Canada's Immigration Department compensates extra expenses when processing times surpass their stipulated limits.
In the ongoing saga of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) delays, a lesser-known twist surfaces: IRCC shelling out over $1.68 million last year to reimburse immigrants who experienced processing delays beyond the ministry's service standards.
That's a considerable increase from the previous year, when only $72,000 was spent. This financial loophole, part of the User Fees Act, has been active since 2021, with IRCC adding services to the roster as late as 2023. As fall approaches, we'll have data on the projected spending for 2024-2025.
This "automatic" refund mechanism requires no additional effort from the applicants, but delivery time can stretch from a mere two weeks up to a hefty eight. Plus, the refund doesn't cover 100% of the costs: the refund depends on the number of days surpassing the declared benchmark, with 25% or 50% being refunded to the applicant.
Immigration attorney Maxime Lapointe, with 15 years under his belt, found this latest development unexpected: "Given our current economic climate, partially refunding the processing fees seems counterintuitive." He also noted that the refund process leaves a sour taste with some IRCC clients due to the agency's recurring criticisms, such as the difficulty of reaching an agent or navigating refusals without supplying additional documents.
Even two associations representing immigrants were unfamiliar with this policy, underlining its low profile.
Conditions for Compensation
To be eligible for reimbursement, several factors must align. You must've applied for one of the seven targeted services provided by IRCC, namely: passport, citizenship, International Experience Canada (working holidays or young professionals), temporary resident permit, criminal rehabilitation, restoration of temporary resident status, or authorization to return to Canada.
Additionally, IRCC must breach its own service standard (a self-set deadline) for the particular application, not necessarily the entire processing. For example, for a temporary resident permit application, IRCC may need only 30 days to acknowledge the application, but there may be no timeframe for processing the permit itself.
Astonishingly, the passport service, which saw notorious delays in the summer of 2022, triggering individuals to camp in front of passport offices, is part of this compensation policy. However, exceptions apply for unusual or exceptional circumstances causing unexpected surges in applications, which seems accurate for the post-pandemic scenario.
Time to Bide Your Time
Recent data shows a rise in wait times: it now takes an average of 169 days to extend a visitor visa and 234 days to extend a work or study permit.
However, these delays aren't solely due to bureaucratic slowness. Factors such as governmental decisions, including the reduction of admitted permanent residents until 2027 and Quebec's specific targets, contribute to the longer wait times in several categories, including family reunification, protected persons, humanitarian reasons, and even halted economic immigration programs for skilled workers and foreign students until June 2025.
Sources:1. CBC News2. National Post3. IRCC Service Standard Data (as of May 2025)
- The classified policy mandated under the User Fees Act offers a partial refund to immigrants when IRCC breaches its own service standards, a development that immigration attorney Maxime Lapointe finds counterintuitive in the current economic climate.
- The eligibility for this compensation is contingent upon the criteria set by IRCC, which includes applying for one of the seven targeted services and IRCC's failure to meet its self-imposed deadlines, not necessarily for the entire processing of the application. Interestingly, the compensation policy covers even the passport service, despite notorious delays in the summer of 2022.
