According to the House of Commons’ standing committee on citizenship and immigration’s report on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on immigration to Canada, an immigration ombudsman is needed to keep tabs on the decisions made by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officials. The report also suggests creating an office of the immigration ombudsman that will ‘address status checks, disputes or errors in visa officer decisions, persistent processing errors and delays in certain classes of applications and overall oversight of IRCC and Canada Border Services Agency issues,’ and prevent applicants to go to court.
#IRCC, #CBSA, #ombudsman
May 28, 2021
IRCC’s department has been flooded with access to information requests
Foreign nationals who applied to immigrate to Canada have to file access to information requests to know the status of their application or the reason for denial. To see that information, applicants must file an access to information request (ATIP). According to a new report by the Information Commissioner, IRCC experienced a 670 percent increase in complaints to the commissioner’s office in 2019 and 2020. The GCMS modernization announced in Budget 2021 is considered to make this possible through an expanded MyAccount portal with increased functionality to both improve applicant service and reduce ATIP requests.
#IRCC, #ATIP
May 28, 2021
IRCC introduced a report on language training services for newcomers
Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) Research and Evaluation Branch introduced key findings of the evaluation of language training services for newcomers. The report examined whether the language learning framework is adapted to address newcomers’ needs and whether it is focused on the improvement of the language skills of new immigrants. According to the report, language learning services in Canada are designed to be flexible, meet the diverse needs of newcomers, support their progression that is mostly positive. The report also touched on the employability issues and made recommendations for further developments.
#IRCC, #Language_training
May 28, 2021
Canadian-American border may be opened by late summer
Some experts suggest that travel restrictions on the Canadian-American border may be lifted by late summer or early fall. Since March 2020, the border has been closed to all "nonessential" travel, and the agreement to close it between Ottawa and Washington is expected to be extended on June 21. Answering the question of when the Canada-US border will open, foreign policy expert Aaron Ettinger replied that ‘the borders will remain closed at least until the fall of 2021, because given the level of infection and the number of hospitalizations in intensive care units, now, the situation with the coronavirus is literally ten times worse than last year.’
#Travel_restrictions, #Covid_19
