I thought I would give some advice regarding the police certificates obtainable from the RCMP in Canada. Basically the process involves getting fingerprinted in the US and sending the fingerprints to the Ontario RCMP for a police record check. Unfortunately (and as many have realized), the RCMP have about a 5 month backlog which significantly delayed our consular processing. My advice is to not wait for Packet 3 to arrive before applying for police certificates.
In fact, as soon as you can reliably anticipate that you will get your Packet 3 someday, go immediately and get your fingerprints sent to RCMP. DO NOT wait until you have the instructions from the Packet. Basically, you just follow the instructions on the RCMP website anyhow, and submit the completed fingerprints with your Packet 3 when it arrives. This ought to save you at least a month or two of waiting. Good luck.
Also, we attempted to get local record checks by going into our home province's RCMP office, which is much quicker, but that was a bit risky as we had no Canadian address and they refused to do it. Some people have been successful in getting them by using their old address and "fudging" the truth, but I would not put all my faith in the ability to successfully get a record check this way as well as the ability to have it accepted by the Embassy. Try my shortcut instead.
Good luck! We're off to our final interview with P4 in January!!
In fact, as soon as you can reliably anticipate that you will get your Packet 3 someday, go immediately and get your fingerprints sent to RCMP. DO NOT wait until you have the instructions from the Packet. Basically, you just follow the instructions on the RCMP website anyhow, and submit the completed fingerprints with your Packet 3 when it arrives. This ought to save you at least a month or two of waiting. Good luck.
Also, we attempted to get local record checks by going into our home province's RCMP office, which is much quicker, but that was a bit risky as we had no Canadian address and they refused to do it. Some people have been successful in getting them by using their old address and "fudging" the truth, but I would not put all my faith in the ability to successfully get a record check this way as well as the ability to have it accepted by the Embassy. Try my shortcut instead.
Good luck! We're off to our final interview with P4 in January!!