Immigration Minister of Canada Sean Fraser acknowledges in a media conference that steps are being taken to get the immigration system back on track.
Things may return to normal by the end of 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the immigration system of Canada in two main ways. It closed a lot of immigration offices around the world and Canada lost a lot of horsepower as a department.
The other way explained by the immigration minister was that IRC needed to pivot relocating to permanent residency in Canada due to travel restrictions limiting the ability of those overseas to enter the country. This was the occurrence when new applications continued to flow leading to the gathering of inventory. In August 2021, Canada made a commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, and from February 2022, Canada seeks to assist those affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The good news is that Canada is now on the way to restoring its pre-pandemic service standard by the end of this year.
Solutions to improve customer experience and address backlogs
As per the immigration minister, there are three solutions to improve the immigration system that are policy, tech, and resources.
On the side of resources, there are 500 more staff are added. They also pointed out an additional $85 million and another $385 million issue in the federal budget that will help in improving application processing
For now, Canada will require a higher level of immigration to fulfill the growing demand to obtain Canadian PR.
The excellent policy of Canada is its immigration levels plan. If they don’t expand the number then they are not reducing the number of cases of inventory.
Canada will welcome more than 430,000 migrants annually at the start of this year, acknowledged by the Fraser in February. It is the highest level even in Canadian history. Canada is set to announce its immigration level plan from 2023 to 2025 by the 1st of this November.
The third solution is tech, improvement in the digital platform will increase the sureness and pace of Canada’s immigration system.
These measures are starting to take effect. A few weeks ago, it brought down 200,000 permanent residents to Canada. The minister said it has broken the previous record by 1.5 months.
“Work permits have increased by about 250 percent compared to last year.”
IRCC’s backlog has grown to 2.4 million during the pandemic and the department has struggled to achieve its own goals, which aim to process applications. Since the beginning of this year, it has made major announcements and changes as it seeks to reduce backlogs, and processing times, and provide greater certainty to its customers. In January, the immigration minister of Canada conducts a press conference and summarized the processing goal of IRCC that including steps taken to increase the capacity of staff and improve its process and technology.
This has been an advantage in the lowering of the backlog in the Express Entry application. The minister told CIC News that all the events, including the express entry draw, are scheduled to resume on July 6. In addition, IRCC aims to go back to its pre-pandemic service standard of processing Express Entry applications within six months starting in July.
Another advantage is that IRCC is in the process of introducing more case trackers to allow applicants to review the status of their files. The minister says that 17 lines of business will have case trackers by the end of this summer, allowing applicants to monitor their status digitally.
