Soaring backlogs, disgruntled applicants — Canada’s immigration system has been upended by COVID-19. This is the man in charge of fixing it

Some initial messaging from the new minister of immigration. No major change from his predecessor, as expected:

Sean Fraser says he knew what he was getting into when he was tapped to be Canada’s next immigration minister.

“Things are at such a strained point as a result of COVID-19 that I see an opportunity to make an extraordinary difference coming from this particular starting point,” the Nova Scotia MP says.

“There are no shortage of challenges ahead of me.”

Few other federal services have seen so much disruption as the immigration system during the pandemic, with the operation grinding to a halt and staff working remotely with antiquated infrastructure and travel restricted for newcomers abroad due to border closures.

It’s laid bare the many existing problems with immigration operations, from out-of-date technologies that still relied on paper applications and processing, to administrative red tape built up over the years and a lack of resources to meet the insatiable demand for immigration to this country.

In his first major media interview since inheriting the job on Oct. 26. from Marco Mendicino, now the public safety minister, Fraser, a rising star within the Trudeau government, highlighted some of the priorities that call for his immediate attention.

As countries worldwide are all trying to reopen their economies at the same time and competing for the same pool of workers, he said Canada must stay competitive in the global search of talent.

Streamlining the system and digitalizing the application process will be crucial to boosting the processing capacity of the immigration system and improving user experience, he added.

“We have to make a decision of whether we’re going to increase the overall levels to accommodate the intense demand that we’re seeing from people who want to come to Canada,” Fraser said.

“If there’s going to be 400,000 people that are able to come to Canada in a given year and we have 700,000 applicants, it doesn’t take a PhD in mathematics to understand that that’s going to lead to a further buildup of the backlog. So we do have to take strategic decisions about how many people our communities can accommodate successfully.”

As of July 31, according to the immigration department, more than 561,700 people were in the queue for permanent residence and 748,381 had a pending temporary residence application as students, workers or visitors while the backlog for citizenship stood at 376,458 people.

Fraser says he doesn’t have a target timeline for how long it will take to eliminate the backlog, but there are numerous initiatives already in place toward that goal — and other changes will also be made.

“I don’t want to communicate to you today that in a short period of time, all of these problems will be fixed. They weren’t made overnight and they won’t be fixed overnight,” he said.

“I want to accelerate the work that’s going to help clear some of these backlogs. It’s going to make the process less painful for families that are trying to pursue a new life or reunite with their loved ones or find a job to contribute to our economy.”

Fraser said the digitalization of citizenship applications has already taken place and in the months ahead, there will be “serious reforms” on applications for spousal reunification.

There could also be legislative changes in order to remove what Fraser calls the system’s “choke points” as new policies are being developed.

For example, he said it just doesn’t make sense to deny entry of a foreign national with a pending family reunification application to be with their spouse or children in Canada because of their intent to stay in the country permanently. The provision in the law has set many families apart while their applications are in process, sometimes for years.

“It’s easy to get bogged down in a conversation about the number of cases and the inventory. But in my role, you will not succeed if you don’t realize that every one of these cases or numbers in the inventory represents a human being,” Fraser said.

“This will take longer than most people would like, longer than I would like. But if you want to change a system as large as Canada’s immigration regime, to do it right and to succeed, you have to put the time in.”

Born in Antigonish and raised in Merigomish, a small community in Nova’s Scotia’s Pictou County, Fraser is one of the rare immigration ministers from rural Canada.

Like many young people from small remote communities, he — and his five sisters — had to leave for larger urban centres for education and job opportunities. With an undergraduate degree in science from St. Francis Xavier University, the 37-year-old went on to study law at Dalhousie University and at Leiden University in the Netherlands before working at a large law firm in Calgary.

Many communities have struggled with an aging population and out-migration of young people, and immigration is a crucial part of the solution, he said.

“When you have more people around the world coming up, coming into your community, opening businesses, opening restaurants, creating a more dynamic place to live, you see more Canadians flocking to those communities to have that kind of dynamic culture and life experience as well,” said Fraser.

Fraser said the bulk of most of his days since his appointment as the immigration minister has evolved around the Afghan refugee resettlement. The Liberal government has made a commitment to bring in 40,000 Afghan newcomers and so far only 3,500 have made it to Canada.

“Canadians are right to be frustrated about what’s going on in Afghanistan,” he said. “The reality on the ground right now is that we don’t have access the way we did in Syria, and that’s the equation that a lot of Canadians I think are trying to make.”

The government’s strategy is to work with partners in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States — all struggling to resettle the Afghan refugees — to bring the Afghans to a permanent home. “Our commitment does not waver,” he said.

Although he was honoured by Maclean’s magazine as the “Best Orator” and a finalist for “Rising Star” in the last government, Fraser said he’s just a guy who cares deeply about people.

“I very much want to ensure that Canada treats people with a sense of dignity, respect and fairness.”

Source: Soaring backlogs, disgruntled applicants — Canada’s immigration system has been upended by COVID-19. This is the man in charge of fixing it