October 7th, 2023 at 06:57 am
Major Changes & New Plan to Improve Canada Immigration System
We’ll talk about the significant adjustments the Canadian immigration department is undergoing in this article. Canada, which prides itself on being open to immigrants, is currently going through significant reforms in its immigration division. These adjustments are set to influence the country’s future immigration rules and procedures, affecting both foreigners and Canadian society as a whole.
As part of a new strategy to enhance operations, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) made significant modifications last week. An earlier study on the department’s potential for improvement was written by Neil Yates, a former deputy minister for the IRCC. IRCC requested the Yates study to assess how well the Department can fulfill its purpose given its present organizational structure.
The deputy minister is the senior civil servant working in a non-political capacity for a government department. They are in charge of the administration of their Department, including the application of strategy and plans as well as personnel and financial management. IRCC’s current deputy minister, Christian Fox, communicates with the department’s politician minister, who also serves as immigration minister at the moment.
Yates Immigration Report
Implementing the elected government’s mandate is the responsibility of the minister of immigration, Mark Miller. Yates According to his assessment, a copy of which CIC News was able to secure, the IRCC’s organizational structure is flawed. Yates claims that although the IRCC’s current organizational structure is flawed, it is nonetheless held together by the staff’s diligence and commitment.
He suggests several actions that must be taken to realign the organizational structure, including a significant shift to a business line-based structure, reform of the governance system, implementation of stronger management systems, particularly planning and reporting, and facilitation of the development of a culture to better support the Department’s goals and objectives, including consideration of a comprehensive review of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and actions to better leverage it.
There are several reasons why the IRC C’s current model is flawed, but Yates focuses on two in particular;
- First and foremost, a challenging operating climate both domestically and internationally
- Second, since the introduction of its current organizational structure more than 20 years ago, IRCC has expanded dramatically.
Yates mentions the IRCC’s entire workforce has increased from 5,352 employees in March 2013 to 12,949 employees as of January 2023 to emphasize this point.
Fox’s Feelings about His New Role
Fox claimed that IRCC resembled a Crisis. When Fox assumed her position at the IRCC in July 2022, she said in an interview with journalist Paul Wells last week that the Yates report would have a big impact on the department’s intentions to pursue significant changes. Fox informed Wells that her colleagues in the department were under pressure and fatigued in their new position, which seemed like a crisis.
She came to the conclusion that there needed to be departmental changes, and while she was unwilling to make them right away, she also didn’t want to wait. After receiving the Yates report and consulting with public stakeholders, such as IRCC applicants, Fox had a plan of action two years later in June 2023.
Since then, she has implemented the reforms gradually. An organization line model was changed by IRCC. The department was reorganized over the following sectors last week, among other adjustments.
- Asylum and refugee resettlement
- Citizenship and passport
- Chief Financial Officer
- Economic family and social migration
- Chief Information officer
- Client service Innovation and chief digital officer
- Service delivery
- Communications
- Corporate Services
- International Affairs and Crisis Response
- Migration integrity
- Settlement integration and francophone Affairs
- Strategic policy
Additional Details
Fox notes that the department is now set up across lines of business as Yates had suggested. This means that personnel of the IRCC will be split up among the several clients that the Department Services serves as well as separated in a fashion that will enable them to respond quickly to developments across the world.
For instance, the department recently established a new international affairs and crisis response sector, which Fox explained to Wells is intended to assist IRCC in better planning for humanitarian crises and developing a plan of action IRCC regularly deals with, such as with Ukraine since last year and recent initiatives for the resettlement of Afghan and Syrian refugees, among others.
Further Immigration Plans
Additionally, FOX emphasizes the significance of IRCC taking on more clients. Future efforts should center on having the agency give its conclusions greater weight when considering the applicant’s experiences.
