Canada has processed approximately 4.8 million applications in 2022—nearly twice the 2.5 million processed during the same period last year—for immigration, its department said.

“Since August, IRCC has reduced its overall inventory by nearly half a million applications,” the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said in a statement. “The department has also been setting the bar higher and higher for processing.”

The process is part of the government’s plans to bring 1.5 million immigrants by 2025 and the country is on track to admit 431,000 new permanent residents to Canada by the end of 2022.

What happened this year?

Canada brought more visitors, students, and workers to the country and details are as follows:

IRCC processed over 670,000 study permits and 700,000 work permits. It welcomed approximately 251,000 new citizens between April and November and it expects a record number of new Canadian citizens in 2022–2023.

“As a result, more than 70% of applications in the citizenship inventory are now within service standards.”

The Justin Trudeau-led government processed more than 260,000 visitor visas in November.

“Our government has reduced its pandemic backlogs by nearly half a million, while also processing a record-breaking number of immigration applications this year,” says Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.

“Our actions are ensuring that we can continue to welcome and support newcomers who come to Canada to work, study, visit, or settle here. It is through the dedication and hard work of those who administer our immigration system, and our willingness to modernize and adapt, that we are able to uphold Canada’s reputation as a welcoming and inclusive country.”

Canada welcomed a record-breaking 405,000 new permanent residents in 2021, surpassing the previous record from 1913.

Decline in backlog

The Justin Trudeau-led government managed to reduce the coronavirus- backlog by half a million applications.

This year, the IRCC received as many as 2.2 million applications. Around 1.09 million applications are considered to be backlogged, or not processed within service standards, shows the data available as of November 30.

“All new spousal sponsorship applications are now processed within the pre-pandemic service standard of 12 months and new Express Entry applications within six months. Permanent residents can also expect shorter wait times when renewing their permanent resident cards as IRCC has reduced its pandemic backlog of applications for card renewals by 99%,” it said.

Harnessing labour potential

Every year, Canada welcomes people from different professional backgrounds to meet the social and economic challenges as part of its strategy to help businesses find skilled workers in different sectors, including health care, skilled trades, manufacturing, transportation, and technology.

Following are the measures in place to help harness the full labour market potential of temporary and permanent newcomers to Canada, including:

• Extending work permits to spouses and working-age dependants of temporary foreign workers, at all skill levels.
• Temporarily lifting the 20-hour-per-week cap on the number of hours
• Pioneering the development of economic pathways, in addition to traditional resettlement, for refugees and their families to find a safe and permanent solution.
• Shortening the wait time for those seeking asylum in Canada to obtain a work permit, from 20 months to 1 month.
• Leveraging economic immigration programs to help bring workers to regions of Canada that need them most, including through a new permanent Atlantic Immigration Program, an expanded Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, and a new work permit stream for Quebec-selected skilled workers.
• Exempting physicians who work in a fee-for-service model with public health authorities from current requirements. This change makes it easier for foreign-born physicians to remain in Canada so they can continue to practise in Canada and bolster our health care system.
• Implementing the National Occupational Classification 2021 for immigration programs managed under the Express Entry system. As a result, 16 additional occupations are now eligible for the programs managed under Express Entry.