IRCC Announced Measures to Modernize the Canadian Immigration System

For over a century, immigration has been a means to support the growth of Canada. Along with those who migrate to Canada permanently, many individuals come to Canada to stay temporarily (whether as visitors, international students, or temporary foreign workers). Regardless of their pathway to Canada, everyone contributes in a meaningful way to Canada’s economy and the growth of various industries and contributes to Canada’s diversity and multiculturalism.

Undoubtedly, immigration has contributed to the country’s development by filling labor shortages, particularly during the pandemic, as we can see that with immigration as a top priority, Canada welcomed the most permanent residents in a single year in 2021, processing a record number of applications.

However, border restrictions and other pandemic-related factors have also impacted processing delays, causing frustration for those attempting to Immigrate to Canada to work or reunite with their families, to address these concerns, the Honorable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, announced measures to improve immigrants’ experiences and modernize the immigration system. These measures are:

• The Government of Canada proposed $85 million in new funding to reduce application inventories in the Economic and Fiscal Update 2021.
• The investment will support additional staff (roughly 500 new processing staff), allowing Canada to welcome people who can help address labor shortages and reduce the current processing time to its service standards by the end of 2022, for programs including study permits, work permits, and permanent resident card renewals.
• IRCC is expanding the use of advanced data analytics that will help the case processing officers process visitor visa applications submitted from outside Canada 87% faster. With this applicants will receive decisions more quickly while program integrity is maintained.
• IRCC is also planning to digitize applications and reallocate work among our offices around the world.
• To help permanent residents, even more, IRCC plans to expand the digital application portal to include more clients in summer 2022, which will reduce COVID-19-related delays associated with paper applications and provide clients with immediate confirmation that their application was successfully submitted.
• IRCC will launch a new permanent residence application tracker for spouses and dependents in February 2022, allowing clients to easily access their application information and status online.
• IRCC has also created a portal that allows permanent residence applicants in Canada to complete their applications and receive their permanent residency cards without having to meet in person. This portal was used by 225,000 permanent residents between June 2021 and December 2021.

IRCC has introduced online testing for citizenship applicants, created an online application tracker, and launched virtual citizenship ceremonies. Since April 1, 2020, IRCC hosted approximately 350 virtual ceremonies per month in recent months, and more than 170,000 new Canadians have been sworn in.

In addition, IRCC plans to make 147,000 final permanent residence decisions in the first quarter of 2022, more than doubling the number made in the same period last year.