 Hi everybody, welcome to our channel. Today I wanted to make a video on citizenship application. I'm going to talk about seven tips on how to prepare your citizenship application to ensure that it's processed smoothly and that it's approved. Tip number one, make sure that you have all the right required documentation. So there are certain documents on the document checklist which might take a couple of weeks or a couple of months to get. So make sure you have those before you apply for example. Right now if you have lived in certain number of time outside of Canada during the eligibility period of your citizenship application, you do need to provide a police clearance and sometimes that takes some time. So make sure you look at that before you start preparing and finalizing your application. Tip number two, correct calculations for your citizenship residency requirement. So right now the law in order to become a Canadian citizen is you have to spend three years out of the last five years in Canada physically. In your application, there are forms that you have to fill out. So make sure that the dates that you write are the correct dates. I always advise clients who become permanent residents up until the time that they're going to apply for citizenship to keep an Excel sheet with all of your ins and outs of Canada. With the dates, a proper calendar system and also keep a record of all your flight confirmations, boarding passes and any other evidence you have that can show your travels. Because even if you do indicate on reforms certain dates, it doesn't necessarily mean that the officers want to believe you. So if you've traveled a lot and if your days are very tight and there's other concerns in your file, the officer can scrutinize your application and then send you what's called a residence questionnaire or send you a letter with questions about where have you been or you said you were traveling here. Do you have any evidence? Can you show me that you actually left? Can you show me that you're actually in Canada? Do you have anything to prove to me that you're in Canada for all this time? So sometimes immigration might ask for health care records or exit and entry records or bank statements or any document that shows that you're actually living in Canada. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that lie in their applications. So because of that, officers have to do their job. So they have to make sure that the people that are applying for Canadian citizenship actually meet the dates. So make sure you include your correct calculation and that you have a backup as a sheet with an explanation and your evidence that you're keeping. Just in case there's a citizenship interview or a hearing that takes place or you get send a letter that asks you for further evidence. If you provide everything and the officer is satisfied, then your application is going to be approved. Tip number three, language requirements. Make sure that before you apply, you make sure that if you do need to take a test for your citizenship that you do take the test. Sometimes that could take a couple of weeks to schedule and then to obtain the results. So you need that in order to apply for your application. Tip number four, once your application is ready to go, don't send it by regular mail. Always make sure you send it by courier, FedEx or PostCanada. I prefer FedEx over PostCanada because FedEx has more. They guarantee the days and whereas PostCanada, even if they say one or two days, it could take three to four days. And with a signature, either PostCanada or FedEx or any other courier company that you trust. Because if you do send it by regular mail, it can get lost. It's a big package. It's an important document and also there's no it could get lost in immigration in their offices. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen sometimes and it can be very frustrating because you could file your application. Immigration holds on to it for many months or finds it months later or you submitted it and then you don't hear anything. You can contact them. They just tell you, you know, general information on the website says it could take this long and then eventually later on you find out that maybe didn't even receive it. But if you do send it by registered mail or courier, then there's a track. You have a tracking number. You have someone that signed for it. So if they say that they can't find it for some reason, you can say, well, actually you do have it and they can look into it further. Tip number five. Once you have filed your application, immigration is going to correspond with you many times when they're processing it. So always make sure that you verify your mail and your email. If you have a lawyer on file, usually your lawyer gets everything. But even if you do have a lawyer on file, sometimes they can still send you send email to the client to you directly. Sometimes usually nowadays they communicate more by email, but sometimes they do send it by mail as well. So always make sure you check your emails, your spam folders, your mail at home. Because if you do miss the letters and in citizenship, they kind of they could give you timelines pretty quickly. You can get a letter that says you have to come to your test in the next week or in two weeks. And then you can get a letter that says you have a citizenship interview next week or you have your old ceremony next week. And if you're traveling or you're not checking your mail, then the days can pass very fast and then you missed everything. So you have to send letters, ask if you can do it again and that could delay everything. Another place to check also is online. Immigration has an online status portal where you can go in and check the status of your application. Not all applications have this, most applications have it. Citizenship has it for citizenship applications. As lawyers at our office, we check that, but we don't rely on that because we find that it's not always updated information. So sometimes we may have gotten a letter, maybe our client has already become a citizen. And then if you go online it says we have received their application. It's processing. It's not the best system for the most updated information. So as lawyers, we don't verify that, we verify that, but we don't rely on that. But we do verify it because sometimes it has happened that a letter is sent out, we never got it. We even were a lawyer on file, we never got it. We went online and sent as a letter was sent on this day, but we never received an email or a letter. So then you have to contact immigration and say you never sent me that. I would say generally we get everything that immigration sent to us, but the system is not perfect, of course. So sometimes they might send a letter by regular mail, but it gets lost. They say they sent it, but they didn't send it. Sometimes I send an email and I see it, it says send. I call the person I send it to, they don't receive anything. No junk, no spam, it happens. So check the online system at the same time as you check the email and the paper. But don't just, for example, don't only rely on the online system. And another thing with the online system is very often we'll say send letter. But the next day or the day after you can't be like, I didn't get the letter. I find usually it takes about a week, sometimes a little bit more to get the letter. Because just because they say sent the letter doesn't mean they sent the letter on that day. And immigration usually sends all the letters by regular mail. So if you, you know, holidays and weekends and regular mail could easily take five to seven, eight business days. So just be mindful of that. Tip number six, if you can't make your citizenship, if you have to take the test and you can't make it, or you can't make your old ceremony, make sure you send the letter. As soon as you can, asking, explaining why you can't make it and also asking them to reschedule it. Usually they're pretty good at rescheduling it. They won't reschedule it forever. So make sure you try to do it as soon as you can, it's possible. We've had some clients that were traveling and they weren't able to attend. So as long as you provide an explanation and you submit it with the right way and they receive it, you should be able to reschedule. Final tip, when you go to your old ceremony, this is after your application has been filed and approved. Make sure you come with your identity documentation on the letter it says to bring your ID and also that letter and also any documentation, any original documentation that you submit, that you have, that you use to submit your application. So usually that means the letter that you received, your passport, original passport, your PR card or your landing paper. And if there's some special circumstances in your case where you had to give other documentation, original clearances or something like that, you can bring those as well. Very important, if you are a permanent resident, you don't have your PR card to bring your landing paper, which is called also a confirmation of permanent residence. There's a lot of people that live in Canada that are permanent residents but who never renewed their card because they didn't need to, they were traveling. But they're permanent residents because they have been approved and they have the confirmation of permanent residence paper or the landing paper. But if you don't have that and you're a permanent resident, it's important to apply for what's called a verification of status, which is a document you can apply online. Last time we did it at the office, took about a week or so. It's a document that says verification of status, VOS, this person is a permanent resident of Canada. That kind of replaces your landing paper with your confirmation of permanent residence if you don't have it. There are a lot of people that, they didn't keep that, they got landed in Canada maybe 5, 10, 20 years ago, they can't find it. But when you go to your citizenship oath ceremony, they need to identify you. So if you have, as a permanent resident as well, so if you don't have a PR card, you need to have landing paper, and if you don't have that, then you should apply for verification of status document before that. Thank you. And if you have any questions, you can send us an email at info at keywordimmigrationlaw.com.