Almost two million people around the world are waiting for the outcome of their Canadian visa applications, according to a new report.
Data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has shown that the country has a backlog of 1.8 million, as of February 1.
Adding up these categories brings the total to 1,815,628 persons waiting for decisions, up 0.1% from December 2021.
Pending Permanent Resident applications have gone down by 29,165 applications since October – with the economic class seeing the most improvement, followed by the family class.
Study permit applications have declined since October, but the overall temporary residence inventory is up by nearly 73,000 persons over the same period. Demand for various temporary residences inventory is up by nearly 73,000 persons over the same period. Demand for various temporary residence categories has increased throughout the pandemic, especially to fill in for Canada’s worker shortages.
There are three types of “classes” of temporary residents: visitors, workers, and students.
On January 31, Minister Fraser announced that Canada is planning to make 147,000 PR decisions in the first quarter of 2022—double that from the same period in 2021. Fraser also said IRCC’s $85 million budget will allow processing service standards to return to normal for study permits, work permits, and permanent resident card renewals by the end of the year.
Despite the severe backlog, Canada’s population rose to 37 million people in 2021, up 5.2% from 2016, driven mostly by immigration, according to official data, with the downtowns and distant suburbs of large cities seeing the strongest growth.
Canada added 1.8 million people between 2016 and 2021, with nearly 80% of those new residents arriving from elsewhere in the world, retaining its position as the fastest-growing G7 country, Statistics Canada said in its Census 2021 release.