Lily2011 said:
I know I should relax, but easier said than done.
We did apply with less than the required days though. So we were told by Call Center agents (not by officers) that we might get referred due to the lack of days. I am two months short and self declared. My Spouse applied the day after he had the 1095 but CIC re-calculated his days and now he is a month short.
Yes, easier said than done. But there really is nothing else to do at this stage but wait and see what happens next.
Shortfall cases are simply not predictable. This was a huge problem with the old
residency requirement law. There are many factors the applicant can examine and get a rough, very rough idea of how bad or not so bad the odds are. A month's worth of discrepancies, for example, hurts. The bigger the shortfall the more that hurts. The more thoroughly the applicants' lives are shown to have been centralized in Canada, the more that helps. But ultimately there are too many factors which can have varying degrees of influence on the decision-maker, the Citizenship Officer, who decides whether IRCC is satisfied the residency requirement was met, to forecast how that is likely to go. If the Citizenship Officer is not satisfied, that is when a File Preparation Analysis Template referral will be prepared for a Citizenship Judge to review, and then a CJ hearing scheduled.
Some CJs appear to only apply a strict physical presence test. If that is the test used, a shortfall application fails, necessarily fails.
Some CJs appear to automatically consider applying a qualitative test, like the
Koo criteria, in which case the shortfall applicant who has definitely established the date the applicant actually established a household in Canada, and that was more than three years prior to applying, and otherwise has well-documented a life centralized in Canada, has a decent chance of being approved for the grant of citizenship.
Otherwise, perhaps some CJs need to be encouraged, at the hearing, to consider a qualitative test, and again a strong qualitative case might have decent odds of success.
Notice of Referral to CJ:
Bottomline: there is nothing to do but watch eCas and your mail, looking for notice of either being scheduled for oath, or being scheduled for a CJ hearing.
It is somewhat possible that there will be a clue in your GCMS records that the case is being referred to a CJ before you get actual notice it will be, but even then it is unlikely a call centre agent will divulge the information, and perhaps it will not be so clear as to what it is that a call centre agent will even recognize what it means (let alone communicate that to you). But the time line for this is probably a very narrow window in time. It would be total chance that you happen to talk to a call centre agent just before the notice (one way or the other) is sent. The way these things work is that the file is sitting in queue, nothing happening until its turn. Then what is going to happen actually happens. The Citizenship Officer decides to approve and grant citizenship, and the notice for the oath goes out; or the Citizenship Officer prepares the FPAT referral and a CJ hearing is scheduled, and the notice for that goes out.
Thus, for example, responses to some ATIP requests just happen to reveal something before the notice goes out, but the notice is going out real soon anyway. Not worth repeated ATIP requests. Frequent calls to the call centre or repeated ATIP applications will tend to elevate anticipation and anxiety, and are very unlikely to give you advance notice, and almost certainly will not give you any information you can actually use.
So, as difficult as it is to wait and watch, that really is all you can do for now.
