Thank you, Madame Chair.
Colleagues, I'm pleased to return to speak to you again about IRCC operations and spending and, in particular, our work to process applications and assist Canadians and those who wish to come here. Local migration has been upended by the pandemic. From widespread travel restrictions and employees working from home to constraints on our settlement partners, it has had a significant impact on my department's work.
However, we've taken quick action, providing additional resources where they're needed most, streamlining our processes, and ramping systems back up. We've come a long way since the onset of the pandemic. Progress is being made every week to the point where we have now surpassed overall pre-COVID treatment rates in some cases. As of early November, our percentage of final decisions across all categories actually exceeded a similar period in 2019.
I would like to quickly note some other important decisions we've made to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and help those who wish to come to Canada. One of the very first things we did was to implement priority processing for those who need it most, like vulnerable people, family members seeking to reunite, and those in essential services. We're making great strides in processing more applications virtually. We've implemented adaptive measures, which extend submission deadlines for those facing delays due to travel restrictions. Adding this flexibility also results in extending processing times, but this is necessary to ensure that no application is refused due to restrictions related to the pandemic.
In this most challenging time, families belong together. That's why we're redoubling our efforts to process applications so that immediate families can remain together in Canada, or be reunited as soon as possible. We've significantly increased the monthly number of spousal, partner and child applications we're processing from fewer than a thousand in May to just under 5,400 in October. This means that we expect to process nearly 50,000 by the end of the year.
We've also introduced exemptions to allow immediate family members, as well as certain extended family members, to come to Canada.
Understandably, demand is very high, but we have processed tens of thousands of applications, and I'm pleased to share that these requests are being processed in 10 to 11 days if those applications are complete, well within our processing standard of 14 days.
International students bring so much to our country. That’s why we have worked with many partners to implement a process that allows them to arrive safely and study in Canada.
With public gatherings off the table for the foreseeable future, we've taken citizenship ceremonies online, welcoming more than 42,000 new Canadians at virtual ceremonies. We also recently relaunched citizenship testing online.
Finally, I'm pleased to share that we've developed a new process to assist permanent resident applications that were approved on or before March 18, but whose confirmation of permanent residence and PR visas have expired. Officers have been reaching out directly to determine clients' eligibility and willingness to travel, and reopen files as necessary. These efforts often require more time and effort than usual, but we will soon have contacted everyone affected.
Since time is short, I won’t be able to describe in detail all the other ways we have reacted to this new reality, but I will simply say that we have adapted and created the necessary leeway to respond to the current circumstances.
Madam Chair, I am confident that the measures we are taking on immigration application processing, combined with our recently announced immigration levels plan, put us on the right track to build a stronger, more prosperous and diverse Canada for the future.
Thank you very much.