Canada visitor visa: IRCC mulls to relax eligibility criteria to clear backlogs

The Canada government is mulling drastic steps to reduce its huge immigration backlog, including waiving eligibility criteria for nearly half a million visitor visas, The Globe and Mail report reported as a policy memo.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), a department of the government bestowed with the responsibility for matters dealing with immigration to Canada, refugees, and Canadian citizenship is prepared to take “aggressive action” to significantly reduce its pending visitor visa applications by February, as per a draft document dated December.

The memo mentioned that IRCC has two developed two strategies to shorten the number of visitor visa applications. As per the first strategy, it plans to process an estimated 195,000 applications in bulk which could include a large number of tourists from countries that require visas to visit Canada, reported Economic Times.

Under the second option, Canada would relax certain eligibility criteria for around 450,000 visit visa applicants. By waiving admission rules, foreign nationals would not have to prove they will leave Canada when their visa expires.

However, visitors would still have to undergo an eligibility check. This ensures, for example, that applicants do not pose a threat to national security.

In a statement, Canada's Immigration Minister Sean Fraser did not address any issues related to the policy memo or the changes being considered, reported ET.

“Canada is now processing visitor visa applications faster than it was before the pandemic. More than 260,000 visitor visas were processed in November compared to a monthly average of about 180,000 in 2019,” Fraser said.

“Despite the progress we have seen, there is still much more work to be done to meet pre-pandemic processing timelines,” the minister added.

In December last, the number of applicants in IRCC's inventory decreased from approximately 2.2 million to just over 2.1 million. There were more than 700,000 temporary resident visa (TRV) applications in the system during the early December.

“We are actually removing cases from our system faster than they’re coming in, which gives me confidence that we’re getting back on track,” Fraser said at a news conference in December last year.