Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) have reported clearance of over 500,000 applications since August of this year. This is nearly double the number of applications processed by the department during the same period in 2021. That time, it had processed 2.5 million. The breakthrough comes as IRCC plans to accept 431,000 new permanent residents to Canada by the end of 2022, a record-breaking figure.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said that the government has reduced its pandemic backlogs by nearly half a million, while also processing a record-breaking number of immigration applications this year. The actions are ensuring that they can continue to welcome and support newcomers who come to Canada to work, study, visit, or settle here. Because of the dedication and hard work of those who administer its immigration system, as well as their readiness to modernize and adapt, they can retain Canada’s reputation as a welcoming and open country.
The temporary residence category receives the most applications. IRCC handled nearly 700,000 job permits and 670,000 student permits in 2022. Between April and November, Canada welcomed over 251,000 new citizens.
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been dealing with a significant backlog of applications due to travel restrictions and office closures connected to the pandemic’s outbreak. As a result, IRCC has undertaken improvements to address operational inefficiencies, such as application digitalization. For example, citizenship applications for anybody over the age of 18 are now 100% digital, and less than 29% of the 317,600 citizenship applications in inventory are considered backlog. In addition, this August month, the department said that it will hire 1,250 new staff by the end of the year to assist in expediting application processing.
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has 2.2 million applications in inventory as of this December. According to IRCC data as of November 30, 1.09 million applications, as well as slightly more than half of all applications, are deemed backlogged, or not handled within service standards. The most recent data is an improvement above the November 3 data, which showed 2.4 million applications in inventory, although it is still much lower than the 2.6 million in September.
According to IRCC, all new spousal sponsorship applications are now handled within the pre-pandemic service norm of 12 months, and new Express Entry applications are completed within 6 months. IRCC has also eliminated the pandemic backlog of permanent resident card renewal applications by more than 95%.
A backlog application implies that it was not handled in compliance with service standards. These guidelines define the planned timeline, or goal, for how long an application should be handled. The service standard does not correspond to the time it takes IRCC to process applications.
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC’s) goal is to handle almost 80% of applications across all business lines within service standards. The service standard varies according to the basis of the application. A permanent residency application under an Express Entry program, for example, has a standard processing time of six months. Other economic class business lines take longer. The IRCC specifies a 12-month service requirement for spousal and child family class sponsorship.
Service requirements for temporary residency applications range from 60 to 120 days, depending on the kind of application (job or study) and whether it was submitted within Canada or from abroad. According to IRCC, most new study permits are currently being processed within service standards.
By the end of 2025, the Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025 seeks to admit approximately 500,000 new permanent residents to Canada each year. Read the full article here.
The ambitious goal comes as the government seeks to address critical labor-force deficits. Up to nine million Canadians are estimated to reach retirement age by 2030, with insufficient natural-born Canadians to fill the associated employment gaps. Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)has implemented many initiatives in the last year to boost the number of immigrants arriving in Canada. For example, IRCC has extended work permits to temporary foreign employees’ wives and working-age dependents and lowered the 20-hour-per-week employment restriction for international students.
The Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP), which became permanent earlier this year, and the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot have also been expanded. Furthermore, additional cash has been provided to the Economic Mobility Pilot Program to assist 2,000 skilled refugees.
Additionally, sector-specific initiatives have been put into place, most notably in the healthcare industry with the elimination of restrictions for physicians already residing in Canada on temporary work visas and the launch of the Foreign Credential Recognition Program, which supports the integration of skilled immigrants into the health sector’s labour market.
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