AFGH – Inventories and Processing Times – April 25, 2022
Key messages
Immigration is a key part of Canada’s economic growth strategy, helping to address labour shortages and keeping our communities thriving. Newcomers played an essential role in addressing some of our most severe labour shortages throughout the pandemic, including on the front lines.
The Department has modernized its processes to increase digitization of files, and offer digital intake for many lines of business which allow for greater remote processing of applications despite office closures.
In 2021, Canada welcomed the highest number of permanent residents in recent history and, to achieve this, IRCC staff finalized a record number of applications (over 500,000 final decisions). Nevertheless, border restrictions and other pandemic-related factors have led to increased processing times for many applicants, including long waits for application updates. We know these need to be addressed.
To respond to the pressures resulting from the global pandemic and to support Canada’s post-pandemic economic recovery, the Government has committed to provide $85M in 2022-2023 to IRCC and partners to address current application backlogs for various lines of business including students, workers, visitors, permanent residence cards and citizenship applications. The Department has already started putting these plans into motion.
Supplementary messages
Permanent residents
In 2021, IRCC adapted to the challenges brought on by the pandemic, while maintaining strong program integrity, by implementing new processes to receive and process permanent residence (PR) applications across our integrated network (i.e. digital intake, digitalization and scanning of applications), and by targeting and processing clients residing in Canada or exempt from travel restrictions.
In 2021, Canada welcomed over 405,000 new permanent residents, a record in the last century. IRCC achieved this objective by completing over half a million permanent residence final decisions, while focusing mostly on those who were already residing Canada, those who applied to reunite with family members in Canada and others facing humanitarian crises and seeking refuge in Canada. Over 75% of the 2021 permanent resident admissions were from clients already residing in Canada.
As a result, many inland permanent resident applicants experienced shorter processing times during the pandemic while some overseas applicants experienced longer processing times due to pandemic related service disruptions, and travel restrictions.
Canada’s family class granted permanent residency to over 80,990 individuals in 2021. In 2022, the Department aims to accept between 90,000 and 109,000 permanent residents under the family class.
As of end of February 2022, there are approximately 518,500 persons in the PR processing inventory.
Family Class immigration
The Department has introduced several measures to support and accelerate the processing of family class applications including file digitization, remote processing, conducting remote interviews, the use of Advanced Analytics, the introduction of an online application portal for clients and representatives and assigning an increased number of decision-makers to family class applications.
As of the end of February 2022, the processing time was 20 months for overseas spousal applications and 17 months for domestic spousal applications. Despite these delays, the increased processing capacity to spousal processing means that processing times for new spousal applications (outside Quebec) in 2022 are expected to be in line with the departmental commitment to process these applications within 12 months.
As of the end of February 2022, the processing time was 32 months for parents and grandparents applications. Longer processing times for parents and grandparents reflect an existing large inventory that will be addressed in coming years.
Economic Class immigration
In 2021, 62% of PR admissions consisted of clients under the Economic Class. In 2022, the Department plans to reduce the application inventory and improve client wait times by significantly increasing application processing capacity in this line of business while limiting and aligning intake under different economic programs.
Protected persons, refugees and other
To maximize admissions to Canada with the border closed for much of 2021, production targets and admissions for protected persons in Canada almost doubled in 2021. Processing times for protected persons in Canada were 23 months in February 2022, down from 24 months in February 2021.
Overall, the privately sponsored refugee inventory was 70,000 persons as of February 2022 with a processing time of 35 months; while the government-sponsored refugee inventory was 42,000 with the processing time of 27 months.
The Government of Canada is committed to resettling 40,000 refugees and vulnerable Afghans to Canada, and it has already resettled over 6,000 Afghans in 2021.
IRCC cannot provide an estimate as to how long it will take to process applications that are currently in Afghan SIMs and Humanitarian Program inventories. The Department is processing these applications as quickly as possible. The time required to process these applications will depend on a variety of factors, some outside IRCC’s control including whether the client is still in Afghanistan.
Study permits and study permit extensions:
The processing time at the end of February 2022 for both study permits and study permit extensions was 92 days and 79 days, respectively. Study permits are above the service standard of 60 days, while extensions are within the service standard of 120 days.
Inventory of study permits and study permit extensions were at 140,000 and 30,000 respectively. The inventory of study permits has been decreasing since the beginning of 2022.
Work permits and work permit extensions:
Processing times for work permit and work permit extensions applications at the end of February 2022 were above the service standard of 60 days at 94 days for initial work permits, and above the service standard of 120 days, at 132 days for work permit extensions.
Inventory of work permits and work permit extensions were at 99,000 and 145,000 respectively.
As it relates to work permits and their extensions, IRCC processing efforts have been focused on applications from those in critical occupations Canada (e.g. agriculture, health care, other key occupations) to facilitate and expedite their entry to Canada as well as to ensure those who are already Canada can continue to work.
New funding received through the Economic and Fiscal Update for fiscal year 2022-2023 will assist in eliminating TRV inventory of pre-September 2021 applications (~350,000) in winter 2023, as well as increasing capacity reducing study permit and work permit inventories.
Based on current scenarios, assuming that actual intake remains similar to projected figures and that additional capacity is added swiftly, IRCC expects to reach service standards in various programs by the end of this year, including for study permits, and work permits. We are also working to reduce processing times for visitor visas.
Temporary resident visas
For the post-September 7 temporary resident visa applications, processing times were about 59 calendar days, as of February 2022.
Citizenship grants
The citizenship grant inventory has grown over the pandemic, due to a traditionally paper-based process. As of the end of February 2022, it stood at approximately 453,200 applications (including unopened applications), with a 26-month processing time.
The Department has modernized its program delivery, offering a digital intake for grants and proofs, and doing online tests and virtual ceremonies. We are currently processing a higher volume of new citizens comparable to pre-pandemic levels.
As demand for citizenship grants is expected to grow, with additional funding to support higher citizenship grant new citizen targets, the Department is working towards the goal of returning to processing within a 12-month service standard. As part of the FES commitments, the Department plans to reduce the grants inventory as of December 31, 2021 (~366,000) to close to half (~183,000) by winter 2023. Moreover, the Department aims to eliminate the December 31 inventory of ~60,000 clients awaiting a citizenship ceremony by December 2022.
Citizenship proofs
As of the end of February 2022, the citizenship proof inventory is at over 65,300 applications (including unopened applications), and current processing times remained at 17 months.
Similar to citizenship grants, the Department has been taking steps to modernize the proof line of business, launching electronic applications as an alternative to paper. With the infusion of the FES one-time investment funding in fiscal year 2022-2023, the Department will reduce the proof inventory of ~55,000 as of December 31, 2021, to 25,000 by March 2023.
Processing times
Clients can look at the status of their application in their MyAccount, through the Citizenship Case Status Tracker that IRCC launched on May 10, 2021, or more recently, through the new Permanent Residence Case Tracker for family class spousal, common law, and dependent clients applications. In the future, IRCC plans to launch additional application status tools for other lines of business.
