IRCC Deputy Minister Transition Binder 2022: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada – State-of-Play

Welcome to IRCC!

• This package includes background material on the Department and its priorities. Below you will find a brief overview of our policy, operational, and corporate environment.

Policy Environment

Key to Government Priorities

• With a mandate that straddles economic and social issues, international and domestic facets, and has a national security dimension, IRCC’s programming is key to many Government priorities. For example:
  • Canada stands as a world leader in managed migration at a time when migration is increasingly high profile given its role in helping meet labour market needs and responding to humanitarian crises, including Afghanistan and Ukraine. Canada’s approach to managed migration, and in particular its humanitarian leadership through refugee resettlement, is part of the objective of advancing Canadian international leadership in a rules-based multilateral environment.
  • On an annual basis, IRCC facilitates the admission of a targeted number of permanent residents (PRs) through the Multi-Year Levels Plan (MYLP). The MYLP allows Canada to manage application intake in most PR programs in order to pursue the objectives of attracting talent, reuniting families and offering protection. In 2021, Canada welcomed more permanent residents than any other year in history – over 405,000. In 2022 planned permanent resident admissions are again at record levels.
  • Immigration is a shared federal-provincial-territorial (FPT) responsibility. IRCC has individual agreements with PTs that prescribe how responsibility is shared for immigration in each jurisdiction. The relationship with Quebec is governed by the Canada-Québec Accord, granting Quebec additional immigration authorities.
  • The attraction and selection of skilled immigrants is a critical contribution to objectives related to economic growth, spurring innovation and the digital economy, and meeting specific regional (rural) and sector needs.
  • Settlement programming and the pathway to citizenship align with objectives related to diversity and inclusion.
  • The Passport program contributes to priorities related to traveller facilitation, modernized client service, and national security (program integrity).
• The contribution of immigration to Canadian society is clear. It is increasingly looked to as a solution for many current issues in the policy arena (e.g., demographic trends, investment attraction, labour shortages, bilateral relations, tourism strategies, etc.). Given Canada continues its post‑pandemic recovery and the high number of displaced people in the world, immigration will continue to play a key role in our economy, as well as supporting Canada’s leadership in migration diplomacy.
• At the same time, IRCC is aiming to transform into a digital organization able to deliver on an evolving managed migration model and maximize benefits for our clients and Canadians. The cornerstone of that vision is our investment in digital platform modernization.

Mandate Commitments

• On December 16, 2021, the Minister of IRCC received a new Mandate Letter, which includes 16 IRCC-led commitments broadly falling under the following areas of work:
  • continue to strengthen the immigration and refugee system, including admitting more newcomers to support Canada’s economic recovery;
  • urgently provide resettlement opportunities to people under threat, including Afghan citizens and human rights defenders; and,
  • continue to strengthen family reunification and reduce application processing times.
• The Department is also supporting Employment and Social Development Canada on three additional mandate letter commitments related to temporary foreign workers.
• Beginning this year, the Privy Council Office (PCO) introduced a new process to track the implementation of mandate letter commitments. PCO is using this information for internal purposes to support a greater line of sight and understanding for the Prime Minister, Clerk, and other decision-makers, on progress, challenges, and next steps. IRCC recently completed (May 2022) the second reporting cycle of the current mandate, with the input being Deputy-approved as per PCO requirements. Public reporting on the mandate letter commitments is expected to begin sometime in Fall 2022 or Winter 2023.
• Out of the 16 commitments, one (1) mandate commitment is complete and six (6) mandate commitments are progressing well. At this early stage, the remaining nine (9) are progressing at a slower pace, but are expected to be met within the current mandate.
• A copy of IRCC’s Mandate Commitment Placemat, which draws on PCO input and is used to brief the Minister, is included for your reference (see tab A - Spring 2022 Mandate Letter Update). This placemat provides an overview of progress to date on the mandate letter commitments, milestones until September 2022, as well as implementation challenges and mitigation strategies to address these challenges.

Operational Environment

• While the policy agenda for IRCC has been consistently ambitious in recent years, the Department is also defined by its significant processing operations (dominant lines of business: processing temporary resident visas, applications for permanent residence, citizenship and passport applications), which are experiencing unprecedented growth in terms of volumes, human resource needs, and investments.
• Internationally, IRCC’s network is comprised of nine area offices; 60 overseas offices; and 164 Visa Application Centres (VACs) in 111 countries. Processing cases from this International Network is shared with the Centralized Network and the Domestic Network, operating from within Canada. IRCC operations (as well as delivery partners) nationally and internationally were significantly impacted by the pandemic due to the stay at home order and overseas office closures. The Department continues to deal with backlogs that emerged as a result of the pandemic.
• All lines of business (immigration, temporary residence, and citizenship) are on an increase in volume growth trajectory, which is expected to continue. While some of this growth (e.g., permanent immigration through the Multi-Year Levels Plan) has been accompanied by new investments, other areas, notably, Temporary Resident Visas, do not have a funding model that is tied to volume growth.
• This dynamic (simultaneous growth across areas managed by an integrated network and funding appropriations that don’t track volumes) means that the Department and its partners (e.g., CBSA, RCMP, CSIS on security screening) face pressures to maintain high quality services within consistent and/or improved service standards.
• To manage volumes the Department is working to improve the client experience and provide client-centered design; maximize work-sharing across networks and risk triaging; leverage automation and advanced analytics models; and, advance an operational Learning Academy.

