The immigration report 2022 was recently released by the Canadian government. Additionally, it highlighted the various developments that took place last year in all business sectors of Canadian immigration.
Besides this, IRCC released the Canadian Immigration Levels Plan fixing the immigration targets for the following three years. According to 2021 data, IRCC took several initiatives to recover from the losses due to the pandemic.
Major highlights of the immigration report 2022
The new immigration report 2022 is not just about statistics but also provides a complete analysis of the previous year, its progress, and future possibility. This information specifically revolves around the new target of 2025 for permanent residents. Here are the following key highlights of this report-
2021 data on admission across all classes
The Immigration Levels Plan 2022 to 2024 set a target of inviting at least 451,000 new permanent residents toward the end of 2024. Additionally, the 2022 target focused on welcoming at least 432,000 permanent residents. Since 2021 witnessed a massive number of admissions, IRCC further created these targets for 2022 to 2024.
For 2021, IRCC’s main emphasis was on issuing permanent residency to those already residing in the country. The department chose to do this because of the prevailing Covid-19 restrictions. Several candidates among them, applied under the Provincial Nominee Programs and Canadian Experience Class. However, the draws were temporarily paused during 2021.
The data for 2021 displayed that 405,000 individuals became new permanent residents. Moreover, 62 percent of them fell under the economic class immigrant category. The 252,971 immigrants consisted of the principal’s applicant’s dependents and spouses.
Canada gives more importance to economic class immigration programs to contribute to its economic growth and address the labor shortage challenges as well as the increased number of vacancies.
90 percent of the growth rate in Canada’s labor force and 75 percent of population growth is due to immigration.
Family-class immigration underwent heightened immigration levels in 2021. This implies that over 81,423 newcomers entered Canada through Family Class Sponsorship. 69,000 of the total 81,423 newcomers came under spousal or partner sponsorship.
Overall, the report emphasizes Canada’s commitment to bringing more refugees and asylum claimants. Last year, the country promised to admit at least 40,000 refugees escaping from Afghanistan toward the end of 2024. Canada has successfully admitted 22,915 Afghans, out of which a majority came through refugee programs under government assistance and private sponsorship.
TR2PR Pathways
Last year, the government also introduced a single pathway from TR to PR, welcoming around 191,338 temporary residents to acquire permanent residence. This program aimed at those working in the healthcare sector and international students. Temporary residents who were either bilingual or spoke French had separate streams allocated to them without application restrictions. These streams allowed more than 24,000 new permanent residents. Additionally, around 18,000 permanent residents arrived toward the end of March last year.
The International Graduate stream welcomed 40,000 candidates to apply for permanent residency without the need to typically apply through the Post-Graduation Work Permit. The period between May and November last year invited these applications; however, it isn’t open anymore.
The healthcare stream also lets the healthcare and other crucial workers concerning all skill levels apply for PR, including temporary residents who fulfilled the eligibility requirements. Skilled Refugees could also apply for the same.
Immigration report 2022- backlog reduction measures
The report also considered the IRCCs immigration backlog in all business lines. Currently, the backlog is 2.6 million inventory applications. However, 1.1 million out of the 2.6 million will undergo processing per the service standards. IRCC aims to process applications within the given timeframe of the service standards.
The department faced a crisis regarding immigration backlog due to the Covid-19 travel restrictions and the staff’s inability to process paper applications due to office closure.
IRCC took several initiatives, the most crucial of them being absolutely digital. Moreover, they even planned to accommodate those who failed to apply digitally.
The digital shift will also include citizenship applications for applicants above 18 years old. Additionally, the citizenship applications will become 100 percent online toward the latter part of 2022 for applicants under 18 years.
Overall, IRCC invested a considerable amount of $85 million in the hiring process and training of more than 1,200 new staff members to process backlogs. Besides this, the 2022 budget provided IRCC with a massive amount of $187.3 million for the following five years. Additionally, the department received around $37.2 million to enhance the staff within the Client Support Centre. IRCC used the amount to create technological advances to improve the client service experience.
