Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has recently announced the creation of a new task force to tackle the immigration delays in order to speed up government services such as passports, airports, and the immigration application process. The special task force will include federal ministers, who will specifically identify the gaps in the process, will review service delivery, and make recommendations on how to improve to achieve the goals promptly.

The new task force to tackle the immigration delays will pay particular attention to the entire processing of immigration applications and identify areas that required immediate action. The aim is to find out a long and short-term solution to clear the backlogs and speed up the services.

Prime Minister recently said in an interview that “we are well aware of the service delays in the recent times which is unacceptable. The government is striving to do everything to improve the delivery of the services in a timely manner, the new task force will tackle the immigration delays and guide the government process to meet the deadlines efficiently and continue to offer high-quality services.”

Immigration Backlog is Over 2 Million Candidates

The Canadian immigration backlog is at 2.4 million people. The numbers continue to spike as more people are looking at a temporary residence. Between April 29 and June 1, the total number of candidates rose by 257,499. From June 1, there are 1,471,000 applications in the backlog for temporary residence. Although, it should be considered that the sudden increase in the visa application is not common due to the periodic nature of programs such as the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which usually hires a big number of workers in the agricultural and tourism sectors.

The Express Entry backlogs still stand at over 31,600 candidates through programs like the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). The dip is over 9000 applications from the end of April.

All-Program Express Entry Draws to Resume by July 6

IRCC had announced that all program Express Entry draws to resume by July 6 as FSWP and FSTP have been put on hold since December 2020 and CEC in September 2021. Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada have prioritized Express Entry candidates in the application pool to make way for the new applicants.

Canadian Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser had announced earlier that Express entry draws will resume for all programs by early July with the standard 6-months of processing time. The IRCC endeavors to meet this standard by employing more personnel and making more investments in technology to make the process convenient and hassle-free.