The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC), Sean Fraser announced on March 31, 2022 that Canada has welcomed more than 108,000 new permanent residents so far in 2022.
The Immigration Minister had a plan to make 147,000 permanent residence final decisions in the first quarter of 2022 and double the number of final decisions for the same time period in 2021. IRCC has also improved its operations, adding resources where they are needed most to provide clients with the experience they expect and deserve.
Canada has also exceeded its citizenship goals for 2021-2022, with over 210,000 new Canadian citizens. For people who wish to become Canadians, IRCC is modernizing and expanding its services, including online testing, virtual citizenship ceremonies, and an online application tracker to stay informed.
As IRCC strives to reduce application processing times, they remain dedicated to providing their clients with accurate, timely, and transparent information. The Minister also announced updates to IRCC's online processing times tool to allow clients to receive more accurate estimates of how long it will take to process their application.
As a result, the majority of permanent residence and citizenship services now use dynamic processing times, with calculations posted every week based on data from the previous 6 months.