Earlier this year, Canadian immigration was experiencing backlogs. In other words, it was taking longer than necessary for newcomers to Canada to process their immigration applications.
The situation was so bad that at the end of July, over 1.3 million immigration applications had taken longer than the dictate of the Canadian government’s service standard. Canadian Visa Expert reported that the record was almost 54% of all the pending applications in the system, according to government statements.
As a result of the seriousness of the issue, Sean Fraser, Canadian Immigration Minister, reported that it may take a few months before all immigration streams return to their normal processing time.
Causes for the Backlogs in Immigration Application Processing Time
The COVID-19 pandemic initially caused a backlog in immigration application processing time in Canada, because of temporary travel restrictions. In January 2022, Sean Fraser hoped to eliminate this bottleneck by the end of the year. During the course of the year, however, the Canadian government had to launch a major response to help Ukrainian refugees when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started.
Canadian Visa Expert explained that the need to approve the temporary relocation of thousands of Ukrainians and their families to Canada during the war slowed down the application processes of other immigrants.
Another reason for the delay in immigration application processes in Canada was the updates done to the government’s aging technology.
The Good News: No More Delay in Immigration to Canada
The immigration department in Canada is now hiring new workers to address the backlogs in processing time. With the new employees in the department, Express Entry, the primary economic stream for new permanent residents to Canada, is now back on track.
