Citizenship - Random Quality Assurance Exercise and Request for Additional Evidence

[graham1710]

Hey all,

Some bad news unfortunately. Just got a letter yesterday (dated December 9th) from IRCC letting me know that I've been "randomly selected for a special review exercise in connected with IRCC's Quality Assurance Program".

So this includes the following:

• Physical Presence Questionnaire - Quality Assurance Exercise (CIT 0205). This requires information such as: passport info, absences from Canada, address information, info about close relatives even those outside Canada (i.e. where they've lived, their profession, etc.), education info, employment info, professional associations, what volunteer work I've done, income/taxes abroad, property owned inside/outside Canada, businesses owned inside/outside Canada, etc.
• List of Required Docs*
• Fingerprints
• Reference

*List of Required Docs
- Scans of all pages (including blank ones) from all passports (2 for me since I recently got a new UK passport)
- Entry/Exit Records from countries of citizenship/residence, other than Canada (UK for me)
- Provincial Personal Health Claims Summary
- Rental/Lease agreements
- Letter from landlord confirming rental period
- Property titles or Mortgage documents
- Property tax assessments
- Official school transcripts
- T4 Slips from CRA
- Letters from employers describing each position held, date of hiring, work schedule
- Records of employment from CRA
- CRA Statements of Employment Insurance benefit periods
- Statements of social assistance
- Statements of disability assistance
- 3 Letters from suppliers or clients for any businesses owned inside/outside Canada
- Incorporation documents
- Advertising contracts
- Contracts and invoices demonstrating a continuance o business activity
- Business bank statements
- Professional licence/membership card/permit to practice
- A personal Canadian citizen reference who has known you for the past 2 years and can answer questions about you such as work, study, housing, sports, cultural or religious activities, volunteering
- Consent Form



Fingerprints must be done within 30 days of letter (Dec 9th) and everything else must be sent back within 60 days. I'm unsure how a lot of this is possible given the festive period closures, even with the normal length of time some of it takes.


To start with, I just have to get the frustration off my chest. For someone who was "randomly" selected (i.e. no apparent cause or reason), this is an incredible amount of work to get done and also includes additional fees to do some of these on top of the large amount already paid for citizenship. The vast majority of this information isn't relevant to citizenship eligibility. My application has to be very near as straightforward as you can possible get: arrived in 2012 on TWP, got PR in early 2014, only left for a few vacations here and there, had 2 jobs, filed taxes, way over the number of days needed, already laid down roots with 1 child born here and another on the way, etc.

I really want citizenship, but I'm honestly considering whether this is worth it. Perhaps I'm just so pissed off right now, but that's what I feel at the moment. This is already a stressful time, particularly because we're trying to get ready for the imminent arrival of our second child and this feels like an unnecessary stress.


If I'm going to do this, I'm looking for some help on some things:
- Fingerprints - does anyone know anywhere near Whitby? The closest I'm finding is Newmarket, Cobourg, etc. because most local police services don't do it anymore.
- Entry/exit records for the UK - I keep finding conflicting info on this. Does anyone know the easiest/quickest way to do this?

I think that's the main things for now, but I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Oh, and any way to get out of doing this? Maybe my MP can tell them to drop it :-)

Thanks!

Graham.

[MillieF]

Yes Graham, It's a pain Jump up and down, kick the wall if necessary, but do it anyway.

This time last year I was worried as I'd just applied for Citizenship, I was well beyond stressed, Canada is not the most wonderful country I've lived in...or the worst either, but having got my Citizenship, I have choices. I can go, I can come back...when my kid finishes school I can escape the winter, I can do practically what I want and nobody can stop me from doing it. I can vote!

Press on regardless. You have a growing family and it's going to be soooo much easier for you to do all of the things that one does over time if you are a Citizen.

You have a baby on the way, Christmas is coming, stress is piled on by the bucket load and you need this extra pressure like a hole in the head, but it is just some stupid Canadian tick box exercise, probably by a Civil Servant being a jobsworth.

Very, very best of luck!

