Now Canada’s immigration minister is predicting it will take just a few months longer than originally hoped to get application wait times back up, although the Ukraine crisis and other “external” events have worsened the backlog.
In January, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser pledged to clear the backlog of cases caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by the end of the year. That was before Canada launched a major response to the refugee crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, approving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and their families to come to Canada temporarily to escape the war.
Those efforts, combined with updates to the government’s outdated technology, have led to longer waits for people who want to come to Canada, Fraser said.
As of late July, the roughly 1.3 million immigration applications in the system were taking longer to process than government service standards require. This is about 54 percent of all pending applications in the system.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Fraser said the department may need a few extra months before all immigration flows return to normal processing times.
“Based on what we’re looking at right now, we shouldn’t be too, too far from forecasting a return to work and study permit service standards by the end of this year, and I expect that within a few months of that visas for visitors will be brought back to service standards,” Fraser said.
That rules out any new international disasters, he said.
New hiring to address backlog
While dealing with backlogs and humanitarian crises, Canada’s immigration system is also facing unprecedented demand, Fraser said.
As of July 31, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had issued more than 349,000 new work permits so far this year, compared with 199,000 in all of 2021.
A Canadian flag flies at the CD Howe Building in downtown Ottawa on January 21, 2022. The building houses Canada’s Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
At a press conference on Wednesday, Fraser announced that the Immigration Department is in the midst of hiring 1,250 new staff by the end of the fall to deal with a huge backlog of applications and increased demand.
Fraser said the new officials have so far allowed the government to roll back the wait for new applicants for the Express Entry permanent residency program, which is the main economic stream for new permanent residents of Canada.
“Over the coming weeks and months, there will be a series of new measures we will roll out that will help bring workers here faster, make it easier for families to reunite with loved ones and keep us accountable by being transparent Fraser said at the news conference outside the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The backlog is a growing concern since shortly after the start of the pandemic, when health restrictions made borders more difficult to cross and immigration slowed significantly.
Late last year, the government committed $85 million to reduce waiting times. Another $187.3 million was set aside over the next five years in the 2022 budget.
In June, the Prime Minister announced that ministers would form a task force to tackle growing delays in applications for immigration and other government services.
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