The number of new applicants itself is way, way down from norms, simply due to the arithmetic given the sudden increase in the minimum requirement: increased by a year at least, and by up to two years for those who were living in Canada prior to becoming a PR. So the number of RQs will be way less just due to this factor alone.
By the way, again there are many, many new tools being used to ferret out fraud.
The GCMS background screening, for example, is not limited to queries run against the individual applying. Queries are now run to check for GCMS or FOSS records regarding listed employers, listed addresses, identified family members.
As soon as a front-employer, or front-address, is identified, there is a record in the system so when another person uses that same employer or address, there is a red flag. Probably no where near bullet-proof, but anyone using a fraudulent employer-front has many ways of being caught.
It also appears they have been using typical internet search engines to search for verifying or controverting indicators. They definitely look up telephone numbers using the internet. They do sometimes make phone calls.
The system is not nearly the sieve it was before 2010. As I noted, perhaps you have some association with some particularly sophisticated criminals with a strong motivation to obtain Canadian citizenship, so you are aware of some particular instances (in which case you really should be providing information about this to IRCC as soon as possible, or the RCMP). The vast majority of the fraud the system has dealt with, in contrast, has been relatively rudimentary if not crude, the majority of it perpetrated by a relatively small number of crooked consultants who were in it to make money, which was limited by how much their clientele was willing to pay. The enhanced interdiction has largely pushed costs beyond returns. Not the problem it was just six or eight years ago. But sure, it never fully goes away. There will always be some trying to game the system, and some of those will be sophisticated enough to get away with it. If you know of some, and particularly if you are bothered by that (which of course you should be), time to make the call to the TIP line, at the least.
And, by the way, more than a couple of the consultants who provided fraudulent services are currently incarcerated, and some have exited Canada to avoid prosecution.
Also note, there have been some citizenship revocation cases reported which clearly indicate that once CIC identified consultants facilitating fraud, CIC re-examined the files of those who had employed that consultant. For anyone who is using a consultant to facilitate fraud (including, for example, those who provide bogus or front employers or such), be aware that once one person in that scheme is caught, the RCMP will make an effort to work back up the chain to identify the consultant, and then back down the chain to identify all those who used that consultant. Using any of these services ties an individual to a big, big net, which can drag the individual into the prosecution of fraud side of the system anytime. (One of the recent revocation cases involved a family who had become citizens many years ago . . . their consultant got caught about five years ago . . . and the process took its time, but they are now no longer citizens, lucky to not be in jail.)
Diplomatru said:
I find it pretty compelling that the sole purpose of triage criteria was to deliberately slow the Canadian citizenship program at the program delivery level so that later Harper's people could come up with an alleged fix to the backlog (C-24) and sell it to the public.
I have nothing good to say about Jason Kenney's OB 407 and the disaster it wrought, the injustice it imposed on literally tens of thousands of qualified PRs legitimately seeking citizenship.
But the backlog was already huge before that. Due in significant part to the current discussion, the problem of fraud and a big bureaucracy which for too long operated in the dark oblivious to how much fraud was being perpetrated. (But note, even given the highest estimates of fraud by the fear-mongering, alarmist Conservatives, it was still a rather tiny percentage . . . at the most a few thousand over the course of many years during which more than a million immigrants became citizens.)
And the triage criteria itself was mostly a revised version of what had been employed as
reasons-to-question-residence under the previous Liberal leadership . . . albeit, broadened considerably and applied in a way that swept huge numbers of qualified applicants into the residency case mire.