It's not yours. Okay, I thought it was. Someone told me it was your birthday.
It's a pleasure to appear once again before this committee. I look forward to answering any questions committee members might have on this important and timely topic.
First, I would like to make a few comments.
I know you've heard from officials in my department over the past two meetings, and they've described to you some of the actions we've taken to address the recent increase in asylum seekers crossing into Canada from the United States outside designated ports of entry.
I'd like to follow up on these comments by stressing that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has been working very closely in partnership with other departments and agencies and with other levels of government to ensure that we have the capacity to deal with the situation and to process claimants expeditiously while maintaining the overall integrity of the asylum system. I'll also note that while asylum seekers await decisions, the social assistance supports they receive are funded and provided to them by our provincial partners. As we take these actions, we remain strongly committed to orderly migration and to, first and foremost, ensuring the safety of Canadians.
Mr. Chair, Canadians can be assured that we've been monitoring the situation for many months and putting in place the necessary plans. Although it's far from a routine situation that we're facing, it's one that we've been able to manage responsibly, effectively, and professionally. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my department officials and officials in all the different agencies involved for how they've been able to rise to the challenge and respond with the utmost professionalism, nimbleness, speed, and ingenuity.
I'll now outline the concrete ways in which we're responsive. When we saw the numbers of irregular migrants begin to increase at the Lacolle border crossing, we were able to quickly mobilize in order to reassign staff and set up additional office space so that we could keep up with the volume and process asylum seekers quickly for their eligibility hearings. In fact, these efforts have enabled us to bring the eligibility processing timelines of from five to seven months down to from five to seven days.
We figured out a way to fast-track work permit applications from asylum claimants across Canada in order to alleviate the pressure on the social assistance budgets of provincial governments. This is an issue that was raised by the Government of Quebec, and we moved quickly to establish a new 30-day service standard for work permit applications so that asylum seekers may support themselves and become self-sufficient while they await the final decision on their claims. This minimizes the impact they have on provincial social assistance programs.
Similarly, we have built in flexibility to ensure that asylum seekers are covered under the interim federal health program immediately after background checks are completed, but while they are awaiting their initial hearing. This is important because we want to ensure that public health is protected, that asylum seekers have access to basic care, and that there is no undue burden on hospital emergency rooms and provincial health care budgets.
Mr. Chair, all of these are great examples of how we have been responding to an uncommon situation in an effective manner. At the same time, we've been working to dispel the false information that has prompted many to embark on a journey to cross our border. We know this situation is, in part, fuelled by misinformation on various social media outlets and other channels suggesting that certain groups of individuals will receive preferential treatment or be given status in Canada. This is, of course, incorrect, and all claimants have been and will continue to be treated according to existing laws.
We've taken a number of steps to dispel false information and inform people in Canada and the United States of the facts regarding the asylum process in Canada. In recent weeks, two of our colleagues, multilingual members of Parliament, travelled to the United States to help counteract this false information among different diaspora communities.
They met with local politicians and community leaders, and made appearances in the local media and multicultural media, as well as in Canadian and broader U.S. media. As well, I had the opportunity to hold a very fruitful round table discussion on this very issue with groups in the United States, in New York, groups who serve immigrant communities and actually take in phone calls from people who call them to ask them about the asylum system in Canada. This round table included the largest immigrant service providers in New York state, as well as the New York city mayor's office and the legal services provider for immigrants. These groups will now be able to provide and pass on the correct information to the thousands of individuals they deal with on a monthly and weekly basis.
One of the things that have become clearer through these meetings is that many different groups of people in the United States are receiving false information about the Canadian asylum process. We are coordinating outreach approaches targeting each and every one of these communities through our U.S. missions and consulates. At the same time, we are conducting outreach to stakeholders right here in Canada. This is through targeted emails to key stakeholder organizations, video and audio messages available on the IRCC website, media outreach, and social media. All of these materials are being translated into the languages used by the diaspora communities we are trying to reach. We've also begun monitoring Spanish-language media in the United States, and have distributed our outreach products to those media.
Efforts are also under way to gather information from those who are already here, to determine where they came from and what sources of information they relied on in order to make that journey to Canada.
Mr. Chair, we are ramping up our outreach efforts and our intelligence-gathering to remain on top of this situation. I look forward to continued collaboration with our key partners, including provinces and territories, and contingency planning to handle any future fluctuations. In fact, in the middle of this process, whenever the provinces were bringing to us any pressure points, we were able to work with them and collaborate to coordinate solutions on those issues.
Canadians should be confident that our officials continue to manage this uncommon situation in a professional and effective manner.
I want to thank you very much, and I look forward to answering all your questions. Merci beaucoup.