The Canadian government delivers an update on the task force for passports and immigration

A representative for the government says that an Ottawa group has offered recommendations for ways to address the backlogs in application processing at the IRCC and Service Canada.

On June 25, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the formation of a task force to assess service standards for airports, passport applications, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Backlogs in these services that he deemed "unacceptable" prompted the task force.

At the time, 2.4 million applicants were still waiting for their applications to be reviewed by IRCC.A spokeswoman from the Office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations acknowledged in an email statement to CIC News that the task force, which is made up of a sizable number of federal ministers, has been meeting weekly since June to identify service gaps and potential improvement areas.

The 2.7-million-person backlog at IRCC

During the pandemic, the number of applications in the IRCC's backlog surged considerably, and processing times have slowed.

The revised IRCC processing time tool displays the average processing time for each IRCC line of business to give applicants a realistic estimate of how long it will take to process their application. IRCC still falls short of the majority of its service criteria.

However, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told CIC News in June 2022 that he is certain that most service requirements would be met by the end of 2022 with more personnel and more investment in technology and digitization.

By the end of this year, new applications will likely have the kind of assurance that we'll be able to achieve our service level, and consumers will be dealing with 60 days, 6 months, or 12 months, not an ambiguous amount of time.

Service As travel restrictions resulting from the epidemic have been relaxed, Canada is currently experiencing an unprecedented surge in passport applications. Hours-long wait times and unpredictability in processing times have been endured by Canadians.
As a result, the task group proposed a number of fresh policies that are now in effect or soon will be.

The establishment of four new passport pick-up locations is one of these steps. The government recently announced the opening of additional passport pickup locations in Red Deer, Alberta; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Saul Ste. Marie, Ontario; and Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

The task team advises opening roughly 20 additional application and pick-up locations overall, the official said. According to Minister Karina Gould, passports will be processed at these locations in nine or ten working days. Most Canadians will be able to pick up a new passport within 50 kilo meters of each location, which could help to reduce some of the lengthy queues at other locations. Many of these locations will also provide longer service hours.

To reduce the backlog of applications and lengthy wait times, the government additionally contributed $85 million to the 2021 Fiscal and Economic Update. A large portion of this money was used to hire 319 Citizen Services Officers and 500 new passport officers. The government is also retraining current employees from other federal agencies to handle passport processing.

Other actions

A simplified renewal procedure may be available to Canadians who need to renew their passports. Instead of mailing in proof of citizenship or locating a sponsor, those whose passports are less than 15 years old, have been expired, or have been lost, stolen, or damaged may only need to submit two photos, two references, the application form, and fees.

The task force is looking into options that would allow for online application submission and passport processing at over 300 Service Canada locations in the long run. The implementation date for these measures is not specified, though.

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