The recent reports revealed IRCC’s strategy to combat the PR application backlog based on the recommendations of the Office of the Auditor General report in October last year. The information derived through the Access to Information Request provides us with an overview of the plan through which the department will combat the backlog of permanent residence applications.
IRCC’s strategy to combat the PR application backlog
OAG consists of multiple functions. Primarily, it perceives the federal government to be responsible for its process of tackling public funds. It also holds audits, providing brief details, suggestions, and facts about the Canadian parliament. All of this assists the parliament in calculating the performance of governmental activities.
The OAG report concluded that in the entire 2022, the PR application backlog had surpassed acceptable levels during the pandemic phase. As a result, the backlogs had adversely affected the refugees.
Furthermore, the report comprised chief recommendations for the immigration department. These suggestions revolved around improving the processing times for PR applications in the upcoming years.
The standard processing times
The report’s first recommendation for IRCC was to offer transparency to the applicants regarding the timelines and service standards for processing their applications. In short, the applicants must know when to expect a decision on their application.
Hence, IRCC can implement this suggestion by reviewing the service standards. It must acknowledge the volume and age of PR applications in the inventory.
The department works with the intention of processing 80 percent of applications within the usual service standards or IRCC’s length of decision-making on a single application. However, the service standards will depend primarily on the application type.
For instance, the family class sponsorship applications have service standards of up to 12 months, while the Express Entry applications take six months.
Therefore, IRCC developed service standards for specific programs without this feature. It includes the following:
- Federal and Regional Economic Class Immigrant;
- Family-Class Sponsorship Programs;
- Resettled Refugee Immigration Programs
IRCC anticipates new service standards to begin by December 31 this year. It will recommend the latest service standards for economic-class PR programs and family-class sponsorship applications by March 31 this year.
The department also claimed that it would develop a better mode of communicating service standards to aspiring applicants. This new strategy will also come into action by December 31, 2024.
Discrepancy in the wait times
The OAG report also observed differences in the processing times of IRCC for any program. It further revealed that such differences point toward the irregularities with the Immigration Levels Plan. This plan outlines overall yearly targets for applications in Canada to welcome a fixed number of PRs every year. The rationale behind the immigration targets is simple: it provides IRCC with an estimate of PR applications in order to process them within the given timeline.
The immigration department justified the late processing of applications. It claimed that the officers review the applications based on individual cases. A few applications tend to be more tedious and consume more time in processing. Furthermore, the promises related to certain populations might disturb the application processing while looking forward to a decision.
IRCC plans to create a monitoring tool to verify wait time based on country of residence. This is because the department wants to analyze whether a candidate’s native country or ethnicity impacts their processing times.
Moreover, it will also establish a pilot plan to evaluate the techniques and understand the best approach to collect, analyze, and perceive race-based and ethnocultural data.
The Pilot will commence by October 1 this year. IRCC claims that it will analyze the process of including the examination of varied wait times by April 1, 2025.
The report even suggested that IRCC take measures to combat the backlog by controlling the delays with the help of officers and follow-up sessions.
Further, IRCC justified that most PR programs don’t have any restrictions on the intake of applications. However, Express Entry programs are an exception. It also claims it will soon create a working model of a robust monitoring system, identifying application tasks during the different stages of application processing.
IRCC’s strategy to combat the PR application backlog – Coordinating tasks with accessible resources
The OAG report concluded that the distributed resources didn’t match with a few IRCC offices. IRCC’s take on such cases is that the discrepancy occurred due to excessive paper applications in a few offices. As a result, the workload sharing became more challenging. The department also revealed that several such applications prevalent in offices belonged to the refugee or family class.
The above types of applications demand an in-person interview process. Several such interviews were held during the pandemic, adding to the backlog of 2022.
Notably, it works toward establishing a monitoring tool to comprehend the output in the inventory and the gaps in the applicant’s wait times. They must develop the tool by April 1 this year.
The immigration department has an objective to align with the existing resources. To accomplish this, IRCC claims that it will continue to staff and distribute resources on the basis of annual supposition exercises. It will also review resource distributions in association with the targeted levels.
IRCC noted that it will complete its review operations of position creation and staffing in the area (sub-Saharan Africa) due to its restricted office space. It will do so by June 31 this year. It will allocate resources for temporary duty and set priorities to help the refugees.
Examining how AI assists in decision-making
OAG suggested the following to IRCC to reduce the differences:
- Evaluate variations in the results of the processing times related to the execution of automated decision-making tools.
- Ensure sufficient resources are available for applications aimed at manual processing.
IRCC has displayed its extreme dependency on digital tools and artificial intelligence in various aspects. They’re as follows:
- Streamlining the process of determining eligibility.
- Allocating applications among officers complying with the specifications of the applications.
- Determining which type of applications might need further verification.
- Workload distribution.
- Summing up each client’s fundamental details in “annotations” will decrease the officer searches within the Global Case Management System.
- Organizing emails from clients to enhance quicker responses. Also, the questions were answered by providing accessible details to the public.
- Evaluating the biometrics.
All of the above have demonstrated expedited processing times for a few applications. For instance, last year in June, Sean Fraser declared that these tools enabled IRCC to process 98 percent of TRV spousal applications.
In response to this suggestion, IRCC has redistributed a few resources to enhance the varied processing times. IRCC states that it evaluates and supervises the processing of PR applications that benefit from automated decision-making tools.
If, in the future, IRCC feels the need to take more measures to cut down on wait times, it will fully execute these measures by April 2025.
If you have questions related to Canadian permanent residence, you can access all relevant details through Make Home Canada’s immigration consultants. Write to us at [email protected]
