Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced efforts to bring application processing times for important programs back to service standards and reevaluate them as part of its newly issued strategy, An Immigration System for Canada’s Future.
Aligning the number of applications received with the number of available admission spots will be a part of this.
According to the Strategy, candidates won’t have to wait years for admissions if demand for a program outpaces available spots if the inflow of applications is in line with available spots.
It states that by shortening admissions intake wait times, candidates and their support systems would be able to better prepare for their arrival, which will facilitate their integration and settlement in Canada.
Applications for certain programs are overly numerous
Three years after the epidemic started, the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) has a backlog of applications to process.
Even though the government was grappling with border closures, travel limitations, and the difficulty to process applications because of temporary office closures, the IRCC continued to accept applications for the PGP throughout the epidemic.
This was true even though the program only grants a certain amount of visas annually. According to a recent IRCC document, there is presently an inventory of around 100,000 people for the PGP, and as of 2023, the IRCC is still processing applications from the 2020 pool.
Through the PGP, parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents can be sponsored to live in Canada.
Plan for Immigration Levels, 2024–2026
In its yearly Immigration Levels Plan, the IRCC establishes immigration objectives for a maximum of three years.
Targets for the number of permanent residents Canada intends to admit for 2024 (485,000) to 2025 and 2026 (500,000 each year) were laid forth in the most current plan, which was made public on November 1st.
According to Canada’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, the current strategy seeks to enhance the country’s workforce and economy by promoting sustainable population growth. This is an additional factor in the admission of applications.
The Levels Plan objectives take into account the limitations on the number of applications that can be submitted to the IRCC for the majority of permanent resident programs, including the PGP and the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP).
There is no annual cap on the amount of applications that can be filed for temporary resident programs, such as work or study permits and guest visas, which might cause an application backlog and longer processing.
The Minister has stated that he opposes placing a ceiling on the number of study permits that can be granted to foreign students studying in Canada.
Report of the Auditor General
As part of its strategy to expedite processing timeframes, IRCC is adjusting the intake of applications. It expands upon a recent study by the Auditor General of Canada (OAG), which looked at IRCC processing timeframes and discovered that they were often too lengthy. It suggests that the IRCC establish dependable and attainable service standards for each and every program leading to permanent residency.
It further suggested that the IRCC assess backlogged applications in order to pinpoint and address processing bottlenecks that are under its jurisdiction. It states that completing older backlogged applications should be the department’s first priority.
The Strategy further states that the IRCC intends to use digital technologies to help officers handle requests from offices throughout the world more efficiently. According to the OAG study, workload adjustments made at regional offices to account for capacity will also be important.
Lastly, the IRCC Strategy states that in order to ensure that there is no prejudice ingrained, it will employ advanced analytics more frequently to automate some decisions for common scenarios.
This portion of the plan is currently being implemented. The IRCC declared in September that it will handle work permit extensions and Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWPs) with a greater use of advanced analytics.
The tools are designed to handle the “clerical and repetitive tasks” associated with prioritizing applications, potentially streamlining the applicant intake process. These technologies should also free up more time for immigration agents to work on more complex or urgent applications.
Existing backlog
Eighty percent of applications must be processed by IRCC within service standards, or the amount of time the department determines is appropriate for processing an application.
The kind of application determines the different service standards. For instance, the processing of family class sponsorship applications may take up to a year, whereas Express Entry applications should not take longer than six months.
According to the most recent information provided by the IRCC, there were 2,194,900 applications in the system as of September 30, of which 928,000 were backlogged (meaning they were not processed in a timely manner).
Compared to the 2,198,000 applications in stock at the end of August, this represents a little decline.
In September, there were 585,700 more backlog applications for temporary residency visas, which include work permits, student visas, and visiting visas. This figure indicates a rise of 18% from the August statistics.