[beckiwoo]

So sorry to hear you have been given this news so close to Christmas. It does seem unfair and this looks more complex then anything asked for at PR stage.

I am afraid I cannot help you with the questions but I wish you all the best with it. I agree with Millie that you should try and press on it with it as after you get this, it's over!

I am going to follow this thread though because any of us that have our citizenship application to do in the future could end up with this nightmare of bureaucracy.

Keep us all posted

[graham1710]

Thanks for all the thoughts people.

There has certainly been, and will likely continue to be, a lot of venting! My wife did manage to go to our local MP's office today. The local staff person at the mp's office that deals with citizenship stuff has seen random selections before, but said she's never seen anything to this extent. i know i'm not the only one, have seen people on other forums with similar "straightforward" cases getting it. So she's going to contact them for an extension and will hopefully vent a bit too. She guesses that perhaps with the rules changing recently to allow more people to be eligible, perhaps they're doing this to a few people to cover their asses.

And yep, definitely worth bearing in mind that there's a chance you may be asked for all this stuff, so don't go throwing things out :-)

My boss was quite understanding today when I gave her the scoop, so she told me to just go at lunch to get fingerprints and whatever else done that I could. So I managed to get that done, and the form mailed to request the health care claims summary, as well as the form to the UK (at least I think it's the right form!!) for entry/exits.

My next pain-point is the required translations for passports if I have any stamps, etc. not in English or French. Cuba thankfully just put Cuba and the name of the airport, so I don't believe that needs a translation as it is place names.

However, the Mexican stamp has some Spanish at the top so I guess unfortunately that means it needs translated by someone certified (or an affidavit if the person isn't certified). So I'm trying to find out if anyone I know happens to know anyone in this category or whether I need to go find and pay someone for one stamp...

Any thoughts/experience on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Graham.

[dave_j]

Our issue isn't in the same league as yours but we have just had both our applications returned because we apparently failed to include all documents on the checklist.

In particular we failed to include two government issued documents that contained a photograph and date of birth and we were referred to the Instruction Guidelines.

In the guidelines it clearly states that if you've had a passport within the past 5 years then include one document and include two if you haven't.

As we have passports and included photocopies of them I naturally assumed that copies of our PR cards would be good enough as this was all that was requested.

Not so.. they apparently need two even though their own guidelines, the very same guidelines that we were invited to study, say differently.

You can't trust anyone to anything properly.

[graham1710]

Originally Posted by dave_j

Our issue isn't in the same league as yours but we have just had both our applications returned because we apparently failed to include all documents on the checklist.

In particular we failed to include two government issued documents that contained a photograph and date of birth and we were referred to the Instruction Guidelines.

In the guidelines it clearly states that if you've had a passport within the past 5 years then include one document and include two if you haven't.

As we have passports and included photocopies of them I naturally assumed that a copies of our PR card would be good enough as this was all that was requested.

Not so.. they apparently need two even though their own guidelines, the very same guidelines that we were invited to study, say differently.

You can't trust anyone to anything properly.

That's frustrating!

I think I chose to use driving license, rather than PR card. That in addition to my current passport (I think checklist said it had to be current?). Although we did also include our PR cards (I forget where exactly) because when we submitted in the first day or two, IRCC hadn't yet clarified whether they needed it or not. If I remember correctly, the original instruction guide implied it was needed but the checklist didn't mention it. While IRCC subsequently updated the instruction guide to match the checklist, we had prepared our package before then so left it in just in case. So unfortunately I can't say for sure whether it'd make it through without that technically unnecessary second piece of ID. I'd expect that perhaps it's hit and miss unfortunately!

Graham.

[dave_j]

Originally Posted by graham1710

That's frustrating!

It is what it is. We'll return the application and wait. Since the timescale is months and months and not days I doubt that any delay will affect us too much if at all.

But at the very least we'll be keeping Canada Post solvent.

[graham1710]

Originally Posted by dave_j

But at the very least we'll be keeping Canada Post solvent.

Doing your civic duty ;-)

[lifeisajourney]

I have no advice to give at all, but just wanted to say that's incredibly shitty. What a nightmare. As if the whole process isn't time consuming, costly and stressful anyway. Best of luck to you. You will get through it.

