I can sense some people got bad feelings against me because I don't live in Canada at the moment.
Likely to be some of that in the forum, but to be clear that had NO influence in what I posted or in what follows here.
There are real risks for applicants who move abroad while the application is pending. These days those risks appear to be significantly less than they were in the past. These days the risks are mostly logistical, like the difficulty and expense of making the trip to attend the test and the oath on short notice.
You have already moved abroad while the application is pending. Many do. MOST probably do NOT encounter problems because of this. Some will encounter problems. At this stage all you can do is to be prepared to handle the risks and navigate the process accordingly. Odds are GOOD things will go well . . . or, things are likely to go well as long as you get timely notice and can travel in time to meet scheduled events. It may help, nonetheless, to be cognizant of what risks there are and to be prepared to handle various contingencies in how things go.
Leading to . . .
It says I can leave Canada after sending the application, as long as I will not lose my status during that time.
Some may equate traveling abroad with moving abroad to live. Failing to recognize the difference tends to be rooted in willful blindness.
To be clear, there are more "as long as" elements than continuing to meet the PR Residency Obligation. In particular, additionally, it is OK to be abroad . . .
. . . As long as you respond to communications from IRCC in time to avoid the application being deemed abandoned.
. . . As long as you appear for the test and interview when scheduled.
. . . As long as the total stranger bureaucrats reviewing your application conclude that YOU have met the BURDEN of PROOF for showing you met the actual physical presence requirement.
. . . As long as you made no material misrepresentations in the application AND properly notified IRCC of any changes in that information, such as where you are actually living.
In regards to those total stranger bureaucrats who will make the decisions affecting your application, do you apprehend any of those bureaucrats might be among those you are referring to when you observe "
I can sense some people got bad feelings against me because I don't live in Canada at the moment?"
If they are, it is not likely they will be exposed to your backstory, or bother to consider it even if somehow it is presented to them. They are bureaucrats.
Overall: Generally it appears that IRCC does NOT currently target applicants living abroad, at least not anywhere near so harshly as CIC did in the 2009 to 2015 time period (in addition to and apart from that short period of time when a provision in the Harper revised Citizenship Act did make living abroad after applying an explicit ground for denying the application, which was promptly repealed when the Liberals formed the government). In contrast, however, there is NO indication at all that IRCC will make it easy for such applicants. And it is likely that some apprehension, about potential bias affecting how things go, is not unfounded.
The In-Depth Explanation; Real Risks:
The most salient RISKS attendant living abroad while a citizenship application is pending are logistical, including those you are experiencing (difficulties and cost of returning to Canada on relatively short notice), as well as the risk of missing a scheduled event due to not getting the notice in time or unavoidable delays in travel (noting that there is a looming threat that Covid-19 could cause significant hurdles in short-notice travel, perhaps worse than the many days of delay in travel from Europe to Canada the Iceland volcano eruption caused a number of years ago; and of course in our individual lives sometimes
stuff happens, car accidents, sudden illnesses, among other hazards in every day life).
Beyond that, for applicants who are living abroad while the application is pending, these days the risk of non-routine processing looms larger than the risk of the application being denied. These are, however, real risks. Even though, at least apparently, these risks are significantly lower today than, say, five to fifteen years ago.
Until at least 2015, for applicants who moved abroad while the application was pending the risk of extended and intrusive non-routine processing was very high, with a rather significant risk the application would eventually be denied (even though the direct grounds for the denial could NOT be the fact that the applicant moved abroad; two most common grounds were doubts about the applicant's actual amount of time in Canada or the delay in processing resulting in a breach of the PR RO). It was 15 years ago, in 2005, when the then Liberal government adopted operating guidelines that explicitly stated indications of returning to Canada in time to attend a scheduled event (passports were examined during interviews to see if stamps indicated a recent return to Canada), such as the test or an interview, was a reason to issue RQ, the Residence Questionnaire, which dramatically delayed processing timelines. That Operational Bulletin was incorporated into the Operational Manual governing assessment of the residency requirement, CP-5, which remained in effect until 2012, noting however that by then the Harper government had already implemented a far harsher approach which meant that living abroad while the application was pending was especially risky for those who applied between 2009 and 2015.
Clarification: the practice of screening applicant's travel history and identifying those who were abroad for extended periods of time after applying, was NOT about denying the application for that. It was about considering living abroad after applying to be a
REASON-TO-QUESTION-RESIDENCY. Which makes sense. People tend to go on living where they have been living. So living abroad now is, at the least, a reason to more closely examine whether they were abroad more during the eligibility period than they reported. Unfortunately, since 2012 the government has deemed information about what is considered to be a
reason-to-question-residency (or presence) confidential, as in a secret not to be shared with the public. So, for example, we do not know what factors are specifically considered in determining who should be issued RQ.
The revision which replaced the residency requirement with an actual physical presence requirement (2015), in conjunction with the less strict policies under the Trudeau liberal government, has resulted in significantly reducing the risks. BUT WE DO NOT KNOW THE ACTUAL SCOPE OF THIS.
Which leads back to your sense that there may be some bias at play. Again, as you aptly apprehend . . .
"I can sense some people got bad feelings against me because I don't live in Canada at the moment."
Quite likely. Recognizing that citizenship processing agents and Citizenship Officers, one might say, are "some people," among whom some may indeed harbour such bias.
That does not mean they can or will make a decision to reject an applicant just because the applicant is living abroad after applying for citizenship. They cannot. They will not.
However, that does leave open the possibility (for some, the likelihood) their approach to weighing the evidence will be influenced. In this regard, at least in terms of assessing the number of days the applicant was actually physically present in Canada, making a successful application for citizenship depends, to a very large extent, on the IRCC decision-makers BELIEVING what the applicant claims. This is especially so in regards to making the INFERENCE that the applicant was in fact IN Canada all those days in-between a known date of entry and the next reported date of exit. The online physical presence calculator relies on this inference. It counts all those days as day IN Canada. Those IRCC personnel reviewing the application and making decisions do NOT necessarily rely on that inference. In fact, the applicant is required to provide substantial information, such as work/activity history, so that IRCC can better discern if there is any reason to question or doubt where the applicant might have actually been during those days in-between a known date of entry (easily verified by CBSA travel history) and the next reported date of exit (subject to what one might describe as circumstantial evidence rather than direct evidence).
Again, you have already moved abroad while the application is pending. Many do. MOST probably do NOT encounter problems because of this. The bigger risks are logistical.
I offer the above not to frighten or discourage you, or others. But to illuminate the nature and scope of the risks, as best we can figure these things out . . . so applicants such as yourself can be better prepared to deal with how things can go (including, as others have highlighted, it could be a couple weeks or many months, between your test and the date the oath is scheduled, and notice for the oath can be rather short). And so prospective applicants can reasonably, rationally make decisions about when to apply and whether to go abroad after applying.
