RECOMMENDATION 1

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada continue the recent trend of increasing the level of family class  immigration and that the family class category continue to increase as overall immigration levels rise.

RECOMMENDATION 2

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada consider designing the economic and family class programs together, recognizing that the characteristics of the two streams are interdependent.

RECOMMENDATION 3

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada create and make public a game plan with clear timelines of how to eliminate the backlog for every category under family reunification (i.e. spouses and partners, parents and grandparents; children and others).

RECOMMENDATION 4

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada review and update the risk profile of family class applicants, and do so on an ongoing basis.

RECOMMENDATION 5

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada publish online current average wait times for each immigration processing stream by region.

RECOMMENDATION 6

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada take steps to ensure consistent delivery standards across all national and global processing offices and that there is consistent application of decisions made by staff.

RECOMMENDATION 7

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada continue to focus on culture change across all relevant departments to ensure a customer-centric focus.

RECOMMENDATION 8

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada ensure more resources are put into the staffing and training of call centre agents for the purpose of:

• Reducing the amount of time it takes for an applicant to get a live person on the phone;
• Developing an affordable plan using best practices from top service companies to better respond to applications whose first language is not English or French; and
• Considering having people in the applicant’s language return phone calls if call centre staff do not understand what is being asked of them.

RECOMMENDATION 9

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada first attempt to contact applicants by email and/or phone if documentation is missing or incorrectly filed with appropriate timelines to address the issues prior to returning the entire application package.

RECOMMENDATION 10

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada find a cost effective way to notify applicants of small omissions or that information is missing and do so in a timely fashion.

RECOMMENDATION 11

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada continue working toward the single window approach used by the Canada Revenue Agency (single person, single portal, single entry for your lifetime); and that this work is completed within a 12-month timeline from the time this report is filed and that IRCC report back to CIMM when it is completed.

RECOMMENDATION 12

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada move towards providing more transparency to applicants online and providing more information on the status of their application.

RECOMMENDATION 13

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada provide more accessible information through the eCAS portal, including status updates, and to allow for multiple options for the payment of processing fees.5

RECOMMENDATION 14

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada consider introducing an in-person service that can advise people on a case by case basis; in which a fee can also be considered under an expedited timeframe.5

RECOMMENDATION 15

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada undertake a full review of the fees for family classes with a special consideration to establishing a maximum amount per family.

RECOMMENDATION 16

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada require visa officers to consider all the facts of the case, including intention and any mitigating circumstances, in deciding whether to impose an exclusion under section 117(9)(d) of the Regulations, which should not exceed five years, in accordance with the penalties for misrepresentation elsewhere in the Act.5

RECOMMENDATION 17

That the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship take immediate steps to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations so that section 4(1) reads as follows:

4 (1) For the purposes of these Regulations, a foreign national shall not be considered a spouse, a common-law partner or a conjugal partner of a person if the marriage, common-law partnership or conjugal partnership:

(a) is not genuine; and

(b) the primary purpose of the marriage, common-law partnership or conjugal partnership is to acquire status or privilege under the Act.

RECOMMENDATION 18

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada mainstream training to provide country-specific cultural awareness including awareness of different classes and how intimacy is discussed, so that bone fide relationships are not penalized.

RECOMMENDATION 19

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada create an appeals process for rejected in-land spousal sponsorships; that the appeal decision be issued within a 12-month window; and apply a similar timeline for appeals of overseas applicants.

RECOMMENDATION 20

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada put in place transitional provisions that would enable dependent children who would have been eligible before the change in August 2014 to apply for permanent residence in Canada.

RECOMMENDATION 21

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada expedite the processing of children under the age of 18 to less than six months if both parents are in Canada.

RECOMMENDATION 22

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada review the situation of permanent residents of Canada who give birth to children outside of Canada and provide options for a remedy that would permit the child to enter Canada during the sponsorship process.

RECOMMENDATION 23

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada consider recognizing broader definitions of parent-child relationship that do not require formal adoption.

RECOMMENDATION 24

That the federal government work with the provinces to review exceptions to the adoption moratoria on countries whose adoption systems are considered unreliable.

RECOMMENDATION 25

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada exercise greater flexibility and accommodation in the sponsorship of adopted children; and that the government improve coordination with Canadian provincial authorities, including exploring giving an adopted child a temporary resident visa while waiting for an application for citizenship to be processed, and reviewing the circumstances in which an application might succeed on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, so that it includes situations such as the inability to locate relatives of abandoned children.

RECOMMENDATION 26

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reduce the processing time to six months for routine applications for proof of citizenship of Canadian citizens under the age of 18 who were born abroad to a parent(s) who is a Canadian citizen.

RECOMMENDATION 27

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada review and consider adopting an age lock-in date provision for the overseas dependents of Humanitarian and Compassionate applicants.

RECOMMENDATION 28

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada adopt a more flexible approach to demonstrating the minimum necessary income required to sponsor parents and grandparents, by allowing siblings to co-sponsor an application and counting any transferrable state benefits for parents and grandparents in the calculation and by reducing the number of years required of proof of income from three years to one.

RECOMMENDATION 29

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada shorten the undertaking period to 10 years for sponsoring parents and grandparents aged 60 and under.

RECOMMENDATION 30

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada establish a service standard for processing parent and grandparent sponsorship applications.

RECOMMENDATION 31

With respect to parents and grandparents on a Super Visa, that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada explore alternative options for accepting a broader range of health insurance coverage options outside the Canadian market that meets Canadian standards for coverage; and consult with domestic health insurance providers to ensure fairness to families in Canada.

RECOMMENDATION 32

To counter the reliance on qualitative and anecdotal evidence, that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada establish guidelines as to how to better track quantifiable data on immigrants entering Canada through family reunification so that decisions regarding this category can be better informed.

RECOMMENDATION 33

That the federal government work with the provinces to gather the following information: impact of sponsored parents and grandparents on Canada’s health care and social welfare system – breaking it down according to age and regions in Canada where they live.

RECOMMENDATION 34

That the federal government work with each of the provinces to collect data on provincial retention rates of family class applicants.

RECOMMENDATION 35

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada gather data on the economic contribution to the family unit of the sponsored parents and/or grandparents who take care of children.

RECOMMENDATION 36

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada gather data on the economic contribution of the family unit as well as qualitative data on other types of contributions.0

RECOMMENDATION 37

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada provide funding for research and programs to support the unique needs of the Canadian citizens who sponsor spouses and children for immigration and assess the impacts of delays and separation on Canadian families.

RECOMMENDATION 38

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada create a game plan to eliminate the backlog of caregiver applications and present this plan to CIMM within six months; and that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reduce the wait times from the current 51 months to 12 months.

RECOMMENDATION 39

That Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada establish service standards of 12 months for applications under the One-Year Window family reunification program for resettled refugees and for processing applications for dependents abroad of protected persons.