Canada plans to introduce new legislation for tackling the massive backlog of migrants

To improve the responsiveness of Canada’s immigration system and better align it with the immediate and longer-term needs of labor market, Canadian government is planning to introduce an amendment to country’s existing immigration laws in few days.

The new legislation will limit the number of applications accepted and processed annually.

As outlined in the budget for financial year 2008-09, this dramatic change in policy was expected. The backlog of nearly 900,000 immigration applications around the world has increased the application wait times more than 20 per cent since 2004. Consequently, this delay in application process is taking approximately four to six years for a new case to be finalized. This situation was demanding an overhaul for many years. In this year’s budget, government has pledged $22 million investment over two years, growing to $37 million per year, to modernize the existing immigration system.

The budget implementation bill will include a legislative change that gives the immigration minister the authority to manage the size of the backlog and set limits.

By limiting the number of new applications accepted and processed annually, this new legislation will help to speed up the processing of permanent resident applications, ensuring shorter wait times and making Canada’s immigration system more competitive by improving Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). The proposed changes are designed to establish a "just-in-time" immigration system, where the wait time is reduced to an average of a year.

However, this policy change could shut out a large number of prospective immigrants, especially low skilled, from Canadian immigration. It is widely being claimed by the government's political opponents, however, that this proposal will be used to fast-track few targeted categories of economic migrants but deter family reunifications, or cases where immigrants are admitted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

The legislative change is among a host of other recent reforms designed to reduce wait times. One is creating SWAT teams who can be transferred to process files from countries or immigration categories where the wait is longest. Another is allowing Canadian officials stationed abroad in quieter posts to process paperwork filed in immigration hot spots.

The government is also creating a new category of immigrant - the Canadian Experience Class. Under that category, temporary residents such as highly skilled workers and foreign students would be allowed to remain in Canada post-graduation while they apply for permanent residence.