Need help with RQ Form

Were you living in Canada since 2004? if so, believe it or not, they mean back to then.

I activated my PR Card in Summer 2004 here in Canada, but returned to my home country to start packing our stuff in the container and selling the house. Also our moving date to Canada was May 2005 and since we living here.

Before I making any mistake filling out the RQ Form:

Quote: "For the purposes of this questionnaire: "Arrival date in Canada" means the earlier of:
1.)  the date on which you first came to Canada to live or;
2.)  the date on which you became a Permanent Resident of Canada

What date should I take?  2004 or 2005?


Thanx again for your help

Ben: I activated my PR Card in Summer 2004 here in Canada, but returned to my home country to start packing our stuff in the container and selling the house. Also our moving date to Canada was May 2005 and since we living here. Before I making any mistake filling out the RQ Form: Quote: "For the purposes of this questionnaire: "Arrival date in Canada" means the earlier of: 1.) the date on which you first came to Canada to live or; 2.) the date on which you became a Permanent Resident of Canada What date should I take? 2004 or 2005?

Your question confuses me since, really, the earliest date is easy to figure out (2004 was before, as in earlier, than 2005), which appears to be the date you landed (attaining status as a PR of Canada) and you do not indicate living in Canada prior to the date of landing (date you "activated" PR card).

This is so obvious I wonder what it is you are trying to figure out.

Practically, for most PRs applying for naturalized citizenship, the date they "arrived" is the same date they landed and became a PR . . . even if they stayed in Canada only briefly and did not return to actually settle in Canada until significantly later (theorectically, to meet the PR residency obligation, up to three years is allowed, and many do indeed take a year or two).

Thus, for anyone who was not living in Canada before becoming a PR, the date they became a PR is their arrival date. And yes, the RQ asks for quite a lot of information going back to that date regardless of the relevant four years in the residency calculation itself.

However, many PRs were living in Canada prior to becoming a PR, usually pursuant to a work or study permit, but refugees as well. For someone who came to Canada before the date they became a Permanent Resident (date of landing, or as you describe it, date you "activated" your PR card -- although that is not what happens, rather PR status is activated, the PR card is merely a document evidencing status) their arrival date in Canada is the date they first came to live in Canada, sometime before landing as a PR.

What an individual should submit is very personal, depending on their particular history, circumstances, and issues.

You can submit more than what they ask for. That will not hurt. How much it might help depends on the quality of the documentation, particularly as to whether or not, and to what degree, it directly supports the information you've given about days present and establishing and maintaining residence in Canada.

Those who are well-qualified, confident they meet the requirements and appear to meet the requirements, confident there should be no real concerns about their qualification for citizenship, and who can and do submit substantial documentation in response to what is requested of them particularly, should not need to submit anything additional.

The weaker one's case is, and the less thorough, less direct one's proof is, the more one should lean toward including whatever else is relevant to showing presence in Canada, family and residential ties in Canada, and so on, beyond what CIC has requested.

Old RQ form did list utility bills as suggested documents. Apparently there were more than a few instances in which it appears fraudulent applicants were the name on a utility bill but were not really living in that location. Or . . . in any event, most recent version of the RQ form I have seen (from April . . . I understand a more recent version is now in use) did not request utility bills.

Some recommend making what amounts to a document dump on CIC. I think that is not helpful and in some ways could be counter productive. One needs to be responsive, of course, and submit substantial documentation, but quantity only goes so far and the quality of the documentation is what really matters. A few dozen pages of direct, objective, reliable documentation is far better than hundreds of pages of indirect documentation.

Is it necessary to copy for an entire year the bills or can I, for example, makes copies only from January and December?