PACP - Recommendation #3: Reducing Permanent Resident Backlogs - December 5, 2023

Key Facts And Figures

• Following the audit period, significant progress has been made to reduce backlogged inventories in key lines of business:
  • Between January and October 2023 Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reduced the Federal High Skilled backlog from 20% to 12% of applications on inventory.
  • Between January and October 2023 IRCC reduced the Provincial Nominee Program (Express Entry) backlog from 38% to 27% of applications on inventory.
  • Between January and October 2023 IRCC reduced the spouses, partners and children (except for Quebec) backlog from 24% to 16% of applications on inventory.
• However, the number of Privately Sponsored Refugee (PSR) program applications in the backlog that are older than two years grew by approximately 1,000 between January and October 2023.
  • Demand for the PSR program has long outpaced annual admissions space for refugees, resulting in large inventories. Impacts of COVID-19 processing restrictions and the Afghan commitment, which included a number of PSR initiatives, have also added to inventory pressures.
  • One of the three sponsorship streams, Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH), in the PSR program caps application intake, however the remaining two streams, Group of Five and Community Sponsors, remain uncapped.
  • To address this, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was amended through the Budget Implementation Act, 2023, to clarify that the Minister may give instructions with respect to processing sponsor applications under the PSR program.
  • Resettlement Policy and partners are developing options to implement an intake management system for the PSR program using Ministerial Instructions. This will support the Department to manage its inventory and improve processing times.

Key Messages

• IRCC is making significant progress to reduce backlogs and is strongly committed to providing the best processing times to clients. This is critical to ensuring Canada remains competitive as a destination of choice for attracting global talent of highly skilled economic clients who will contribute to the Canadian economy and fulfill key labor shortages.
• Backlogs in the Privately Sponsored Refugee program continue to grow as the number of applications submitted to the program exceeds the available Levels space.
• By managing application intake, IRCC will ensure that applications for our most vulnerable clients are processed quickly.

Supplementary Information

• The Office of the Auditor General Report 9, 2023 recommendation in paragraph 9.43: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada should examine backlogged applications to identify and action processing delays within its control, including waiting for officer actions or follow-up. The Department should also prioritize the finalization of older backlogged applications while working to achieve the annual admission targets set by the Immigration Levels Plan.
  The Department’s response: Agreed.
• Each year, Canada sets numerical targets for new permanent resident admissions under the Immigration Levels Plan, which is tabled in Parliament.
  • The Immigration Levels Plan sets out admission targets across permanent resident programs, which thereby helps to determine the total number of applications that can be finalized each year.
  • The size of the Department’s application inventory fluctuates based on the difference between the annual admission targets and the number of new applications submitted each year.
  • Select economic class programs limit the number of applications that can be submitted, enabling inventories to be more effectively managed. Most family class, refugee and humanitarian class programs do not have intake management controls. As a result, the number of applications in the inventory often far exceed the annual admission targets, which affects processing times and backlog sizes, particularly for refugees.
• As of October 2023:
  • Federal High Skilled processing times are five months
  • Provincial Nominee Program Express Entry processing times are eight months
  • Spouses, partners and children (except for Quebec) processing times are 13 months
  • Privately Sponsored Refugee processing times are 38 months