Ottawa, June 13, 2016 – As part of its commitment to family reunification, the Government of Canada will grant permanent residence to more spouses, partners and dependent children of Canadian citizens and permanent residents this year. This will significantly reduce the backlog of existing applications and speed up processing times going forward.
Each year, the Government sets how many permanent residents Canada intends to admit through its various immigration categories during the year. This is done with the annual immigration levels plan. The plan for 2016 reflects the Government’s key priorities for immigration, which include bringing more families together.
This year, the Government increased the number of spaces allowed for spouses, partners and dependent children by 14 000, bringing it up to 62 000 spaces…
What this means for applicants
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has begun to work on reducing its current spousal sponsorship backlog.
Reducing the backlog means complete and straightforward spousal sponsorship applications will be finalized faster.
The backlog reduction applies to applications received through the family class (overseas processing) as well as the spouse or common-law partner in Canada class (in-Canada processing).
All applications will continue to undergo the necessary screening to ensure that individuals do not pose a health, safety or security risk to Canadians and that the relationships are genuine…
To read the full notice, click here