Police Clearance

Hi everyone, question 1: i just wanna ask if how many months thus the police clearance for my wife is valid is it 3 months only? but its written in on my wife police clearance is valid for one year is it still valid?

@ Sweatha thanks for your quick reply i really appreciate it.i have another question on "Document Checklist" on #14 and #19.a. im not from Quebec and i dont have a co-signer do i have to put NA on the boxes too? im really confused, and i put NA on all the box and the boxes on the co-signer and that is not applicabe to me. i dont want to leave it empty is this valid?  thanks.

ditto scylla

except . . . referring to the "validity" of a police clearance in the context of Canadian immigration is a bit of a misnomer. Most police clearances are valid only as of the date the search is conducted (since they cannot purport to "clear" someone for any day after that date). Some jurisdictions do impose a time limit on the "validity" of their police clearances (which is apparently the case here). Most, so far as I am aware, do not.

Of those jurisdictions that do specify how long their certificates are valid for, I think the length of time varies, some jurisdictions imposing a shorter period of validity.

Your wife's police clearance is, apparently, from one of those countries for which such documents have a "validity" date. I am not sure, but I think that for purposes of Canadian immigration that is not particularly relevant, so long as it is, of course, still valid, but the last I knew, for Canadian immigration purposes, a foreign nation's police certificate (clearance) that must be submitted with the PR application should be no older than three months at the time of applying. (as scylla also said)

Any document submitted to Canadian immigration should be "valid" but for purposes of the police certificate the issue is not about the "validity" of the police certificate so much (again, yes it must be "valid") but about how timely it is relative to the PR application. This is not an absolute time limit, though, since I have seen reports of others who submitted police certificate older than three months and, indeed, my own was around five months old when I applied (with no problem arising from that). But, usually, as of the date of making the PR application the certificate should be no more than three months old.

CIC may ask for a subsequent police certificate from any applicant for PR. This will commonly happen if there is any reason whatsoever to think there was a problem with the original certificate or that some relevant event occurred since the issuance of the certificate. The longer the timeline, the more chance there is that a new police certificate will be requested, and in many overseas visa offices there appears to be a regular practice of requesting a new police certificate if the case is not finally decided and a visa issued within a year from the date of the original certificate (similar to the medical). But any PR applicant can be asked to submit a more current police certificate anytime during the process. I suspect that where the police certicate has a fixed validity date, that unless she is given a visa by that date that she will be asked to submit a more current one later in the process . . . if she gets the visa prior to the date the certificate is no longer "valid" on its face, no problem. Again, however, probably needs to be less than three months old (or not much older) as of the date the PR application is submitted to CPC-M.


Importantly: any specific instruction in the region specific instructions overrides this. Be sure to consult and follow those region specific instructions!


I am not sure (been awhile since I did this myself) but for the checklist I think you only check those items for which you have included a document. Otherwise leave them blank.

Since 19 is prefaced by a conditional, that is, it applies only if you must meet minimum income requirements, which for most spousal sponsorships is not a requirement, you only need to include those documents if that applies and you otherwise leave those boxes blank. The whole line in the form for a co-signer, for example, would ordinarily be left blank in a standard spousal-sponsored PR application checklist.

Similarly for item 14, no co-signer, no need to check this item since it does not apply to you. (Although, I think we might have checked this, since we did indeed submit a copy of our marriage certificate, even though technically it is inapplicable anyway relative to the purpose of item 14; of course we were submitting a copy of the marriage certificate because it was a sponsored-spouse PR application based on a legal marriage.)

By the way, though, it does not matter where you are from or where you live, if you must submit a marriage certificate (and if your application is based on a legal marriage you do, but that is covered further down in the checklist, in documents to be included by the sponsored person), and you were married in Quebec (referring to the place, the juridiction, where the marriage itself took place), then the form you must submit is the marriage certificate issued by the Directeur de l'e'tat civil. Otherwise you submit the appropriate certificate from the jurisdiction, the appropriate government authority in the place where the marriage took place.

For example: Item 16 should illuminate this clearly: for many applicants all those boxes should be empty, and only one should be checked for an applicant with one previous marriage (or common-law relationship) reflecting how that relationship was terminated.

I don't know.

I don't think having put NA where it would otherwise be blank hurts that much. Not a big deal. The checklist is largely a formality; what matters is whether or not the respective, required documents are actually enclosed.

thanks a lot.. i have additional question on " sponsor evaluation" # 3 i dont quite understand it it says your net personal income in the 12 months, start date and ending date is it jan 1 2011- dec 31 2011 from my last paystub? and the net income ill just put the whole total w/o deduction? ex: $50,000.and when i look on my option C print out i cant see any date what is the start and the ending i dont know what date should i put.