Thank you to the committee for inviting me to speak today on these important issues, namely immigration application backlogs and processing times in Canada. My name is Laura Schemitsch and I'm an immigration and refugee lawyer with Race and Company LLP. In my practice, I primarily serve clients throughout the sea-to-sky corridor in British Columbia and outside of Canada.
I was called to the bar in 2020, so the majority of my experience as a practising lawyer has involved navigating the immigration backlog, impacted in large part by the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is in Canada's best interests for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to continue to tackle the backlog and to achieve greater transparency and functioning in order to reunite families, bring skilled immigrants and workers to fill growing job vacancies due to our aging population, promote economic recovery and revive Canada's immigration system and reputation in accordance with the legislated objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
At the beginning of 2022, the backlog was estimated at approximately 1.8 million applications, including those for citizenship, permanent residence and temporary residence. As the backlog grew, I recognized growing frustration, anxiety and even despair in current clients and prospective clients regarding increased and frequently unknown processing times. While Canada and the world faced unprecedented uncertainty throughout the early stages of the pandemic, essentially grinding Canada's immigration system to a halt, by 2022 patience from applicants and representatives regarding solutions to the growing backlog was wearing thin.
It was clear to me that the integrity of Canada's immigration system was being jeopardized by the backlog, particularly in light of a lack of transparency and the inability to obtain application status updates through web form requests. Along with other advocates, I aimed to draw more attention to the issue and joined in calls for greater transparency on the backlog and efforts to reduce it. In order to maintain Canada's international reputation as a top choice for foreign nationals who want to come to this country temporarily and/or permanently, it is critical that the government respond with demonstrated actions.
On June 25, 2022, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the creation of a ministerial task force to help reduce application backlogs and improve customer service. One welcome result of this task force is that IRCC started to publish monthly data to help inform Canadians and prospective Canadians on the status of the backlog and forecast what the backlog is expected to look like in the coming months.
Another positive development this year was the resumption of express entry draws in July. Express entry all-program draws were paused for 18 months from December 2020 until July 2022 due to the backlog. Express entry is crucial to Canada's immigration system as one of the main pathways that skilled immigrants use to immigrate to Canada, and its proper functioning is critical to upholding Canada's international reputation as an attractive destination for skilled immigrants and their families.
According to the most recent data released by IRCC on September 30, 2022, there are currently 2.6 million applications in IRCC's application inventories. Of these applications, 1.11 million fall within service standards, and 1.49 million applications are in backlog or exceeding service standards. The majority of the applications in backlog are for temporary residence, followed by those for permanent residence and citizenship.
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser has indicated that Canada will strengthen its immigration system, reduce application backlogs and improve client experience by modernizing the system. IRCC announced that, starting on September 23, 2022, the department would be transitioning to 100% digital applications for most permanent residency programs.
While advocates are open to IRCC's modernization efforts and want to work with IRCC to improve the current status quo through fair and efficient procedures, confidence in modernization efforts is jeopardized by frequent portal glitches and technical issues, which are widely reported by immigration lawyers. IRCC's website indicates that technical issues can be addressed by submitting a web form. However, since the pandemic, web form requests typically result in extremely delayed generic responses.
In order to truly modernize the system and restore confidence in the department, IRCC could look into implementing live technical support, particularly in this period of transition. This could benefit IRCC because the department could more quickly and easily become aware of glitches and work to fix them, which is important in the long term, while also ensuring that applicants and their representatives can submit important applications efficiently in the short term.
It is clear from the numbers that backlog reduction efforts must continue in order for Canada to maximize the social, cultural and economic benefits of immigration, a stated objective of the IRPA.
I remain optimistic that the government is prioritizing this objective through its efforts to reduce the backlog in consultation with advocates who use these systems daily in order to serve current and future temporary and permanent residents and citizens of Canada.
Thank you again for inviting me to speak today.