Early test question

1. 

1. blackpearl is right. RQ is short for Residence Questionnaire. Please do not believe what you have heard about applying 5 months short. The notion that the time you have waited for your case to be opened will be counted by CIC when they do look at application has no basis in fact. Make sure you have at least 1095 days of proven physical residency before you apply, otherwise your case will be dalayed even more.

Mostly ditto --

Foremost, for emphasis, ditto that you must fulfill the residency requirement before you can apply -- your eligibility for citizenship is dependent on your qualification for residency as of the day preceding the day you sign the application forms!. You have to have qualified on that date to obtain citizenship (things can happen after that date but before the applicant actually obtains citizenship which can disqualify the applicant, like commiting a serious criminal act, but the applicant must absolutely be qualified on the day before the date the app is signed and submitted). (well, language skills and knowledge of Canada may be obtained simply in time for the test . . . but I am referring to the technical qualifications making a person eligible to apply and become a citizen)

Timing:
Unless your absences from Canada were extensive, it really makes sense to wait until you have 1095 days of physical presence in Canada before applying. Reports on the delays suffered by those who apply based on meeting the residency test itself but without physical presence for 1095 days are quite sobering.

Obviously: if one is physically outside of Canada so frequently or for such durations that they cannot acquire 1095 days of physical presence within a four year period, they can and should apply based on meeting the residency requirement alone; recognizing, of course that these are precisely the sort of applications that will most likely be scrutinized more thoroughly and take significantly longer.

There are other scenarios in which it makes sense to apply sooner, based on residency alone and notwithstanding falling short of 1095 days of physical presence; this is, like so many things dealing with immigration and CIC, one of those "it depends" areas, with many factors to consider in deciding what is best for the particular individual.



Edited by dpenabill - 29 Mar 2010 at 4:34pm

If I was a student and went to Germany for exchange. Attending my employer's global training program (before the start of my job) in UK. These are absences which were absolutely necessary for my degree and my work. Do you think the citizenship judge will understand that?

It matters if you filed based on residency alone or based on having 1095 days physical presence.

Physical presence is, indeed, physical presence, and absences (for any reason) will not count toward any of those days. An application based on physical presence, if possible, is by far better and faster. So much so, it appears, that even if you have to wait to apply several months (maybe even up to nearly a year) beyond the day you could apply based on residency alone, it would be better to wait until you satisfy the 1095 days based on physical presence.

If you are applying without waiting until you have 1095 days of physical presence, then of course you must show you "resided" in Canada for at least 1095 days. Days you were absent from Canada will still count. But days you "resided" abroad will not count. While the "reason" for being abroad may be taken into account for assessing the time while abroad, more important factors include the duration abroad and whether or not you maintained your primary residence in Canada while you were abroad.

In response to the sidebar query about leaving a margin for error: Leaving a margin for error is a good idea. For the applicant who hopes to have no complications, no RQ, no hearing, and thus who has filed based on 1095 days of physical presence, how much of a margin for error the applicant should leave will largely depend on their overall travel history (or any other factor that might weaken the strength of the case). The more often a person has been outside Canada, the more of a margin for error they probably want to leave.