10:1 MEDICAL CHECKS

As part of the application process of coming to Canada, you and your family members may be required to undergo a medical check. If a medical examination is required, an officer will inform you of that and will also provide you with instructions on how to proceed. This phase of the process may add over three months to the processing of your application. Please note that the health assessment has to be done by one of the doctors from the Designated Medical Practitioners list.1

10:1.1 Medical checks for permanent residence applicants

All applicants for permanent residence in Canada are required to have a medical check-up done. The applicant and his or her family members, whether or not accompanying the main applicant to Canada, must take and pass the medical test in order to come to Canada.

Instructions on how to take the medical examination are sent to you after you submit your application to the visa office. The results of the examination are valid for only 12 months; if you are not admitted to Canada as a permanent resident within this time, you will be required to undergo another examination.

The doctor will not tell you the results of the check-up; however, s/he will let you know if you have a health-related problem. The designated doctor does not make the final decision with regard to whether or not a person passes the medical examination for immigration purposes; it is Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) which takes the final decision on this issue.

Applications for permanent residence will not be accepted by CIC if the person’s health:

• poses a danger to public health or safety;
• would cause excessive demand on health or social services in Canada. Examples of excessive demand include ongoing hospitalisation or institutional care for a physical or mental illness, and special education or training that may be required by the individual. In essence, individuals may be denied admission to Canada due to the high costs of their care.

The visa office will notify you in writing if there is a problem with your medical examination.

10:1.2 Medical checks for temporary residence applicants

If your stay in Canada as a tourist, student or temporary foreign worker will be less than six months long, in general you will not have to undergo a medical examination. If, however, your stay will extend beyond six months, you will have to get a medical check-up if you have resided in a designated country/territory2 in the year immediately preceding the date you are seeking entry into Canada.

Some temporary workers are required to undergo the examination regardless of the duration of their stay in Canada. That will be the case if you intend to work in an occupation in which protection of the public health is essential. Such occupations are those that would bring you in close contact (more than three hours per day and/or risk of exchange of body fluids) with people, namely:

• workers in the health sciences field, including staff and employees, clinical laboratory workers, patient attendants in nursing and geriatric homes, medical students admitted to Canada to attend university, medical electives and physicians on short-term positions;
• teachers of primary or secondary schools or other teachers of small children;
• domestics;
• workers who give in-home care to children, the elderly and the disabled; and
• day nursery employees.

Agricultural workers from some countries/territories are also required to undergo the medical exam.3

10:2 SECURITY CHECKS

You and all your family members who are 18 or older will be the subject of a background check. Your family members will undergo the background check whether or not they will be accompanying you to Canada. To be admissible to Canada, you and your family members must not present any risk to Canada.

Background checks are intended to bar entry into Canada of those who may disrupt law and order, threaten the country’s safety and security or be detrimental to national interests. Normally, CIC establishes the admissibility of applicants for permanent residence and their family members through documents such as the immigration application form, police certificates and background records and assessments.

10:2.1 Police certificates

An applicant and his/her family members who are 18 at the time the application is made, must obtain police certificates from the countries listed in Figure 234, provided that they have lived in any of those countries for six months or more since reaching the age of 18.

The police certificates that must be submitted with the application have to:

• be originals;
• be issued within the three months immediately preceding the date of making the application; and
• indicate either any criminal record or the absence of a criminal record.

It is your responsibility to contact the relevant authorities5 from the countries from which you must obtain a police clearance. Embassies or consulates of the countries concerned may be able to give you additional information with regard to the process.

You may have to provide information or documentation such as photographs, authorisation to release personal information, fingerprints, or your addresses and periods of residence in other countries. Some authorities may require a letter from CIC confirming that you have applied to immigrate to Canada and that you must obtain evidence of any criminal record as part of the processing of your application.

10:2.2 Additional information required for security purposes

If you have lived in one of the countries listed in the table below, 6 additional supplementary forms will have to be included in your application. Contact the relevant visa office for more information.

Argentina	Japan	Sri Lanka
Egypt	Republic of Ireland	Switzerland
Germany	South Korea	United States*
Israel	#	#

10:2.3 What happens if you have a criminal record

Generally, persons with a criminal conviction are not admitted into Canada. However, if a prescribed period has passed after they have completed their sentence or committed an offence and during which they were not convicted of a subsequent offence, they may be deemed to have been rehabilitated. Please find below more information about this topic.

If you or any of your family members have committed a criminal offence, you must provide, in addition to any police certificates or clearances, a full description of the circumstances surrounding the offence and the court record.

10:2.3.a Criminal record abroad

If you were convicted of, or committed a criminal offence outside Canada, you may be deemed to have been rehabilitated if:

• ten years have passed since you have completed the sentence imposed or since you have committed the offence; and
• the offence is one that would, in Canada, be an indictable offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of less than ten years.

If the offence is one that would, in Canada, be prosecuted summarily and if you were convicted of two or more such offences, that period is five years after the sentence imposed was served or to be served.

For a table with more information about the classification of offences in Canada and the length of rehabilitation periods, please see Figure 24.

10:2.3.b Criminal record in Canada

If you have a criminal conviction in Canada, you must seek a pardon from the National Parole Board of Canada before you apply for immigration to Canada. For further information, contact:

Clemency and Pardons Division

National Parole Board

410 Laurier Avenue West

Ottawa ON K1A 0R1

Tel: 1-800-874-2652 (callers in Canada and the United States only)

Fax: 1-613-941-4981 www.npb-cnlcgc.ca (the guide which includes application forms can be downloaded from the website)

If you have had two or more summary convictions in Canada, you may be deemed rehabilitated and no longer inadmissible if:

• five years have passed since the sentence imposed was served or to be served;
• you have had no subsequent convictions; and
• you have not been refused a pardon.

10:2.3.c Additional option for overcoming inadmissibility

In the event that none of the methods discussed are available to resolve inadmissibility into Canada (due to the existence of a criminal record) you may apply for a temporary resident permit, or in some cases ‘rehabilitation’ (a permanent removal of the immigration barrier) if enough time has passed. In such an application, you will need to convince an officer that the reason for your coming to Canada is valid, and that there no longer exists any criminal threat to Canadian security.

10:3 THE FEES

There are fees associated with the various applications for coming to Canada. See Schedule 4 (page 228) for the relevant fees at the time of the preparation of these materials.

Apart from the two types of fees discussed in more detail below, you have to consider the fees related to medical examination(s), police certificates and language tests. There may be additional fees, like for example the fee required by the individual provinces in the case of an application under a Provincial Nominee Program.

10:3.1 Application fee

This fee must be paid for the principal applicant and any accompanying family member at the time of the application. This fee is not refundable.

10:3.2 Right of permanent residence fee

This fee is to be paid in the case of applications for permanent residence in Canada. It is to be paid for the principal applicant and accompanying spouse or common law partner after the application is made and before CIC can issue you your permanent residence visa.

This fee is refundable if:

• you cancel your application;
• CIC does not issue a visa to you;
• you end up not using your visa.