Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are pleased to be here today, and we would like to thank the committee for inviting us to speak. Today I will update you on improvements that we have made within the past year to program delivery, and I will briefly share some of the challenges we face in processing applications.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Today I will update you on improvements that we have made to program delivery during the past year. And I will briefly share some of the challenges we face in processing applications.
Statistics Canada reports that immigration will account for all labour force growth in Canada within the next 10 years, and all population growth within the next 20 years. Given the importance of economic immigration to our future, we introduced substantial changes last year to the way we process federal skilled worker applications.
I am pleased to report that new federal skilled worker applicants can now expect to receive an initial assessment from CIC within weeks rather than years. We are also working to make decisions within six to twelve months and not six years as was previously the case.
There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that we are being more efficient. Our Centralized Intake Office in Sydney, Nova Scotia—created with funding from budget 2008—has allowed us to reduce the administrative burden on our missions abroad.
However, the bigger reason for our improved processing times is that we changed the rules. Before changes were introduced in February of 2008, we had to process every application to a final decision. If you passed the skilled worker grid and your health and security checks, you were in. Under the new system, which we call our action plan for faster immigration, a set of ministerial instructions identifies eligibility criteria for federal skilled workers, criteria that reflect Canada's current labour market needs.
Now the centralized intake office does an initial assessment of all federal skilled worker applications against those criteria. Applicants are getting an initial idea of their eligibility in 60 days, and if they aren't eligible, they get a refund. If successful at Sydney, they are asked to submit further information to the appropriate mission for possible processing.
Because these applications have been triaged, the mission's efforts are now more focused. Since February 2008, more than 240,000 people have applied to the federal skilled worker program, and as of the end of September 2009 we've processed more than 100,000 applications and issued visas to over 8,000 skilled workers. Many of these people applied before the ministerial instructions were issued in November, so there were nine months when we couldn't process applications because the criteria weren't yet set. It's taking some time to catch up, but as I mentioned, new applicants can expect a decision within six to 12 months.
We are also making substantial progress on the backlog of old federal skilled worker applications that existed before we introduced these changes last February. We must still process all of those applications under the old rules, but I am pleased to report that in the last 18 months we have reduced the number of applicants in that backlog by more than 30%.
