CIMM – Client Excellence and Experience in Action – October 24, 2023

Key Facts and Figures

As of August 31, 2023, 62% of applications in all Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) inventories are within service standards. Many lines of business are now back within services standards and even offering faster processing times, such as Students and Canadian Experience Class.
IRCC continues to produce a high volume of final decisions across all business lines. Between January and August 2023, IRCC made nearly 4.95M final decisions for permanent residents, temporary residents (excluding Electronic Travel Authorizations) and citizenship. Comparably, the Department made 5.2M final decisions across all of 2022.
- The pace of output across permanent residence lines of business remains strong at more than 383K from January to August 2023.
- Processing production is also high year to date across temporary residence lines of business with more than 4.3M total visas/permits issued from January to August 2023, compared to a total of over 2.4 M for the same period in 2022.
To help clients and their representatives easily track the status of their application information online, IRCC has implemented application status trackers for multiple permanent and temporary residence programs. Clients in citizenship, family class, and Express Entry, as well as Temporary Resident Visa, study permit and work permit lines of business now have access. Since early October 2023, Member of Parliament offices have access to the Application Status Tracker for immigration applications.

IRCC is committed to delivering quality client service across its global network as we continue to welcome historic numbers of newcomers. The Department is well positioned to achieve this year’s target of 465,000 admissions for permanent residents.
IRCC continues to improve client services that are anchored in clients’ insights gathered through direct client feedback, and to modernize by adapting, modifying, and reinventing how services are delivered to clients, including introducing online citizenship testing, virtual citizenship ceremonies, and Application Status Trackers for multiple programs.
Over the next five years, IRCC is undergoing business transformation to modernize the Department’s suite of programs and services to significantly improve the client experience.
IRCC has made significant investments in processing. Backlogs are being addressed and cleared, which will ultimately reduce overall processing times, and in turn lead to a reduction in client enquiries. IRCC’s goal is to process 80% of applications within service standards, which allows for expected delays in some very complex cases or when more information is required from clients before finalizing their files.

IRCC’s Client Support Centre (CSC) is open Monday to Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET, ensuring coverage from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from coast to coast to provide direct and personalized responses to client enquiries through email and telephone. Investments have been made to improve capacity at the CSC to respond to a growing volume of client enquiries as well as stabilize the technology and tools used by its front-line agents.
The actions that IRCC has taken to reduce the backlogs of applications within its inventories include hiring more employees to increase processing capacity across business lines, reviewing and improving its processes to eliminate steps, and using technologies to support its employees and speed up processing.
Under the Digital Platform Modernization programme, IRCC is working to introduce a new Client Experience Platform. Once implemented, it will provide the tools and capabilities via a single digital “front-door” to offer a more seamless client experience, enabling personalized services to clients and replacing outdated and/or standalone client-facing portals and tools.