[cecij10]

Hi graham1710,

I was also selected in December for this review exercise as well as you but I still can not collect all the requested documents.

How has your experience been with this? It is a real headache.

Was you able to collect all the documents requested? Already sent back the Quality Assurance Exercise with all these documents? If you already sent it, have you received any response from IRCC?

Thanks

[graham1710]

Originally Posted by cecij10

Hi graham1710,

I was also selected in December for this review exercise as well as you but I still can not collect all the requested documents.

How has your experience been with this? It is a real headache.

Was you able to collect all the documents requested? Already sent back the Quality Assurance Exercise with all these documents? If you already sent it, have you received any response from IRCC?

Thanks

Hey,

Yep - managed to get all the docs eventually and sent them back on Jan 23rd (received, according to tracking on Jan 24th). No response from IRCC yet, but I'm not expecting anything anytime soon...

The longest one to get was the UK (as country of citizenship) entry/exit records, but I eventually got them. I submitted the request for them within a couple of days of receiving this request from IRCC, so it did take a while to get them back.

Most other things I got done (or at least requested) within the first few days.

If you have any specific questions about any of the docs, give me a shout.

And yep, headache doesn't even begin to describe it :-)

Graham.

[cecij10]

Thank you for your prompt response.

How lucky you were collecting everything quickly. I'm still waiting for Quebec Health Claims Summary and US entry/exit records. In theory they should arrive this week.

Did you fill out form CIT 0205 by hand? Will you know if there is a website to download it and fill it with a computer? I already made a mistake filling a part and I do not want to use correction pen.

Thanks

[graham1710]

Originally Posted by cecij10

Thank you for your prompt response.

How lucky you were collecting everything quickly. I'm still waiting for Quebec Health Claims Summary and US entry/exit records. In theory they should arrive this week.

Did you fill out form CIT 0205 by hand? Will you know if there is a website to download it and fill it with a computer? I already made a mistake filling a part and I do not want to use correction pen.

Thanks

Well I wouldn't say I got them all quickly, haha. The health claims (from Ontario) didn't take too long actually, but I also got the request sent away within the first few days. I just got in a groove with head down and churned through things at a good pace. The entry/exit records probably took a good month to month and a half. Thankfully they arrived before the deadline, which allowed me to submit before the 60 day deadline.

The main advice I received regarding getting everything in time was (well, aside from start early!!) that if you aren't going to get everything in time, the main thing is keep the communication lines open. Submit what you have, with a clear explanation as to what is missing, what you've done to try get it and when you expect to receive it. As long as you're open with them, they're apparently very good if an extension is needed. If they're not, your local MP's office should be able to help.



With regards the form, yep I filled it out by hand. I wasn't able to find any kind of electronic copy. I did scan it in beforehand, then used a PDF editor to make boxes and fill it out on the computer. I then printed that out and then essentially copied it by hand onto the original. Otherwise, just print out scanned copies of the blank one, and do them by hand first so you get all the mistakes out the way :-)

Graham.

[Siouxie]

Originally Posted by cecij10

Thank you for your prompt response.

How lucky you were collecting everything quickly. I'm still waiting for Quebec Health Claims Summary and US entry/exit records. In theory they should arrive this week.

Did you fill out form CIT 0205 by hand? Will you know if there is a website to download it and fill it with a computer? I already made a mistake filling a part and I do not want to use correction pen.

Thanks

There are many online pdf 'fill and edit' programs, where you upload the document and fill it out / edit online. There's also downloadable programs, though most aren't free - there's even a Chrome add-on. A quick Google search for 'free pdf filler' will bring up some. You can then download or save the pdf for printing.

[tee1]

Hey Graham 1710

Would you mind sharing where you got your UK entry/exit records from? I applied for citizenship in Oct and just got my aor Mid Jan. I think that unfortunately I'm for sure going to get either selected for quality assurance or a residence questionnaire as I've lived all over and I want to get a start on gathering docs. Was it a subject access request with the home office? Thankyou