IRCC Simplifying the Process for Getting Permanent Residency.

March 15, 2024

Ishita Soni

IRCC’s Plan to Make Immigration Application Approvals Faster

Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has released the details and deadlines of its action plan to address recommendations made in a report by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) last October.

The details, released in a recently obtained Access to Information Request, offer an insight into how IRCC will address a backlog of permanent resident applications for newcomers across all lines of business.

The OAG has several functions. Mainly, it holds the federal government accountable for how it handles public funds and conducts audits that provide objective information, advice, and facts for Canada’s parliament. These help parliament to measure how government activities are performing.

Getting things done on time and doing them well.

The recommendation is for the immigration department to clearly tell applicants how long it will take to decide on their application. They plan to set time goals for different types of applications, aiming to finish 80% of them within these timeframes. They’ll set new goals for programs without them and update existing ones by specific dates.

IRCC also said it will establish a clear method of communicating service standards with immigration applicants and a new methodology will be in place by December 31.

Different Delays for Different Applications

The report found differences in how long it takes for Canada’s immigration department to handle applications, which goes against their yearly immigration targets. The department says these differences happen because each application is unique and some are more complicated, and sometimes priorities shift. To see if where someone comes from affects how long they wait, the department will track wait times by country and test ways to collect and use data about race and culture.

Matching workloads to resources

The report found that some immigration offices had much more work than others, like the office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, compared to Rome, Italy, even though they had similar staff numbers. The department says this is because some offices deal with more paper applications, especially for refugees and family cases needing interviews. The pandemic also halted many interviews, adding to the backlog. They’re creating a tool to track work and improve fairness, aiming to balance workloads and staff better based on yearly immigration goals. They’re also reviewing staffing in Africa to tackle the backlog there by June 2024.

Monitoring the use of AI in decision-making

The report suggests that the immigration department should look into how automated tools affect processing times and make sure enough resources are allocated to manual processing for fair outcomes. The department has been using technology like AI to speed up various tasks such as determining eligibility, distributing work, and responding to emails. While this has helped process applications faster, they’ll now check if these tools are affecting processing times differently for different types of applications. If needed, changes will be made by April 2025 to ensure fairness.

Conclusion

Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) response to recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) regarding addressing the backlog of permanent resident applications. It emphasizes IRCC’s commitment to setting clear timelines for decision-making, establishing communication methods for service standards, addressing disparities in processing times, and monitoring the use of AI in decision-making. These actions aim to improve efficiency, fairness, and transparency in Canada’s immigration processes.

Get in touch with SPS Canada

Receive professional advice on any of your questions regarding Canadian immigration. get in touch with us, experienced immigration consultants from SPS Canada. For additional information, contact support@spscanada.com (Canada) or support.amd@spscanada.com

(Ahmedabad), or by phone at (1) 905-362-9393 (Canada) or +919586226232 (Ahmedabad).

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