Ottawa: In a bid to support Canadian economy, helping to address labour shortages and keep our communities thriving. Canadian government plan to make 147,000 permanent residence final decisions in the first quarter of 2022—doubling what was done in the same period last year.
Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced measures to improve client experience and modernize the immigration system. These measures are part of a broader process to address key challenges faced by our clients, and achieve the more predictable processing times that our clients expect and deserve.
We know that many talented and skilled newcomers have waited long during the pandemic. In the Economic and Fiscal Update 2021, the Government of Canada proposed $85 million in new funding to reduce application inventories. The investment will support additional staff, allowing us to welcome people who can help address labour shortages and to return to processing service standards in various programs by the end of this year, including for study permits, work permits and permanent resident card renewals. We are also working to reduce processing times for visitor visas and proof of citizenship.IRCC made over half a million decisions on permanent resident applications in 2021. We are further increasing processing capacity.
To further support permanent residence applicants, we will be expanding the digital application portal to include more clients in summer 2022. The transition to an online application process will minimize COVID-19-related delays associated with processing paper applications, and will provide clients with immediate confirmation that their application was successfully submitted. Efforts to date have allowed average processing times for spousal sponsorship applicants to return to the service standard of 12 months for new applications.