IRCC’s Operating Environment
Yates goes into detail on the numerous factors affecting IRCC. The principal ones are
1. Workplace Hybridization and COVID-19
As a result of the pandemic, it appears that the nature of work is changing forever. As a result, more people, including IRCC staff, are working remotely with a general directive to return to the office two to three days per week, argues Yates. Although working from home has been successful, its effects on IRCC’s organizational culture remain to be seen.
2. Demand for IRCC services
The Department sets targets for itself to process applications for each line of business since the demand for IRCC’s programs frequently exceeds the Department’s processing capacity as determined by its service standards. IRCC has methods and resources at its disposal to manage its inventory, such as caps for some programs, but when demand for its programs exceeds its processing capability, stocks can expand extremely quickly.
3. Growth of IRCC
Both the program’s Workforce and demand for it have increased over time. With 5,217 non-executive employees as of 2013, Yates describes its workforce as medium-sized. By 2023, that number will have more than doubled to 12,721 staff executives. The organizational structure at IRCC, which was created for a smaller department, has essentially remained the same despite the program and staff development.
4. Review of immigration policy
Both the prevalent immigration narrative and the real effects of immigration have not often been well-documented in Canada. A review of IRCC’s immigration policies could help determine the Department’s future course.
5. Digital transformation
For the modernization of its digital platform, IRCC has received sizable funds. Such changes are never easy, especially at an institution like the IRCC where there are numerous important response duties. But there is little question that IRCC must transition to a digital Department.
6. Worldwide uncertainty
Armed conflicts around the world are increasing. Democracy is in danger, and issues like climate change are having an impact on the desire for migration worldwide, which will continue to have a big impact on IRCC. The metal culture at IRCC is dedicated. Yates notes that IRCC currently has inadequate department-wide planning, lacks a multi-year strategic plan, and planning throughout the department is inconsistent while emphasizing the report’s non-critical intent.
All of these provide several difficulties, including the failure to meet the objectives of the Department and a lack of staff responsibility. Inadequacies in the Department’s organizational structure, governance, and management system have been overcome thanks in part to the department’s devoted, collaborative, and supportive culture, according to IRCC workers.
Yates also drew attention to the division that exists within the division between what he refers to as the ERPA school and the customer service school. He points out that a framework to bar applicants was included when the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was adopted in 2001. Officers are trained to enforce SERPA, which lists numerous reasons why an applicant may have their immigration request denied.
However, the possibility that these police may have unconscious bias that could affect their decision-making has previously received little attention. The people who belong to the client service school are on the other side and are more amenable to compromising and waiving regulations to enhance the service that IRCC clients receive.
Highlights of Yates’s Recommendations
Yates offers advice across four categories, including organizational structure, governance, Systems of management, and cultural highlights. The following are the suggestions
Recommendations for the organizational structure
- IRCC switched to a business line structure
- Also, IRCC creates emergency management protocols that designate assistant deputy minister heads in various
Scenarios, governance, and advice
- The functions of the corporate finance committee are absorbed by the executive committee, which takes over responsibility for finances and corporate services.
- Also, the duties of the issues management committee will be transferred to a new operations committee, which will be led by the deputy Minister’s office.
- Besides that, the membership of these committees be reduced to no more than 12 members and the membership be reviewed as part of the restructuring process.
- Aside from that, to rationalize and streamline roles and accountabilities, a review of the division of duties between IRCC and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under ARUPA should be carried out.
System recommendations for management
- Deputy Minister departs to establish new planning and reporting procedures
- Also, a three to five-year strategic strategy should be created.
- Additionally, implement a yearly planning cycle for the department’s program, budgetary, HR, and IT goals.
- Besides that, establish a quarterly reporting schedule and make sure it is connected to the department’s performance management.
Work culture recommendations
- Foremost, assess Ripa to see whether changes need to be made to better support the targeted results, such as an improved Service delivery check to see if the department’s desired philosophies and methods are reflected in the training given to staff members working in ERPA administration.
- Also, investigate ways to include the voices of the diverse communities within the IRCC in the departmental governance structure.
It’s an important time for people who want to move to Canada as the country starts these radical reforms in its immigration division.
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