Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
I'll jump right in, beginning with our recommendations for the high-priority so-called FC1 applications for the spouses and dependent family members.
It is our understanding that the benchmark for processing of these priority family class applications is six months and that many visa offices are meeting or even beating this target, while others are falling far short. Given the obvious hardship of prolonged separation from beloved spouses and children, sponsors must be reunited with their family members as quickly as possible. The existing disparities in processing times across the different missions must be addressed.
Disproportionate delays are also faced by the FC1 applicants who are refused at the first instance but then succeed on appeal to the immigration appeal division. It's our understanding that the department has initiated a pilot project whereby these redetermination requests, following a successful IAD appeal, will be sent to national headquarters for processing and not back to the visa office. We do commend the department for this initiative and we recommend that this pilot project be expanded to all visa offices as soon as possible.
We also recommend that new forms, including updated work histories, medicals, and police clearances where required, be requested up front, at the conclusion of a successful IAD appeal, to facilitate these redetermination decisions.
I'll move on to the more contentious FC4 category, and that's the parents and grandparents. Simply put, processing delays in the FC4 category are so long that they fundamentally undermine the viability and the utility of this program as a whole. Surely you've heard it said many times before that too many applicants are deceased, medically inadmissible, or simply no longer interested in coming to Canada by the end of the six-plus years of delay.
The reality is this: unless there is the will to increase the targets, we must ensure there are viable ways for families to reunite in the interim, during this lengthy period for processing of the permanent residence applications.
Immigration has encouraged visa offices to be more flexible in issuing long-term TRVs to FC4 applicants who are in the queue for landing, but our members continue to report that TRVs are still being routinely denied for parents who lack sufficient ties to the country of origin.
Our submission is that objective criteria should be employed, and visas issued, where FC4 applicants can establish, one, that they have been sponsored by an eligible family member; two, that their sponsor meets the minimum income requirements; three, that the applicant is not medically inadmissible; and four, that arrangements have been made for private health coverage.
Once a TRV has been issued on these criteria, we also recommend that the department not revisit the decision about medical admissibility when the PR application is finally determined.
These are some of our recommendations. Others are in our written submission.
At the end of the day, if targets remain fixed, the net result of processing deficiencies will be moot. They will remain a problem as long as the volume of applications received is larger than the targets that visa offices are permitted to issue.