Public Environment

Parliament, Public Opinion and Communications

• The Department continues to respond to the pandemic context as well as two urgent humanitarian crises (Afghanistan and Ukraine), while delivering on existing policy and program directions and the new mandate commitments.
• Immigration and citizenship issues have been front and centre in Parliamentary and public debate (e.g., Humanitarian Crises, Irregular Border Crossings, Processing Times, Systemic Racism and Differential Outcomes). As a result, it is expected that the level of senior management appearances at Parliamentary Committees will continue to increase. Despite growing populist dynamics in other countries, political parties in Canada have tended to be supportive of immigration in general, but they differ in approach on certain issues such as immigration levels, temporary foreign workers, family reunification, and irregular migration, to name a few. Consequently, the parliamentary environment can be quite dynamic.
• While public opinion (which IRCC has tracked systematically for over 20 years) about immigration in Canada continues to be broadly stable, supportive, and more positive than a majority of other countries, it is a volatile area that can be influenced by events and/or shifts in political discourse and tactics. IRCC works to communicate in a manner that maintains confidence in the overall immigration system and emphasizes the benefits of immigration (e.g., the Immigration Matters initiative).

Corporate Environment

Positive Culture

• IRCC has fostered a positive work environment and has been recognized as one of the National Capital Region’s top employers for 2022. This is due to factors such as a focus on employee wellness, retirement planning assistance and health benefits, as well as recruitment practices that foster diversity. In addition, IRCC offers flexible remote/hybrid work models which has allowed us to recruit staff from across the country.
• IRCC continues to face challenges in the area of anti-racism and discrimination both from an operational and people management lens. In response to this, IRCC has invested in developing an Anti-Racism Task Force which researches and guides the department in making recommendations and changes to policy, programs, and service delivery.
• IRCC has developed sector commitments to ensure that anti-racism work is streamlined across the entire organization. We are building transparency and trust across in the department by publishing action plans and  reporting quarterly on progress to date for anti-racism initiatives.
• IRCC has also been at the forefront of the workplace and workforce of the future, and work is ongoing to ensure employees can conduct work safely and securely as the public health context evolves.

Wellness and Managing Growth

• Mental health and wellness have been an increasing focus at all levels of the organization.
• While awareness of and attention to these issues is more prominent in all organizations, IRCC’s environment brings particular challenges: for example, the recent rapid pace of change and growth; employees confronted with high workloads and difficult cases (e.g., refugee processing); and managing organizational growth (hiring, new accommodations, department with the highest volume of ATIP requests and litigation, etc.).

Financials

• IRCC’s Main Estimates for 2022-2023 total $3.908B. This represents a net increase of $654.4M in financial resources compared to 2021-2022 Main Estimates.
• Funding increases are mostly comprised of $208.8M for the implementation of the multi-year immigration levels plans, $173.0M for the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), $106.2M for the Afghanistan resettlement commitment, $83.5M for the Interim Federal Health program (IFHP), $46.8M for the Canada-Quebec Accord on immigration, $33.1M to proceed with building Canada’s modern, digital and data-driven migration system, $22.1M to uphold and improve client services, $21.6M related to the enhancement of Canada’s asylum system, $15.7M for the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, $10.6M to extend the Racialized Newcomer Women Pilot, $6.3M transferred from Global Affairs Canada to adjust funding previously provided for departmental staff located at missions abroad, $2.4M to respond to the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis, as well as $1.9M to increase protection for temporary foreign workers.
• These increases are offset by decreases of $57.4 million due to statutory adjustments related to the Passport Program revolving fund, $7.8M related to Employee Benefits Plans Adjustment, $4.5M in a budget reduction for travel costs, $3.9M in a net transfer to Shared Services Canada for the Enterprise funding model for Government IT services, as well as $4.1M for other minor funding adjustments.
• In addition, IRCC will be receiving $451.4M via Supplementary Estimates (A) which is comprised of $247.8M for immigration, time-limited settlement measures, temporary accommodations and income support for Ukrainians, $112.4M for the immigration approach in response to the situation in Ukraine (Budget 2022) and $91.2M for the resettlement commitment for the evacuation and immigration of Afghan nationals to Canada.
• To date, IRCC’s total authorities to date for 2022-2023 are equivalent to some $4.4 billion which is comprised of $1.7B in Vote 1 – Operating expenditures, $30.4M in Vote 5 – Capital expenditures, $2.4B in Vote 10 – Grants and contributions, and $218.7M of statutory authorities including $109.9M for the Passport Program revolving fund.