By Catherine Sas, K.C.
Special to The Post

In the aftermath of the introduction of last year’s immigration plan in November 2024, the government made clear that there were going to be tougher times for prospective immigrants to Canada. The proposed targets of 500,000 immigrants per year for 2025/26, set just a couple of years earlier in 2023, were being slashed to 395,000 for 2025 and 380,000 for 2026. The Liberal government woke up one morning and realized that it had somewhere between 2-3 million temporary residents in Canada, most of whom were expecting to become permanent residents, and that we simply couldn’t absorb that many people. So the targeted numbers had to move downward. However, no one could have anticipated the actual effect on immigration processing for those applicants brave enough to continue forward.  

After the election in April 2025, Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed a fresh Cabinet with a new immigration minister, Lena Diab. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) presented Minister Diab with a “Transition Binder” in May 2025 that had some stark figures for consideration. Those figures, and the reality of what they represent, are being felt by prospective applicants, and the effect is chilling.

The IRCC Transition Binder 2025-05 holds some shocking statistics about current processing times for various application streams. The most dramatic are as follows and are current as of the second quarter of 2025:

Start Up Visa (SUV) applications: 420 months (35 years)

Agrifood applications: 228 months (19 years)

Caregiver applications: 108 months (9 years)

Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP):  54 months (4.5 years)

While these statistics are for newly submitted applications as of mid-2025, they paint an extremely bleak picture.

Further telling information is the current inventory of applications versus the planned admissions in accordance with the levels plan:

When you see the current volume of applications and the targeted admission levels it is not surprising to see the corresponding processing times of many, many years.

The processing prospects for Humanitarian and Compassionate (H and C) applications are not any better. When standard processes for immigration are reduced or cut off, people turn to other avenues, and in this case, it is the H and C application process, which is a discretionary application. There are no set criteria for H and C applications, and so people need to 杜ake their case・ as to why they deserve to be processed for permanent residence on 電iscretionary・ grounds.   This past August I discussed the limitations of the H and C process and my projections that demand would increase. Please refer to our blog entitled 釘aby it痴 cold out there・.and it痴 going to get colder! Why the Humanitarian and Compassionate application is not always the answer”

As it turns out, my predictions have proved correct as has recently been reported in the CBC article ・50-year immigration wait stuns lawyers and families, but IRCC says it痴 no mistake”. In the article, CBC refers to IRCC’s own current data (as of October 9, 2025) for the processing of H and C applications as listed on its website, with timelines of more than 10 years! IRCC reports there are currently 49,400 people with pending H and C applications in the queue.

To understand the reasons for such lengthy processing times, we have to go back to the 2024 levels plan, which lists IRCC’s targets for H and C applications as follows:

However, also included in the Minister’s levels report for 2024 were the number of H and C applications processed for 2022 at 10,199 and 2023 at 14,355, respectively. You can see that there is a clear downward trend for the number of H and C applications that IRCC will be processin,g such that the cases to be processed in 2027 will be 50% less than that of 2025 and much, much less than the cases processed in 2022 - only 5 years ago!

There is no question that writing a blog about numbers and statistics is never that engaging. But it is essential to understanding immigration processing and predicting your chances for success or being able to make any application at all. With the current processing levels and targets, it really boils down to simple arithmetic:

Immigration applications increasing + Immigration targets decreasing = Increased processing times.

For our other recent discouraging blogs about the state of Canada’s immigration program, please refer to our earlier posts:

The Summer of Immigration Discontent: Troubling times for aspiring Canadian immigrants - 15 July 2025

Immigration Levels Review: When Policy Meets Reality - 8 July 2025

Navigating the Winds of Change to Canada痴 Immigration program: A year in review - 10 December 2024

Catherine Sas, K.C. has over 35 years of legal experience. She provides a full range of immigration services and is a leading immigration practitioner (Lexpert, Who’s Who Legal, Best Lawyers in Canada). Go to canadian-visa-lawyer.com or email catherine@sasanding.com.