CIMM - Opening Remarks for The Honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) - Nov 25, 2020

Thank you, Madame Chair and members of the Committee.

I’m very pleased to speak to you today regarding IRCC’s Main Estimates, as well as our Supplementary Estimates (B).

For 2020–2021, IRCC’s Main Estimates include a total of $2.8 billion across all votes.

Our Supplementary Estimates (B) include new funding of $324.7 million, the majority of which is for the Interim Housing Assistance Program for resettled refugees.

This past year has certainly been difficult for all of us. With worldwide border closures and travel restrictions, COVID‑19 has significantly impacted our immigration system.

In the past, IRCC has always been able to meet its levels targets, and it took a pandemic to slow us down.

COVID-19 has upended global migration, including significant challenges due to widespread international travel restrictions, employees working remotely and constraints on our settlement partners.

We’ve taken quick action, by providing additional resources where they are needed most, streamlining our processes, leveraging technology and ramping systems back up.

There’s more work ahead, but where we are now is not where we were when the pandemic began, and we will continue in our efforts to serve Canadians and others who wish to come to our great country.

We’ve prioritized work permits for those in the most crucial sectors—like health-care workers, emergency service providers and our farmers and food processors—to make sure our front lines have the backup they need to keep us healthy and keep food on our tables. We also brought in exemptions that have helped families to reunite.

Measures were introduced to extend the stay of temporary residents who were unable to leave Canada because of travel restrictions.

We also put in place facilitative measures to address the concerns of international students and the designated learning institutions that depend on them.

Finally, we introduced innovative measures to continue “landing” permanent residents in Canada. In fact, our virtual landing process has actually reduced the time it typically takes to welcome a permanent resident.

It’s important for families to be together—particularly in difficult times—so we’re reuniting families faster by allocating additional resources, streamlining our processes, and moving paper applications to digital.

We’ve increased its number of decision makers on spousal applications by 66 percent, to reduce couples’ wait times and bring them together in Canada sooner.

These efforts will allow us to reach about 49,000 decisions by the end of this year, and will help bring more families together.

We’re beginning to reopen IRCC’s offices across Canada and our visa application centres, or VACs, around the world, as local restrictions allow. Many VACs in key countries like India and the United States are reopening just this week.

Lastly, our additional resources and streamlined processes have allowed us to move back towards normal processing times. For example, in the week ending on November 14, we issued 80% of final decisions compared to a similar period in 2019. Several streams actually exceeded production compared to last year—provincial nominees were at 232% and protected persons at 557%.

The pandemic has also spurred us to innovate when it comes to citizenship.

With all public gatherings off the table for the foreseeable future, we’ve taken citizenship ceremonies online, welcoming new Canadians at thousands of virtual ceremonies.

As of mid-October 2020, IRCC had sworn in or affirmed over 43,000 new Canadian citizens in 8,800 ceremonies.

We are also currently finalizing the development of a new online platform that will allow us to safely and securely resume citizenship testing online.

Finally, beginning January 1, 2021, citizenship applications for applicants aged 18 to 54 will be accepted electronically—a big step forward.

We’ve been efficient and nimble though this most challenging period, and these lessons will serve us well as we continue to welcome newcomers and strengthen Canada through immigration. Many of the innovations created will have a lasting impact on our processing times.

That’s important, because we’ve seen throughout our history that immigration is a driver of economic growth and job creation, and we know that it will continue to play a critical part in both our short-term economic recovery and long-term prosperity.

That is why our recently released immigration levels plan will gradually increase immigration over the next 3 years at a rate of about 1%.

As I’m sure you’re all aware, travel restrictions and other constraints led to a shortfall in admissions this year, which is why our increases over the next 3 years will make up for it.

While Canada’s immigration system has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we remain committed to bringing newcomers to our country.

We continue to accept applications and are processing them as quickly as possible, and we know that we must continue to innovate and evolve our business in order to meet targets.

IRCC will continue to find unique solutions in response to the challenges presented by the pandemic and border restrictions.

Immigration speaks to who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.

We’re choosing to be open, vibrant and prosperous.

Thank you.

My officials and I now welcome your questions.