Foreign Police Clearance for Immigration
If you want to immigrate to Canada, you and your dependants may have to provide police certificates when you submit your application for permanent residence. Visa offices may also request certificates from students and temporary foreign workers.
A police certificate is a copy of your criminal record or a declaration of the absence of any criminal record. Police certificates are different in each country and territory and may be called police clearance certificates, good conduct certificates, judicial record extracts, etc. They are issued by police authorities or government departments and used by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to prevent individuals who pose a risk to Canada?s security from entering the country.
In general, you and everyone in your family who is 18 years of age or over need to obtain a police certificate. You must obtain a police certificate from each country or territory where you have lived for six consecutive months or longer since reaching the age of 18.
The certificate must have been issued no more than three months before you submit your application.
If the original certificate is neither in English nor in French, submit both the certificate and the original copy of a translation prepared by an accredited translator with your application.