CIMM – Summary of the Immigration and Refugee Board’s 2022-2023 Main Estimates – March 3, 2022

Key Messages

The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) 2022-2023 Main Estimates total $282M. This amount includes:
- $139M in base funding;
- $127M of the $150M temporary funding announced by the Government in July 2020;
- $15M re-profiled from 2021-2022; and,
- $1M in temporary funding for measures for at-risk individuals from Afghanistan.
The IRB’s 2022-2023 Main Estimates of $282M represent a decrease of $1M from the $283M reported in the 2021-2022 Main Estimates. This decrease is due primarily to a transfer in 2022-2023 to Shared Services Canada (SSC) for the implementation of the Enterprise Service Model.
Of the $150M from the temporary funding, $23M has been reallocated to Public Services and Procurement Canada, and SSC to provide the IRB with accommodations and IT infrastructure services.
In July 2020, the Government extended the IRB’s temporary funding through 2023, by allocating $150M to each fiscal year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, to enhance Canada’s asylum system and boost capacity in order to finalize up to 50,000 asylum claims and up to 13,500 appeals each year.

The IRB is committed to protecting the health and safety of its staff and those who appear before it, while also ensuring meaningful access to justice.
In 2020 to respond to the pandemic, the IRB adapted its operations and began to pilot virtual hearings. By January 2021, the IRB moved to a remote-only hearings approach with only urgent and particularly sensitive cases considered for in-person hearings on an exceptional, case-by-case basis.
This approach balances the current public health guidance with the IRB’s ability to deliver access to justice and aims to minimize the risks associated with COVID-19 for both employees and people appearing before the IRB.
From June 2020 to end of January 2021, 99% of hearings have been held virtually, which represents nearly 50,000 virtual hearings, with a satisfaction rate over 95% in the Refugee Protection Division post-hearing surveys.
The IRB’s virtual hearings approach will continue for the foreseeable future pending the implementation of a virtual/in-person hybrid approach once health conditions allow.

Despite pandemic disruptions, the IRB has been able to return to full productivity. Among other things, the IRB has:
- reduced overall inventory of refugee cases and appeals by more than a third, from over 101,000 in May 2020 to 62,000 at the end of December 2021;
- brought wait times for new cases at both the Refugee Protection Division and Refugee Appeal Division down to their lowest levels since September 2016 (14 months and 5 months respectively);
- met strict legislative time limits in detention reviews; and
- eliminated the backlog of older appeals and introduced a new 12-month service standard for immigration appeals.
After border restrictions are eased, the IRB expects that the growth in inventory will return, as anticipated intake will once again exceed the IRB’s available capacity.
As of the end of December 2021, the IRB has finalized nearly 43,000 refugee claims and appeals, and more than 7,850 immigration-related decisions since April 1, 2021.
Overall, between April 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, the inventory across all IRB divisions has declined by nearly 40%.
Without the extension of temporary funding from the previous temporary Government investments in the asylum system, wait times for refugee protection claims would currently be in excess of 55 months.