Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Mark Miller is rejecting assertions that Canada’s immigration targets are “too ambitious,” after the auditor general criticized the department for permanent residency backlogs.
“Historic volumes” of immigrants coming to Canada coupled with the country’s “limited resources” have led to the issue, Mr. Miller said during a press conference on Oct. 19.
“We need coordination with the provinces,” he said. “They have something to say about this, especially Quebec. So we need better planning.”
A report from Auditor General Karen Hogan found the country’s immigration backlogs to be too long, despite improved processing times for most permanent residency programs in 2022.
Canada brought in 431,645 new permanent residents in 2022 and expects to bring in 500,000 in 2025, the report said. By the end of 2022, roughly 99,000 refugee applications were still waiting to be processed, and preparation times averaged nearly three years.
The report also found Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) did not determine whether its automated eligibility assessment tool reduced overall processing times for all applicants as intended.
Ms. Hogan told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that while the IRCC had improved the time it took to process applications and reduce backlogs in 2022, it did “not meet its service standards for prompt processing in any of the eight programs we examined.”
She added that people applying to refugee programs had to wait an average of close to three years for their application to be processed.
“Although the government sets the target for how many permanent residents are admitted to Canada in a given year, we found that most delays and backlogs were caused by the department’s own processes,” she added.
Ms. Hogan added that the IRCC needed to “analyze its backlog to understand the root causes for differential outcomes,” and “match workloads to available resources in its offices to improve processing times.”
Mr. Miller said that while he expects “excellence” from those in his department, this was “not an excellent report.” He said he was concerned by the lagging processing times and would be examining the report in further detail with his department to try to fix the issues.
When asked by reporters if Canada’s immigration system was in danger of being overwhelmed, Mr. Miller said there was a “crying need” for more labourers. He said 60 percent of immigrants who bring capital create jobs that they come with and need very little resources to get started.
“I think that we have to balance these things delicately because when we look at the public sentiment, it isn’t a knee-jerk reaction against immigration. It is a criticism of planning, particularly as we see higher mortgage rates, planning for the healthcare system and planning in all other areas,” he said.
“I am optimistic, considering the progress made by IRCC despite all the challenges it faced over the past few years,” he said.
