Citizenship 350k Applications Inventory

We discussed it here:

http://www.immigration.ca/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12151&title=new-cic-statistic-released

Bottom line, the "misleading" number is inventory, because it nobody knows what exactly it is and doesn't represent the total number of people awaiting decision, which may be 2+ times of what inventory is, and it gives wrong impression (some people may associate it with number of people awaiting decision).

For example, during 2010 and 2011 there were more applications than new citizens each year, but inventory number fell in 2011. How was this possible? In 2012 the difference between new applicants and new citizens is 200k, but inventory rose only 70K since 2011. What does it mean?

Clearly, a lot more people awaiting decision that whatever number inventory is. And we don't know how many were shifted to "non-inventory" status.

The other point is processing times. Processing times are calculated for finalized applications only, so there's a lag of approximately 1.5-2 years on this info (since application date). People who applied couple years ago saw something like 15-19 months on CIC web page, which when it comes to the point of finalizing your application is not true anymore.

Similarly, people applying now see 23 months, but in 2 years it'll be more, if there's no major improvement. That keeping in mind how many applications may be really awaiting decision now (plus those having "non-inventory" status for whatever reason, a lot bigger in total than inventory number) and a slow ratio of processing which doesn't keep up with new applications rate (roughly 300K received, only 100K processed in 2012).

CIC can't start fixing timelines until they start processing more applications a year than they receive and it's currently not happening. If there's no improvement, look at 3-4+ years for a regular application in the next 2 years. However, there were some new CIC budget figures announced and I hope it will help to start improving citizenship timelines in future.

eileen wrote: Sadly I think the hope you reflect in your last statement may be ill-founded as the budget only allocated for 160,000 new citizens: far too little to positively affect the "inventory", whether it is comprised of 349,249 people or 800,000.

Indeed, I need to check what's new CIC budget about more closely. I was under impression there was an intent to improve cit applications processing with more financing this year. If CIC will have a target of 160K only, it won't solve timeline issue, as more people apply a year. 2012 was unusual though with >300K applicants; seems a lot of people rushed to apply ahead of new language requirements implementation.

EasyRider wrote: eileen wrote: Sadly I think the hope you reflect in your last statement may be ill-founded as the budget only allocated for 160,000 new citizens: far too little to positively affect the "inventory", whether it is comprised of 349,249 people or 800,000. Indeed, I need to check what's new CIC budget about more closely. I was under impression there was an intent to improve cit applications processing with more financing this year. If CIC will have a target of 160K only, it won't solve timeline issue, as more people apply a year. 2012 was unusual though with >300K applicants; seems a lot of people rushed to apply ahead of new language requirements implementation.

You know, I was just checking my facts and most press reports indicate that the $44 million over 2 years will help is over and above their 2012 budget, so maybe my cynicism got the better of me. I haven't been able to find any indication of how many applications they are budgeting to process, or really any breakdown of where this 44 million is going to. Citizenship judges? Additional personnel? There's no mention that I can find. So I am still suspicious. I doubt that it will be sufficient to address the ballooning backlog or the fact that the CIC, in every year since 2004, has received 28,000-190,000 more applications per year than what CIC identifies as the "typical" 160,000.
CIC's total 2012 budget was $1,602,784,000, so $22,000,000 (2013's share of 44 mil) is an increase of less than 1.4%.



Edited by eileen - 15 Apr 2013 at 2:08pm

eileen wrote: You know, I was just checking my facts and most press reports indicate that the $44 million over 2 years will help is over and above their 2012 budget. I haven't been able to find any indication of how many applications they are budgeting to process, or really any breakdown of where this 44 million is going to. Citizenship judges? Additional personnel? There's no mention that I can find. So I am suspicious. I doubt that it will be sufficient to address the ballooning backlog or the fact that the CIC, in every year since 2004, has received 28,000-190,000 more applications per year than what CIC identifies as the "typical" 160,000. CIC's total 2012 budget was $1,602,784,000, so $22,000,000 (2013's share of 44 mil) is an increase of less than 1.4%.

Actually $22 million could be of much help, if used in proper way.

For example, there was info here discovered through ATIP showing that local office teams handling cit applications are almost cartoonishly small:

http://www.immigration.ca/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11263&PID=189909&title=rq-victims-are-low-priority-to-cic#189909

According to this info, St. Clair citizenship teams are just 16 people, and there are only 6 key CO's. Seems like hiring few people on key roles to a CIC department wherever currently bottleneck could be identified (CO's, CJ's and/or Sydney personnel) could do the trick.

Obviously, a lot could be done with even much less than $22 million, but there simply wasn't any desire to do anything. I'm very much interested how these increases will be spent. There's also application fee increase coming.

EasyRider wrote: Actually $22 million could be of much help, if used in proper way. For example, there was info here discovered through ATIP showing that local office teams handling cit applications are almost cartoonishly small: http://www.immigration.ca/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11263&PID=189909&title=rq-victims-are-low-priority-to-cic#189909 According to this info, St. Clair citizenship teams are just 16 people, and there are only 6 key CO's. Seems like hiring few people on key roles to a CIC department wherever currently bottleneck could be identified (CO's, CJ's and/or Sydney personnel) could do the trick. Obviously, a lot could be done with even much less than $22 million, but there simply wasn't any desire to do anything. I'm very much interested how these increases will be spent. There's also application fee increase coming.

It will be interesting to see indeed. While I hope that the CIC will direct the additional budget to speeding up all applications, including RQs, my suspicion is that RQs would be a low priority. Strategically, it makes sense for the CIC to focus their resources on approving as many "easy" applications as they can, to get their reported wait times and inventories down. RQs have been identified as complicated; their processing is labour-intensive, so the CIC doesn't get much bang for their buck on them, as far as reported wait times and inventory reduction.

It reminds me of this sadly overlooked January article which quotes Kenney as saying that "more permanent residents coming up for a limited number of spots" and that "the government has an action plan to reduce processing times and streamline applications deemed desirable" (the last quote is the journalist's paraphrase.) This indicates to me that there is little interest in speeding difficult applications.

By conceiving of citizenship levels as determined by budget rather than by the eligibility of the applicant as set forth in the Citizenship Act, we get a recipe for the fast tracking of "desirable" applicants and the languishing of "undesirables". This could be acceptable if it were a legal process, with checks and balances and the right to appeal, but when "desirability" is determined through a internal and secretive CIC administrative process of extended but indeterminate length, I think we're justified in our suspicions. 


Edited by eileen - 15 Apr 2013 at 2:42pm