IslandAnnie said:
I didn't know that FBI checks expire. I thought that unlike the medicals that expire after one year, the only requirement for the FBI check is that it be received by CIC before it is 90 days old. Where did you find this information?
Apparently the same place you found my agenda.
Criminal checks do not expired as they are good up until the time the check was done - that is, in the past, even before the application is submitted and as old as 90 days per CIC requirement; what I meant by that was that they could be deemed expired (invalid, no longer credible) by CIC beyond the usual processing time. There is more than case where CIC has required to re-do criminal checks and common sense says that their request may be due to lengthy processing times. One could be clean as a whistle, but nothing says to CIC that you will not commit crimes since the time you submitted your application or perhaps during their own criminal check another agency (CSIS, for example) found something on you, they might want to do a re-check to clear on possibly conflicting information. It only takes a few minutes to re-do finger prints and an $18 FBI fee (in the case of US criminal checks). You cannot beat that to save time in case CIC requests a new one.
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t112262.0.html
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t72878.0.html;msg1937433#msg1937433
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/useful-information-abt-chc-isb-regarding-previous-cases-t52499.0.html;msg412533#msg412533
Also, although CIC requires criminal checks to not be older than 90 days (which is rather pressing because they can take 40 to 60 days to come back to the requestor) many applicants seem to have submitted applications with slightly older criminal checks and CIC seems to be ok with that. So, what's really set in stone?