National Post (National Edition)
Immigrants face long battle getting information
Must file access to information requests
• The federal department in charge of immigration applications has been flooded with access to information requests because it provides so little information to applicants proactively, according to a new report by the Information Commissioner.
Have you applied to immigrate in Canada and want to know the status of your application? Or maybe your request was denied and you want to understand why? Well, instead of being able to see that information via your unique login on Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada's (IRCC) web portal, you have to file an access to information request (ATIP).
And then, be prepared to wait months for your response.
In a new report published Monday, Canada's access to information watchdog Caroline Maynard found that IRCC has been increasingly overwhelmed with access to information requests simply because immigration applicants have little to no way of tracking the progress of their file proactively.
“Immigration applicants have been forced to resort to making access requests because the information they needed, most notably the status of applications and the reasons for rejections, was not directly available to them,” Commissioner Caroline Maynard notes in an investigation report published Monday.
“In contrast, frequent requesters generally do obtain the information they want through access requests.”
The commissioner notes that the department has received a massive influx of new access to information requests in the last few years, hitting nearly 120,000 new files in 2019-2020 (a 42-per-cent jump from the previous fiscal year). For context, she says that is nearly three times the total combined amount of requests sent to all other government institutions in the same year.
That led to a “striking” 670-per-cent increase in complaints to the commissioner's office in just two years. In 2019-2020, IRCC ranked first for complaints to her office at nearly 4,300, more than 10 times the total for the RCMP, which ranked second at 355.
“This systemic investigation confirmed that the extraordinarily high number of requests, and correspondingly high numbers of complaints, is the direct result of applicants and/or their representatives being unable to obtain information they are seeking about immigration application files through other means,” reads the report.
According to the Commissioner, the main solution for IRCC is not necessarily to up the speed of its ATIP process, but rather to make oft-requested information available more readily. So, Maynard is calling on IRCC to put in place “innovative solutions” that go “beyond established processes” to provide potential immigrants with the information they require.
She also wants IRCC to put an end to the practice of automatically requesting a 60- or 90-day extension to respond to people who made more than one ATIP request simultaneously. According to Maynard, the practice is “entirely inconsistent” with the department's legal obligations to address all access to information requests in a timely manner regardless of the requester's identity.
In the report, Maynard highlights that IRCC has already begun trying to address many of these issues, notably by promising a revamped version of its digital platform for applicants in the coming years, as well as testing a new version of immigration refusal letters that contains more details about the reason for the rejection.
“In addition, IRCC is undertaking a comprehensive analysis of the root causes driving ATIP requests, with the possibility of exploring alternative means of getting clients the information that they seek,” reads the departments' response in the report.