Ottawa, September 17, 2012 —The Government of Canada
welcomed the findings of a report on immigration backlogs by the
Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and tabled its
response in Parliament today.
“I think we can all agree that backlogs are unfair
to applicants, harmful to Canada’s ability to attract the best and
brightest from around the world, and hold back economic and job
growth,”
said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney.
“I thank the Standing Committee members for their hard work in compiling their report.”
The Committee commented favourably on what the Government has already achieved to date through the
Action Plan for Faster Immigration and the
Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification.
However, the Committee report also made clear that more needs to be
done in order to better align application intake with admission levels.
The committee report recognizes that backlogs have
occurred because for too long Canada has accepted more applications
than it can process and admit in a given year. Over time, this annual
surplus of applications resulted in a backlog of more than a million
applicants, and processing delays of eight to ten years in some
immigration categories. The report concluded that, in order to avoid
future backlogs, it is critical that the Government act to ensure
that the annual number of applications better align with the number of
admissions. The report also recommended exploring further options to
deal with the problem of existing backlogs, particularly in the federal
skilled worker, immigrant investor, and parent and grandparent
classes.
The Government agrees with all of the Standing
Committee’s report recommendations and has already acted quickly to
tackle application backlogs in key areas. Successes include:
- Reducing the pre-2008 Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) backlog by more than 50 percent by 2011 – two years earlier than expected – through the 2008 Action Plan for Faster Immigration and successive Ministerial Instructions limiting application intake. Most recently, Economic Action Plan 2012 removed around 280,000 applicants from that FSW backlog, which paves the way for a faster and more flexible economic immigration system;
- Managing intake of the Immigrant Investor Program
applications starting in July 2011. Most recently, a temporary pause on
new applications was introduced on July 1, 2012 to allow Citizenship
and Immigration Canada (CIC) to focus on processing existing applications and reviewing the program’s effectiveness;
- Significantly decreasing the backlog of
applications for parents and grandparents since fall 2011, as a result
of increased admission targets and a two-year pause on new applications
under the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification. At the same time, CIC
introduced a new “Super Visa,” which allows for visits of up to two
years by parents and grandparents, and has proven to be a popular
alternative for applicants.
In the last year, the Government has also launched
public online consultations on re-designing the parent and grandparent
program, and reforming the Immigrant Investor Program. Policy work on
reformed programs is now underway.
“The economy and job growth remain the Government’s number one priority,”
said Minister Kenney.
“We
continue to take the issue of immigration backlogs very seriously, and
we will be doing even more in the future to transform our immigration
system into one that is fast, fair, flexible, and serves the interests
of Canada’s long-term prosperity.”
The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration tabled its report, entitled “
Cutting the Queue: Reducing Canada’s Immigration Backlogs and Wait Times,” in March 2012.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/2012-09-17.asp
