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Immigration application processing standards would return to normal by 2023, informed Canada Immigration Minister Sean Fraser the other day. He revealed this while appearing before Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for participating in the Committee’s study on IRCC’s application backlogs and processing times. The parliamentary committee conducts such studies with an aim to make recommendations to guide immigration policy. The Minister appeared representing the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
Processing standards means the goal that IRCC sets to process an application. However, these standards not always reflect actual processing times.
Measures to speed up processing of applications for immigration
The backlog of applications is one of the major issues that Canada aims to tackle to bring the immigration system back to normalcy. While speaking before the Committee, the minister said most of the business lines would return to normal processing times by the end of the calendar year and all of these would return to normal by 2023.
IRCC has initiated several measures to speed up the application processing. These including adding 11000 more staff to its employees and modernising the immigration system. Minister also pointed out that a budget of $827 million has been earmarked for digitising the current system. These measures have helped Canada to process 156000 permanent residence applications in the first quarter of 2022.
Major changes in pipeline for Express Entry
During the meeting, the minister also mentioned about the changes that would be introduced for the Express Entry system. He said those changes would allow the immigration authorities to target workers with more precision for filling the gaps in key sectors. Expanding the Express Entry PR pathways for international students and temporary foreign workers is one of the mandates of the minister. Earlier, he had also hinted about the possibility of introducing occupation-specific Express Entry draws in the coming future.
With the Canadian economy rebounding fast from the impact of the pandemic, the demand for workers is higher than ever in the country. So the Canadian government is taking extra efforts to make the process of immigration smoother for foreign workers. If you are planning to move to Canada, this is the right time to take the first steps. Create an Express Entry profile with the help of Canada immigration experts. Contact us to know how.
