Canada’s immigration department, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, efforts to realign application intake. Canada has recently announced its new Strategy called an Immigration System for Canada’s Future. As a part of this, IRCC has stated that it intends to reassess its application processing timelines and bring them back to its service for specific programs. A portion of this entails balancing the application intake with the open admission spots.  

According to the Strategy, harmonizing application intake with open admission capacities aims to avoid prolonged waiting periods faced by applicants. This happens in a situation when the demand for a program surpasses the open admission spots. 

It emphasized that lowering wait times by managing admissions intake will help applicants and individuals involved for assistance, guidance, and support. This aids in planning more effectively for their arrival, facilitating smoother settlement and integration in Canada.   

Why IRCC efforts to realign application intake: Application overflow in certain programs

Canada’s Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) was developed with the goal of reuniting families in Canada. The program authorizes citizens and PRs of Canada to sponsor their parents as well as grandparents to live in Canada. 

Currently, PGP is facing an application backlog extending three years back, originating from the start of the pandemic.

IRCC carried on to accept PGP applications during the pandemic even when it was experiencing several challenges. These include travel restrictions, border closures, and the inability to process applications caused by temporary application closures.

This was in spite of the fact that the program issued a specific number of visas every year. 

As per a recent IRCC memo, currently, there is an inventory of nearly 100,000 individuals for the PGP. As of 2023, IRCC is still processing the application pool of 2020. 

Canada’s Recent Immigration Levels Plan for 2024-2026

In the recently declared yearly immigration levels plan, Canada’s immigration department sets its immigration targets for the next three years. It was announced on November 1 and showed the number of expected PR the country aims to admit each upcoming three years. 

In 2024, the country expects to admit 485,000 PRs, and in both 2025 and 2026, it expects 500,000 PRs. IRCC’s Minister Marc Miller stated that the plan will enhance Canada’s economy and workforce via a balanced population growth.

This is another significant to consider in the application acceptance process as IRCC efforts to realign application intake.

Many of the PR programs in Canada, like PGP and PNP, have a limit on the total number of applications that IRCC accepts. These limits are specified in the targets of the immigration-level plan.

On the contrary, there is no limit on the total number of applications for some of the temporary resident programs for each year. These include study permits, work permits, and visitor visas. This can lead to an application backlog and slower application processing.

Canada’s immigration minister stated that he is opposed to caps on the number of international students in Canada. He said this in response to a limit on the total number of issued study permits. 

Canada’s Recent Auditor General Report: What Is It?

As IRCC efforts to realign application intake, it is only a portion of its Strategy to enhance application processing times. It expands upon a recent study by the Canada Auditor General (OAG). The report also studied IRCC’s application processing time and concluded that they were often excessively lengthy.

Besides these, the Auditor General report also provided suggestions on several aspects. It suggested that the department should establish reliable and attainable service standards for all PR programs. 

The report also advised IRCC to assess backlogged applications to discover and work on processing delays under its control. It recommends that the department prioritize the completion of previous backlogged applications.

The Strategy additionally stressed that the immigration department intends to employ digital tools for the application process. These will enable officials to easily and more effectively process candidate requests from offices worldwide.

The OAG study also highlighted that managing workload in regional offices as per their capacity will also be a contributing factor.

Ultimately, as per the IRCC Strategy, the department intends to enhance the utilization of Advanced Analytics to automate certain assessments for frequent cases. This is designed with careful attention to prevent any in-built biases within the system. 

Notably, IRCC has already implemented this part of the Strategy. The department has made an announcement this September that it would expand the use of Advanced Analytics. This is especially for processing Work Permit Extensions and Post-Graduation Work Permits (PGWPs).

These tools effectively manage clerical and repetitive tasks that help sort applications by priority. This way, automation can facilitate application intake procedures and make them more manageable. 

Moreover, these tools will free up immigration officers’ time and enable them to focus on other urgent tasks.

Applications Service Standards and Current Application Status

The service standard is the time specified by IRCC to process a specific application. Typically, IRCC intends to process around 80% of all applications within service standards.

 Based on the type of application, service standard varies significantly. For instance, the service standard for Express Entry is six months, while the application processing service standard for Family class sponsorship is a maximum of one year. 

According to the latest data from IRCC, there were 2,194,900 applications in inventory till September 30. Among these, 928,000 applications are considered backlog that the department couldn’t process within the service standard.

This is notably a slight decline from the applications in inventory at the end of August, which stand at 2,198,000. In September, there was the highest number of backlogged applications, i.e., 585,700, for temporary residence visas like study visas, work permits, and visitor visas. This figure is almost an 18% rise over the data of August.