ARCHIVED - Brief Case Studies of Exemplary Practices

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page

This page has been archived.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Description of Business Line
Citizenship and Immigration Canada approves applications to immigrate to Canada, to visit Canada and to become Canadian Citizens. Much of the initial work to process overseas applicants is performed at Canadian embassies overseas; however, considerable work is done within Canada (Vegreville), processing applications that originate within Canada. Vegreville also processes a portion of the overseas applications.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has two client groups. It serves those applying to immigrate or visit Canada or to become Canadian Citizens. However, its primary client is really the Canadian Public, which it serves by obtaining the highest quality individuals possible to immigrate to Canada, while ensuring that individuals who are security risks are not admitted into the country.

Service Standards in Use

On its website, Citizenship and Immigration Canada provides service standards for a variety of services, in terms of timeliness of responses. These standards are as follows:

• 80% of student applications will be processed within 4 weeks.
• Routine family class applications by spouses will be processed within 6 months.
• Approval in principle for applications for landing in Canada sent to Vegreville will be given within 90 days.
• Granting of landing through Vegreville will be given within 12 to 18 months
• Visitor extensions will be processed within 25 days.
• Citizenship applications will be processed within 8 to 12 months.

These standards were set through an examination of the resources available to provide the required service. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is in the process of updating its tracking systems to be able to report on the degree to which its standards are being achieved.

The department is in the process of implementing a system of providing each applicant to immigrate to Canada with a letter explaining the general aspects of the approval process. In particular, the letter explains the relationship between the timing of the applicant providing information and the timing of the approval process. This letter has been developed in consultation with Citizenship and Immigration Canada staff, newly arrived immigrants, organizations representing immigrants, sponsors, and immigration lawyers.

Exemplary Practices

The Citizenship and Immigration Canada business line has exhibited the following exemplary practice in its approach to developing, implementing, monitoring and using its service standards:

• The issuing of a letter informing applicants of the immigration process and giving them an idea of how long they will have to wait allows potential immigrants to plan better. It informs them of the importance of the steps that they must take and tells them when they can expect an answer. This knowledge makes the waiting process much more acceptable to immigrants.

Lessons Learned

In the process of reexamining service standards, particularly for services being performed at overseas embassies it was observed that the volume of applications to immigrate to Canada from a given country would often vary considerably from year to year. At the same time, the staff at the embassy had little capacity to increase resources available to process these applications. Under these circumstances, the setting of embassy-specific service standards in undesirable, since it sets targets that may be unachievable in practice.

Contact

Sidney Frank
Pilot Project Manager
Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Centralized Processing Pilot Project
300 Slater Street, 11^th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0C8
Telephone: (613) 957-5951

 

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page