Difference in absense FROM date & passport stamp

That's a good question, even I had that question while filling out that form..but I just went ahead with the date on the Passport...Now am I wondering if the guy asks me ..if I left the day before or what....If someone can write their experience with the officer...that will be great..

thanks

Personally I put the dates when I left Canada, because this is what they ask for. In some cases the corresponding entry stamp was two days off even due to long flights and in some cases there was no entry stamp (due to home country not stamping). During the interview they paid more attention to the Canadian entry stamps than other country entry stamps. I was carrying a printout of the corresponding flight reservations just in case, but there was no need. The officers seem to be quite competent in this actually, given how fast they were checking the stamps. 

I do not think there is any question about how to complete the residency calculation disclosure in regards to dates: completely and accurately identify all dates of exit from Canada (those being the day the PR left Canada) and all dates of re-entry into Canada (and if it is five minutes past midnight at the POE, it is that day, not the day it was at one minute before midnight).

I do not think there is much doubt about how long to wait to apply: foremost, wait until one has well-passed the 1095 day threshold for actual physical presence, and secondly be cognizant of potential issues and the more there are potential issues, the longer one should wait, the more of a margin over the 1095 the prudent applicant will wait. As hunter2 suggests, wait at least longer than any potential discrepancies that may appear in one's travel documents or other records. I suggest more patience and a longer wait than that.

EasyRider: Are officers at the tests trained well enough to routinely recognize this properly? I'm just a little bit worried after hearing some stories about neglect shown by officers at the tests. I've got a vibe that in case of CIC you're always at risk of dealing with incompetent people with fragile egos.

Most of the evidence indicates that CIC personnel are indeed trained well enough to routinely recognize, and understand, a vast range of vagaries in individual circumstances and records. That's a big part of their job and training.

That leads to the other part of your query in this regard (worried . . . and "got a vibe"):

While obviously, in any bureaucracy one is going to occasionally encounter some personnel who are cavalier, callous, incompetent, lazy, biased, or otherwise not a model civil servant. And, sure, we see some reports suggesting encounters characterized as one or the other of these. In context though, the overwhelming indications are that this is not common, perhaps actually quite rare, and that is assuming virtually all the reports we see alleging such an encounter are fairly accurate.

But many of those reports are undoubtedly not that accurate. And this has to do with the other side of the coin regarding just how well trained CIC personnel are and just how acute their perceptions are, how well they recognize , and understand, a vast range of vagaries in individual circumstances and records.

I believe they do this a lot, lot better than a significant number of applicants would like. Of course this is well into the opinion side of things but it sure looks, to me, like they routinely process thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of files containing minor mistakes, minor inconsistencies even discrepancies, this or that incongruity, without a hitch, and that they do so not because they are overlooking these things but because they have the capacity to put these things into context and can grasp the underlying essence of the applicant's information.

In contrast, in doing that they also recognize mistakes, inconcistencies, discrepancies, incongrities, anomalies, that they can appropriately (usually, not perfectly of course) identify as red flags, as signalling an issue that, at the least, warrants a closer examination. Again, I suspect, well, actually I believe, they do this far better than more than a few applicants would like.


For the worried applicant:

For anyone concerned that their reported date of exit from Canada is different from the stamped date of entry at their destination, the explanation box in the online Residency Calculator has plenty of room to specifically add a note as to the date of entry for the country. Not only would that fully clarify, actually the applicant is supposed to include in that box information as to all countries to which the applicant traveled during that absence from Canada, and so the prudent thing would be to identify all countries and dates of entry into each respective country.

I am not at all sure but I get the sense that a lot of applicants tend to minimize the amount of information they include in the "reason" box. For most, probably OK, especially if indeed the briefly stated reason is consistent with the destination and duration of the trip, and is something that is consistent with who the applicant is otherwise. In contrast, someone who is regularly employed in Canada and who reports a three month trip abroad and just puts "holiday" into the reason box, well, duh, they are inviting questions (while I suppose an obviously affluent person might take three month holidays, very few working or middle class persons take more than two, maybe four week "holidays," and so if it is longer than that, there is cause to at least inquire further into the reason).

In any event: The "reason" box is the applicant's opportunity to make a notation that will explain most apparent incongruities in the travel dates. For those who recognize that they do have such an incongruity, take the opportunity. For example: perhaps the applicant whose international travel is mostly documented by stamps in the passport but who notices some missing stamps might add a parenthetical in the reason box for that trip: "(not stamped in passport)" . . . although, generally, the vast majority of applicants should not need to worry about this sort of thing so long as they have accurately and completely reported all travel and adequately explained the reason for the trip (being sure to include reference to all countries visited during that trip, and for this I would include those transited . . . so if the flight went through the UK, even if you only were in the airport, Heathrow say, for two hours, include it).