Police certificate under new C6 rule : 3 or 4 years back?

[tom94063]

Hi

I am trying to prepare documents for citizenship application under new rule, especially police certificate. Under the current rule (4 out 6 years) it requires that if one lives in other country more than 183 days in the past 4 years, he/she needs to obtain police certificate for such country. So I am just wondering for under new C6 rule(3 out 5 years), will they look 3 years or 4 years back?

If they look as far as 4 years back, I need to request the police certificate from my home country which I had lived since I was born til Jul 2014. But if they look only 3 years back, then I am good because I spent most of time in Canada since Jul 2014 (only 3 weeks vacation). Maybe anyone who has applied when the rule 3 out 5 was in place a few years back can shed some lights?


Thanks

 

[dpenabill]

Hi

I am trying to prepare documents for citizenship application under new rule, especially police certificate. Under the current rule (4 out 6 years) it requires that if one lives in other country more than 183 days in the past 4 years, he/she needs to obtain police certificate for such country. So I am just wondering for under new C6 rule(3 out 5 years), will they look 3 years or 4 years back?

If they look as far as 4 years back, I need to request the police certificate from my home country which I had lived since I was born til Jul 2014. But if they look only 3 years back, then I am good because I spent most of time in Canada since Jul 2014 (only 3 weeks vacation). Maybe anyone who has applied when the rule 3 out 5 was in place a few years back can shed some lights?


Thanks

There is nothing in the proposed amendment of regulations or in the adopted version of Bill C-6 which suggests that the inclusion of a police certificate with the application will change anytime in the foreseeable future. It will almost certainly continue to be based on extent of presence in another country during the previous four years.

This requirement is based on the prohibition for anyone convicted of an indictable offense (that is, what would be an indictable offense if committed in Canada) in any country during the previous four years. This does not change.

In particular, Bill C-6 does not change the time frame for prohibitions based on criminal convictions. It remains four years. This is not connected to the 4/6 rule, and will not be connected to the 3/5 rule.

There was no 3 out 5 rule before. There was a 3 out of 4 rule. At that time there was no prohibition for convictions or charges pending abroad (unless they rose to the level of terrorism, organized crime, or such), so there was no requirement for police certificates from other countries regardless how much time the applicant had spent in another country.

The prohibition based on a conviction abroad for what would be an indictable offense in Canada, for the four years prior to the date of application, was part of the Harper era Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, adopted in June of 2014 and, as I recall, that part took effect in May 2015 (again, it is not connected to the 4/6 rule, which took effect June 11, 2015). What it did is effectively impose the same prohibition for a conviction in a foreign country as the Citizenship Act has for convictions in Canada. And again, there was no change in this in Bill C-6. The time frame is and remains four years.

The requirement to submit a police certificate is an administrative policy, merely what IRCC has determined should be included in the application, which can be changed at any time. Moreover, any applicant could be required to provide a police certificate from any country the PR visited even if it totaled less than six months.

 

[tom94063]

Dpenabill, thanks for detailed explanation.
Looks like I have something to do while waiting for C6 to be effective. In order to obtain police certificate from my home country (which is a bit painful), i need to get my fingerprint taken by RCMP and courier it to my wife. And she will have to be there in person to do it.

In fact I got the police certificate that was produced back in Oct 2014 before I began my first job in Canada. I think that's no longer valid, even though during Jul 2014 til now I spent on 3 weeks there, right?