CIMM – Inquiry Of Ministry – May 27, 2024

Prepare in English and French Marking “Original Text” Or “Translation”

Question No.: Q-2426

By: Ms. Kwan (Vancouver East)

Date: March 14, 2024

Reply by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Paul Chiang, M.P.

Signature

Parliamentary Secretary

Question:

With regard to application backlogs and processing times at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to date: (a) how many temporary resident applications, permanent resident applications, and citizenship applications are in backlog, broken down by individual stream, including pilot programs; (b) what is the month-to-month reduction or increase in the number of applications in backlog, broken down by each individual stream, including pilot programs for the previous 60 months; and (c) how many applications have been processed and accepted for each individual stream, broken down by year, and by province or territory?

Reply: Original Text

Insofar as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is concerned:

All data provided is as of February 29, 2024. Please note that data is operational, based on preliminary estimates and is subject to change.

1. IRCC considers applications awaiting processing to be the inventory, and from this inventory, applications that exceed service standards to be the backlog. A service standard is required to calculate the number of applications in the backlog and not all lines of business are subject to a service standard. In those instances, the volume of applications in a backlog cannot be calculated. For those lines of business where a backlog can be calculated, these volumes are not able to be produced in the time allocated to respond to this request.

   However, please refer to Annex A (“IRCC Key Lines of Business at a Glance”) for data on the inventory (which includes applications in the backlog) of the permanent resident, temporary resident and citizenship lines of business from July 31, 2022 to February 29, 2024. Data has been provided by key lines of business. Further breakdowns, including pilot programs, would not be able to be produced in the time allocated to respond to this request. As of February 29, 2024, 58% or 1,227,050 of all IRCC applications are within processing times, out of a grand total of 2,126,200 applications (across all streams). Therefore 42% or 899,050 applications are considered to be in the backlog.

2. Please refer to Annex B - Tab A (Permanent Residence and Temporary Residence) and Tab B (Citizenship) for data on reduction or increase in the number of applications in our inventory (which includes applications in the backlog). Please note that the data has been broken down by year (2019- 2024). Data by month would not be able to be produced in the time allocated to respond to this request.
3. Please refer to Annex B – Tab B (Citizenship) and Tab C (Permanent Residence) for data on the number of applications processed and accepted for each individual stream, broken down by year and by province or territory. Please refer to Tab D (Temporary Residence) for the for data on the number of temporary resident applications processed and accepted for each individual stream, broken down by year. A breakdown by province and territory is not able to be provided. As the province/territory of intended destination in a temporary resident application is not a mandatory field, most temporary resident applications have an unspecified or unknown designation. Disclosing this data could lead to incomplete and/or misleading information.