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Military to civilian

Printed From: Canada Immigration and Visa Discussion Forum
Category: Canada Immigration Topics
Forum Name: Family Class Sponsorship
Forum Description: A review of current sponsorship programs (permanent residence) promoting the reunion in Canada of close relatives from abroad.
URL: https://secure.immigration.ca/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7972
Printed Date: 24 Apr 2024 at 2:35am


Topic: Military to civilian
Posted By: dave9252
Subject: Military to civilian
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2011 at 2:30pm
I'm in the British Army and after 22 years i'll be getting out soon to join my canadain wife (i'm British) the forms are asking to go back in some detail. I remember a lot of things but not all the finer details, ie. the names of people from 22 years ago, exact dates and that sort of thing.
Also asks about dates of traveling from the last 10 years, being in the army i've been a lot of places, but again can't remember dates and don't have 'tickets' to prove the traveling.
Does anyone know if that is a problem or if they would accept a letter in with the forms explaining the missing details.


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Never give up trying!!!


Replies:
Posted By: dpenabill
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2011 at 5:33pm
I don't know.

I suggest, however, being as thorough as possible. I had to reconstruct over four decades of history for my PR application. Not easy. And I had to offer some descriptive information rather than definitive . . . some addresses which I could not come up with, for example, I had to give general descriptions for. Similarly for some employers whose names I no longer had in any records. But I did spend a good deal of time and effort to research my own life to put in as much detail as I could find. This required a fairly substantial effort over the course of many weeks, including contacting family and old friends and asking for whatever information they could provide, as well as digging through old records. My own military experience was nearly four decades old and I used some online resources to find some of the information, including name of commanding officer for one posting, for example. I also noted, in a clarification on a separate piece of paper, the extent to which I could not fully reconstruct all the details.

Whether I went overboard or not I do not know. I do know I got approved for PR in about four months.

In other words: I do not think that reconstructing the information from casual memory is sufficient if this results in the omission of a significant amount of detail. Some omissions are probably OK. The more omissions, the less OK. Where the line is drawn, I do not know.

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Bureaucracy is what bureaucracy does, or When in doubt, follow the instructions. Otherwise, follow the instructions.



BTW: Not an expert, not a Can. lawyer, never worked in immigration


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