The immigration minister of Canada, along with members of an Ottawa task committee, informed Canadians of the government's efforts to minimize immigration backlogs.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser joined other task force members on August 29 to
inform Canadians and immigrants about what the government is doing to alleviate
the backlog and modernize the immigration system.
Fraser serves as an ex-officio member of a task team established in June
to shorten wait times for immigration documents and passports. The task force
held a news conference to highlight recent events, as well as the underlying
pandemic-related reasons for considerable increases in demand for travel and
other government services. Throughout the summer, the task group met on a
regular basis to identify priority areas for action and to describe short- and
long-term solutions.
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Fraser emphasized how Canada is attempting to improve services at
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) by doing the following:
- Hiring up to 1,250 more personnel by the end of the fall to boost processing capacity and address backlogs in the short term;
- Modernizing and streamlining IRCC processes to make Canada's system more sustainable in the long run;
- As of August 22, nearly 300,000 new permanent residents had arrived.
- Issuing nearly 349,000 new work permits this year from January 1 to July 31, compared to approximately 112,000 issued during the same period in 2021.
- Completing over 360,000 study permits between January 1 and July 31, 2022, compared to approximately 306,000 completed during the same period in 2021;
- Approval of over 216,000 applications for the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel from March 17 to August 24, 2022, for Ukrainians and family members seeking safety in Canada;
- Implementation of application status trackers for citizenship and some permanent residence applicants to provide timely information on their files, which will be expanded to more clients in the coming year; and
- Publication of monthly data on the IRCC website to
keep Canadians informed.
"Families, communities and companies deserve an immigration system
that works for everyone," Fraser said in a statement released by the
government. "We will deliver on our promise to Canadians by focused
investments, recruiting 1,250 personnel to handle the backlog, and improving
our online systems and processes." We will continue to help communities
around the country access the talent they require by reducing wait times and
working hard to attract and retain qualified individuals."
According to the statement, IRCC manages approximately 1 million
applications from its inventory at any given moment, and by 2021, IRCC will
have finalized 1.7 million applications across all business lines. According to
the IRCC website, there are currently 2.4 million applications waiting in all
IRCC inventories, down from 2.7 million in July. 1.1 million of those now in
the IRCC inventory meet service standards, while 1.3 million are in the
backlog.
Karina Gould, Canada's minister of families, also talked at the
conference about how Canada is modernizing passport procedures. Specifically,
by increasing the Service Canada workforce, expanding simplified passport
renewals to adults who have had a passport issued within the last 15 years,
implementing a new triage system to help manage line-ups, expanding
passport-pick service to nine additional Service Canada Centres, and expanding
passport services to 24 rural and remote sites in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic
Canada.
Travel Minister Omar Alghabra stated
that Canada is working to reduce traveller wait times and airport congestion by
hiring more staff; collaborating with airlines, airports, and related
government departments such as the Canadian Border Services Agency to address
bottlenecks; adding more eGates and primary inspection kiosks at Toronto
Pearson International Airport; allowing screening officers to work while
training to increase the number of officers on the ground at airports, and
tripling the number of officers on the ground at airports.
You can also read the latest Canada Immigration
News and Draw Updates here.
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