A Big Update From Minister Fraser On Immigration Backlogs
Team Universal Adviser
Published on: August 31, 2022
Canadians were given a report on the government's efforts to minimize visa waiting lists by the immigration minister of Canada and representatives of an Ottawa task force.
Sean Fraser, the minister of immigration, accompanied other working group officials on August 29 to inform Canadians and immigrants of the government’s efforts to reduce the delay and enhance the immigration process.
Fraser is an ex-officio part of the working group established in June to shorten lines for visas and migration paperwork. The task team highlighted significant innovations in addition to the fundamental pandemic-related causes for the considerable increases in demand for transportation and other government programs during a media briefing. The task team has been gathering weekly all summer to determine actionable priorities and to develop both immediate and long-term solutions.
immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) services have been improved, according to Fraser, by:
Employing up to 1,250 extra personnel by the beginning of the fall to boost processing capacity and brief address queues;
Modernising and simplifying IRCC processes to increase the long-term sustainability of Canada's structure;
As of August 22, receiving more than 300,000 new permanent residents;
Granting more than 349,000 new work permits between January 1 and July 31 of this year as opposed to roughly 112,000 during the same time in 2021;
Throughout January 1 and July 31, 2022, close to 360,000 study permits were finalised, up from roughly 306,000 over the same time in 2021;
Authorising more than 216,000 requests for the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel for Ukrainians and relatives seeking safety in Canada between March 17 to August 24, 2022;
Implementing application status tracker for citizenship and some types of permanent residents to provide adequate data on their records; they will be made available to more clients in the upcoming year; and
To update Canadians on our progress, the IRCC publishes data on a monthly basis.
In a governmental press statement, Fraser stated that “families, communities, and companies require an immigration system that is efficient for everyone.” “We will keep our pledge to Canadians by making targeted investments, recruiting 1,250 workers to deal with the backlog, and enhancing our online structures and procedures. As we strive to assist communities around the nation in accessing the talent they require, we will decrease waiting lists and make a strong attempt to find and keep qualified individuals.”
According to the press statement, IRCC manages more than 1 million applications at a time from its inventory, and in 2021, IRCC finalized 1.7 million entries throughout all lines of business. There are presently 2.4 million applicants awaiting throughout all IRCC inventory, down from 2.7 million in July, according to the IRCC website that tracks the delay.
1.1 million of the present IRCC inventory are all within service levels, whereas 1.3 million are backlogged.
Karina Gould, Canada’s minister of families, addressed the event as well and discussed how her country is streamlining the passport application process. Specifically, by boosting the number of employees at Service Canada, extending streamlined passport renewals to adults who received their passports within the previous 15 years, putting in place a new triage system to assist handle lines, broadening passport delivery to nine more Service Canada Centers, and extending passport assistance to 24 remote and rural areas in Quebec, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada.
Omar Alghabra, Canada’s tourism minister said the nation is functioning to shorten long waiting times for passengers and increase capacity at airport terminals by increasing staff, continuing to work with airline companies, airports, and other related government entities, such as the Canadian Border Services Agency, to resolve bottlenecks, installing more eGates and main safety checks kiosks at Toronto Pearson International Airport, enabling monitoring officials to collaborate while in exercise to raise the number of officials on the ground at airports, and doubling the number of officers.