does not prevail in these circumstances . . .
There is a question for which I am trying to find an answer, but without much luck so far. I have posted it on a few threads here, but nobody seems to have any reply.
The rule states that when applying for citizenship, the applicant should provide a police certificate for every country where they have been present for 183 or more days in the 4 years preceding the application date. However, there is no specific definition as to what "presence" actually means, and how it should be calculated.
But nowhere it is stated HOW the duration of a trip is calculated and/or how the days of presence in a foreign country should be calculated.
I'm trying to figure it out, but no literature seems to exist. It should be possible to clarify this, as well as clarifying whether a transit in a country C airport while flying from country A to country B counts as "presence" in country C.
Do you seriously question how to answer Item 6.M. in the current application form? It is a yes or no question. No precise calculations necessary.
As you acknowledge, this query has been posed before. Frankly I doubted the sincerity of the query because it essentially poses a hypothetical based on a hyper-technical approach to what is a straight-forward request. So I did not respond. Moreover, others have responded and there is little reason to doubt what they suggested: if you are cutting-it-so-close you are not sure, check "yes" and include a proper police certificate (or an explanation as to why not).
In the meantime, there should be no mystery about what "presence" in another country means, the word's ordinary meaning is quite sufficient, particularly since that meaning is consistent with how IRCC now defines presence in Canada: any part of the day in Canada counts as a day in which one was present in Canada. And obviously a day partially present in Canada does not preclude that being a day also present in another country. Nothing confusing or incongruous about that.
Again, there is NO need to overthink these things.
Again, the police certificate requirement is
a collateral, evidentiary part of the application, not a technical or substantive requirement. So, again, what IRCC
practically is asking for is
more important than any
technical interpretation of what is requested or required.
What IRCC needs, wants, is to verify that the applicant:
-- has no charges pending in another country, and
-- has had no convictions in another country within the last four years
For the vast majority of applicants, checking no to items 8.D. and 8.I. (current application form) is sufficient to satisfy IRCC about this, to satisfy IRCC that the applicant
-- has no charges pending in another country, and
-- has had no convictions in another country within the last four years
For applicants who have spent an extended period of time in another country, IRCC further wants a police certificate to verify these things. The threshold IRCC has set, for which applicants must provide this
with the application itself, is a total of six months.
But let's be clear: even if an applicant only spent six weeks in another country, way less than six months, IRCC can still request that the applicant provide a police certificate from that country. There is nothing inherently dispositive about 183 days, whether more, whether less.
Who must submit a police certificate when applying for citizenship is entirely an administrative decision. It is not prescribed by statute or regulation.
It is not a technical requirement.
Beyond that, last thing an applicant wants to do other than overtly appearing to be deceptive, is to look like he or she is playing games or otherwise not being forthcoming. Appearances matter. Impressions matter.
There really is no reason to approach this item any other way than to count all days spent in a country, no matter how briefly, and honestly report yes or no depending on whether they total 183 or not. One might argue otherwise but it would be a fools argument, since any opportunity to make the argument would involve getting bogged down in non-routine processing (not good and slow), and IRCC can still require a police certificate anyway.
So by one arguably valid method of calculation, say you were only in a country for 176 days, is it worth the risk of making a bad impression to proceed on this basis when, after all, IRCC could still (after some delay getting to this stage) require you to submit a police certificate.
By the way, while common-sense plays an important role in navigating this stuff, my observations above are largely based on official and authoritative sources, including the relevant provisions in the
Citizenship Act, particularly Subsection 22(3) for example, as well as the instruction guide, the application form itself, the checklist, and relevant PDIs, with some careful analysis of course, and contextual considerations based on experience and anecdotal reports, all focused on figuring out how things actually work.
It is true, common-sense only goes so far when dealing with a bureaucracy. In contrast, however, hyper-technical parsing tends to go
nowhere.
In between, following and applying the instructions as best one can understand them, honestly and sincerely answering questions, and navigating the process based on what appears to actually work, is almost always the best approach. The yes or no response to item 6.M. does not require anything more complicated than adding up the number of days spent, however briefly, in another country.
