Government Considering Bold Action to Reduce Backlog
Last week, the Globe and Mail reported that it had reviewed a “policy memo” from the federal government that says it is considering extraordinary measures to reduce its backlog of immigration applications, including waiving eligibility requirements for nearly half a million visitor visas.
The newspaper said that this is “draft document” dated December 2022.
The draft memo reveals that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is trying to significantly reduce or eliminate its inventory of visitor visa applications by February and is willing to use “aggressive measures” to do so, according to the memo leaked to the Globe and Mail.
There were more than 700,000 temporary resident visa applications in the system as of early December, a portion of the overall sum.
In total, there were more than two million immigration applications to be processed as of late last year, including from those seeking work and study permits, along with those who applied for permanent residence. The Immigration department is concerned that the stockpile is “eroding the public’s trust” in the department, the memo reads.
The federal government is considering extraordinary measures to reduce its backlog of immigration applications, including waiving eligibility requirements for nearly half a million visitor visas, according to a policy memo reviewed by The Globe and Mail.
A draft document from December reveals that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is trying to significantly reduce or eliminate its inventory of visitor visa applications by February and is willing to use “aggressive measures” to do so. There were more than 700,000 temporary resident visa (TRV) applications in the system as of early December, a portion of the overall sum.
In total, there were more than two million immigration applications to be processed as of late last year, including from those seeking work and study permits, along with those who have applied for permanent residence.
According to the report, IRCC is concerned that the stockpile is “eroding the public’s trust” in the department, the memo reads.
To reduce the number of visitor visa applications, IRCC is considering two options. In the first, the department would process an estimated 195,000 applications in bulk. This could include a large number of tourists from countries that require a visa to visit Canada. Under the second option, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser would waive certain eligibility requirements for roughly 450,000 applications. Because other efforts are under way to reduce the TRV backlog, this decision would apply to all remaining applications.
By waiving eligibility rules, foreign nationals would not need to establish that they will leave Canada when their visa expires. Visitors would still be subjected to admissibility checks. This ensures, for example, that applicants are not a known threat to national security. Two sources told the Globe and Mail that within IRCC the government has chosen the second option. This would be a temporary measure to reduce inventories, and the final version of the policy could differ from what’s proposed in the document. As a result of the change, one of the sources said, immigration officers would not assess whether visitors have sufficient funds for their stays in Canada.
Mr. Fraser recently said that “there is still much more to do in order to achieve prepandemic processing timelines”.
As of Nov. 30, there were roughly 2.1 million applications in the system, more than half of which were in backlog – meaning, they had been there longer than service standards for processing. There has been improvement of late: Two months earlier than that, there were 2.6 million applications in the system.
Prospective visitors and immigrants have been extremely frustrated by the processing delays. This has led to reputational damage for the government and legal action.
“We’re actually moving cases out of our system faster than they’re coming in, which gives me faith that we’re getting back on track,” Mr. Fraser said at a news conference in December.
Even so, the inventories are significantly larger than before the pandemic, and with the federal government pursuing record levels of immigration, and a large volume of applications continue to flow in to IRCC.