PACP - Q-1309 IRCC Response - December 5, 2023
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Question no.
Q-1309
By
Ms. Kwan (Vancouver East)
Date
March 7, 2023
Marie-France Lalonde, M.P.
Question
With regard to the processing of immigration applications at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, for all streams, broken down by stream and by country of origin: (a) what are the current application processing service standards; (b) what are the actual current application processing times; (c) what percentage of applications are meeting the processing service standards; (d) where standards are not being met, what efforts are being undertaken by the department to improve processing times; (e) what are the acceptance and refusal rates; (f) what accounts for discrepancies in acceptance rates and processing times across geographic regions; and (g) how many applications are currently in the backlog and how long have these applications been in the system?
Reply
Insofar as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is concerned:
IRCC undertook an extensive preliminary search to determine the amount of information that would fall within the scope of the request to provide the processing times and application acceptance and refusal rates broken down by all streams and country of origin. Some of the data elements identified for this response would be too large to provide in this response and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information.
a) Application processing service standards can be found at the IRCC Service Standard – Canada.ca website.
b) and c) Please refer to IRCC’s Building a stronger immigration system - Canada.ca website for an up-to-date breakdown of the Department’s application inventory, which includes the progress made from the end of July 2022 to January 31, 2023, and the number of applications currently being processed within regular service standards.
IRCC has continued to progress in its efforts to reduce the backlogs incurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic, across all lines of businesses. In 2022, IRCC rendered over 5.2 million final decisions, 560,000 of those for permanent residents alone.
While processing times vary across different permanent resident lines of business, IRCC has made significant progress in reducing its backlog and is committed to returning to service standards as quickly as possible.
Application processing times by country can be found at the IRCC Check Processing Times – Canada.ca website. Country breakdown is available for selected categories.
d) Under the 2021 Economic and Fiscal Update, $85M was allocated for IRCC and federal partner organizations to reduce inventories and support return to service standards for select lines of business. Funds were allocated to hire employees at IRCC offices across Canada to help address the backlog of citizenship applications, temporary residence applications, to digitalize the backlog of paper files and to modernize the intake process for applications for permanent residence. To process more files, lessen wait times, and reduce the inventory of applications, IRCC hired
additional employees throughout 2022 and will continue hiring efforts throughout 2023. Efforts related to permanent resident processing have focused on intake stages, particularly to build IRCC’s capacity to receive and manage applications more efficiently by pivoting towards digital tools such as Permanent Resident Digital Intake (e-applications).
The funds dedicated for permanent resident processing allowed the Department to transition to 100% online intake for clients in most permanent resident categories as of October 28, 2022. Online applications introduce efficiencies by streamlining the intake process and by ensuring applications are entered into the Global Case Management System more quickly.
We plan to continue this progress in 2023. In the 2022 Fall Economic Statement, the government committed an additional $50 million for the Department to ensure, amongst others, continued momentum and progress on clearing out application backlogs, speeding up processing, improving client service and leveraging technologies to help meet our current economic goals and secure our country’s prosperity in the years ahead.
e) Please see Annex A for a breakdown of application outcomes and approval/refusal rates by stream.
f) The Department aims to process all applications received, regardless of country of origin, within committed service standards. There are factors outside of IRCC’s control that may affect the processing time of an application (e.g., type of application, immigration levels space, client response time to follow-up questions). These factors are equally applicable, regardless of the applicant’s country of origin.
g) Please refer to IRCC’s Building a stronger immigration system - Canada.ca website which presents a breakdown of applications currently pending in the inventory as well as the volume that are within service standards.