Edana Robitaille - 29 August, 2022
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says despite a backlog of over 2.4 million applications, it has already welcomed record breaking numbers of new permanent residents between January 1 to July 31, 2022.
Just over 405,000 permanent residents arrived in Canada in 2021. The Immigration Levels Plan targets to welcome 431,000 in 2022. Canada is on track to meet this goal as 275,000 permanent residents arrived between January and July.
At the same time, 349,000 new work permits were issued, including 220,000 open work permits. Study applications are also up 31 per cent for 2022.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser also announced that 1,250 new employees will be hired to improve processing speed and service standards, which has been the main contributing factor to the backlog.
IRCC has acknowledged that 54 per cent of applications in the backlog have not met the service standard. The department says this is due to global humanitarian crisis's such as Afghanistan and the ongoing situation in Ukraine. This has been compounded by aging technology that needs to be updated in addition to not enough staff.
To better communicate with the public, the IRCC website will now publish data about the backlog on their website and post updates on additional measures being taken to meet service standards. They endeavour to process 80 per cent of applications, across all lines of business, within the stated processing times.
The new webpage will outline projections on how long the department expects it to take to be able to achieve service standards. For example, IRCC say they expect to meet service standards for Express Entry, and the Spouses, Partners, and Childrens Program by the end of 2022. New applications under the Express Entry system will be processed within six months.
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