CIMM - Summary of the Immigration and Refugee Board’s 2021-2022 Main Estimates - Mar 8, 2021

Key messages

• The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) 2021-2022 Main Estimates total $283M. This amount includes:
  • $130M in base funding;
  • $136M in temporary funding approved through Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020;
  • $15M re-profiled B2019 funding from 2019-2020; and,
  • $2M also provided through B2019 to improve IT interoperability amongst asylum system departments.
• The $283M in Main Estimates does not include:
  • $14M which is allocated directly to Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Shared Services Canada to provide the IRB with accommodations and IT infrastructure services;
  • $4M ongoing funding for the Public Service Alliance of Canada salary increases which will be allocated to IRB through in-year adjustments; and
  • Other potential in-year adjustments, such as the operating budget carry forward.
• The IRB 2021-2022 Main Estimate of $283M represents an increase of 1.3% or $3.6M over the $279M reported in the 2020-2021 Main Estimates. The year-over-year increase is due primarily to a net increase in funding re-profiled to each year.
• 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 50,000 asylum claims and 13,500 appeals each year.

Background

Approach to business resumption

• The Board is committed to protecting the health and safety of its staff and those who appear before it, while also ensuring meaningful access to justice.
• Prior to the pandemic, the IRB was on track to meet its projections of processing approximately 50,000 claims and 13,500 appeals a year.
• Although most in-person hearings were suspended in March 2020 because of the pandemic, the Immigration Division continued to hold detention reviews and some admissibility hearings where individuals were detained.
• While in-person hearings were suspended, members finalized reserved decisions, finalized claims and appeals that did not require a hearing and developed policies and procedures to prepare for remote hearings.
• The IRB quickly adopted a business resumption strategy, which included a range of initiatives to further enable remote operations, including remote hearings, while returning employees to the workplace to resume in-person hearings, in line with public health guidance from federal, provincial and local authorities. The IRB has been assured by the Public Health Agency of Canada that the Board’s health and safety protocols offer robust measures to mitigate the risk COVID-19 infection and transmission on IRB premises.
• The Board began piloting remote hearings in June 2020, and began resuming in-person hearings across all Tribunals in July 2020, once health and safety measures could be fully implemented.
• Throughout fall 2020 and early winter 2021, the Board shifted its hearings model to increase the proportion of hearings held remotely. As of January 18, 2021, and for the foreseeable future, only remote hearings will be held. To date, over 8,000 claims and appeals have been heard remotely. Urgent and particularly sensitive hearings may be considered for in-person hearings on a case-by-case basis. The Board expects this approach to last until at least September 2021 (source).

Productivity during COVID - Supporting Facts and Figures

• The IRB has finalized nearly 30,000 refugee claims and appeals, and more than 7,000 immigration-related decisions since April 1, 2020. The overall inventory across all divisions has declined by 15%.
• The current inventory of refugee claims is at 78,000, down 14% from 91,000 since April 2020. It is projected that this inventory will be below 70,000 by March 31, 2021. The current inventory of refugee appeals is close to 6,400, down 24% from 8,400 since April 2020.
• The average expected wait time is currently 24 months for refugee protection claims and 12 months for refugee appeals. Without the extension of temporary funding from the Economic Update 2020, wait times for refugee protection claims would currently be in excess of 36 months.