Citizenship.
 

I came to Canada in April "07" as a truck driver and was running regularly into the US and back until April "10" when I gained PR, and between April"10" and now, have worked in Canada only.
Because I work for a Canadian company will the days I worked outside of Canada ie.US count towards citizenship or not ?
I have heard conflicting answers to this from other truck drivers (expats) and I can't find a defining answer on the CIC website.
Thanks, Neil.

Re: Citizenship.
 

I can't give you a definitive answer but I recall a recent post by a pilot. He said that because of his job he would never have been able to meet the 3 year requirement. However, he explained his situation to a citizenship judge and was granted citizenship.

As I understand it the citizenship judge has to be convinced of your commitment to Canada.

Re: Citizenship.
 

Have you done the residency calculation? I read somewhere that there are some funny rules about time before PR only counting as half - if so it looks like you've got 20mos + half of 28 months = 34 - which might not be enough. I don't know this for sure, but you should check before you apply. Worst case is you have to wait a couple of months.

Re: Citizenship.
 

My interpretation would be if working for a Canadian business and maintaing a residence here and getting paid here and submitting taxes here you are deemed to be living here. Although your job takes you out of the country for short term periods I dont consider that to be working for a company abroad as you are still based in Canada.
Maybe someone else could verify this.

Re: Citizenship.
 

But citizenship has nothing to do with residency (or if you own a house, or pay taxes, or getting paid in Canada, etc, etc), it is where you are physically that counts - so unfortunately, any time spent abroad doesn't count towards that total even if working for a Canadian company. It also needs to be 3 years out of the previous 4 spent in Canada, which can be tight for a lot of people if they work away a lot.

As Jonboy has correctly said, the only way around it is to get a special ruling - so it is possible, but not easy.

The Aviator did it, so it may be worth the OP searching through his posts to see if there is any relevant info. Hopefully he'll see this thread and comment as well.

:)

Re: Citizenship.
 

Very interesting you learn something new everyday :)
https://eservicesak.cic.gc.ca/rescal...ew.do?&lang=en

Im guessing a long haul truck driver could have difficulty in ever getting Citizenship then unless a Citizenship Judge deems otherwise.

Q11: I travel often because of my work (truck driver, employee for an airline company, etc.). Do I have to declare those absences?

A11: Yes. All absences from Canada, regardless of the reason, must be declared. The only trips you do not have to declare are those where you left and came back to Canada on the same day.

Re: Citizenship.
 

Aviator made a comment the other day that he was able to get citizenship despite being out of country with his job a lot, via the citizenships judges interview or something...

Re: Citizenship.
 

As I recall, days on a work permit only count as half days and days where you were absent only part of the day count as a day once you are a PR. If you were absent part of the day on a work permit that would be a half day, same as if you were in Canada the whole day.

So you don't qualify for citizenship yet.

Re: Citizenship.
 

Not sure if that is still the case, the law changed recently in regard to that. It was possible for a citizenship judge to grant citizenship "in the interests of justice" if you only had two years residency because of unusual situations, but the law was changed recently so I'm not sure how it works anymore.

Re: Citizenship.
 

Thanks for all replies and especially PM from Aviator, since I am working Canada only now, I think I'll wait until I've got my time in then apply.
Thanks Neil.

Re: Citizenship.
 

We had the same problem with my husband who has been out of the country a lot, but working on contracts for Foreign Affairs Canada, he got them to provide a letter which we sent with our citizenship application but he still had to see the judge for a ruling - he was granted Citizenship even though he did not qualify on number of days in Canada.