PACP - Identify and Address Differential wait times - December 5, 2023

Key Facts And Figures

• IRCC has made progress in reducing the Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) inventory in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Since December 31, 2022, the inventory decreased from 8.9K to 7.9K persons as of the end of October, 2023.
• While efforts are underway to reduce backlogs, the SSA inventory remains older compared to other regions. As of the end of October, 2023, 55% of the overall GAR inventory is less than 18 months old, compared to 31% for the SSA inventory.
• As of October 2023, 80% of GAR cases finalized in the SSA region in the last 6 months were completed within 42 months or less. IRCC has been making decisions on the older files in the backlog, which is reflected in the longer processing time. Once the backlog is cleared, the processing time should start to come down.

Key Messages

• IRCC is monitoring on a regular basis the size and age of inventory by region, as well as the age of files being processed in order to identify areas where inventories may be disproportionately ageing and if further action is required.
• I would like to emphasize that it is IRCC’s priority to decrease inventories and work towards the longer-term goal of reducing processing times for the refugee programs.
• IRCC utilizes a number of levers to address differential wait times including centralization of caseloads where possible, increasing capacity through position creation and short term staffing solutions, as well as targeted efforts where specific pressures are identified.
• As the number of refugees worldwide continues to grow, so too does the demand for Canada’s resettlement programs. This requires IRCC to apply a vulnerability lens to applications in process. New commitments to specific vulnerable populations may also have the unintended consequence of lengthening processing times for other beneficiaries in the queue.
• There will always be elements beyond the control of the Department that will hinder the processing of an application, some of which directly relate to conditions in the client’s country of residence and thus some differences in wait times may be unavoidable.

Supplementary Information

How did these differential wait times develop in the first place?

• Inventory is mostly affected by applications from a particular source. For example, a significant crisis would result in more refugees from areas where the crisis happens. IRCC does not have any control over where crises happen; and capacity to increase output or move resources requires time and planning.
• Processing times for refugee applications depend on a number of additional factors, some of which are beyond IRCC’s control, such as:
  • Due to the nature of resettlement processing, a higher volume of applications in this category need place-based assessments, requiring advanced planning and area travel;
  • Country conditions (security, environmental, geography) limiting predictable access to refugee populations for processing; lack of IT infrastructure makes it more difficult or impossible to use IRCC’s virtual tools or process at a distance;
  • Emerging regional events that impact access and processing activities, such as outbreak of communicable disease (eg. Ebola) or natural disaster (eg. earthquake);
  • Cooperation from the host government in allowing IRCC officers to access refugee populations and the timely issuance of exit permits to facilitate their move to Canada: this is an issue in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, three important countries of refuge in sub-Saharan Africa;
  • Changes in family composition (for example, the addition of a new baby) that might require additional documents and permissions from the host country.

Why were Government Assisted refugees from Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) backlogged?

• While the OAG has attributed significant weight to the capacity in the offices that would normally serve those citizenships, IRCC’s position is that the large volume of intake in recent years, limited overall refugee processing through the pandemic combined with host country conditions often outside of both IRCC and client control are the most significant contributors to longer processing times for the nationalities identified.
• This is explained by the high volumes of intake from 2020 to present; limited refugee processing capacity across all nationalities in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID impacts; and due to processing complexities related to country conditions where the identified nationalities would normally reside.
• The bulk of Democratic Republic of Congo citizens in the GAR inventory reside in countries where we do not have an IRCC presence (e.g. Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi), making it more difficult to process. For Somali GAR applicants, more than half have taken refuge in countries where we do not have a processing office (Uganda and Yemen) or sizeable processing presence (Ethiopia).
• Even in countries with a full-time IRCC presence such as Kenya, a significant portion of Congolese and Somali GAR applicants reside in refugee camps. These applicants do not have the same access to panel physicians, Visa Application Centers or IRCC officers as other GAR applicants in urban areas. These operational challenges can lead to processing delays. The impacts are the result of different operational and access conditions applicable to refugee resettlement processing not differential treatment by citizenship.
• The Office of the Auditor General compared the processing times for Syrians against these nationalities. While the supporting capacity, infrastructure and partnerships for Syrian refugees are now firmly established due to the significant and ongoing global response to the Syrian refugee crisis, it took several years to build it to address a continued need for refugee resettlement from Syria. Syrians also remain globally the largest national cohort in refugee situation/in need of international protection.