However, CIC's 2014–2015 Report on Plans and Priorities (1) points to another direction: Spousal sponsorship applications are generating revenue, while Temporary foreign worker ones are actually causing losses.
Here are some facts shown by this report:
1. Sponsorship applications (and most PR applications) generate significant revenue
When taking the amount spent per year in processing applications to sponsor a spouse, common law partner or dependant children, the minimum and maximum goals of applications processed and the fees paid by the applicants, the results are actually profits.
In the 2014-15 year, CIC's budget for this stream (including inland and outland applicants) was $27.472.071. The goal was to process between 45,000 and 48,000 applications, which means an expense that goes between $572,33 and $610,49 per application (see the numbers).
But applicants are in fact charged with $1,100, according to the CIC website, which means an amount between $489,51 and $527,67 that is charged to these applicants but not invested in processing their applications.
From the 9 Permanent Residency streams shown in the report (except for refugee claimants), 8 streams presented the same situation: the amount of fees charged was considerably superior to the amount of resources invested in their applications.
The leftover category, Federal Skilled Workers, presents a deficit of over 30 million dollars which, according to CIC, responds to return of fees made to applicants whose applications were returned without being processed.
In 2012, CIC returned 300,000 Federal Skilled Worker applications (2) submitted prior to February of 2008 and still not processed in order to reduce backlogs. CIC said they would return the processing fees for all these applications, which costs the Government nearly 150 million dollars.
Where are all these fees going? Here's an idea...
2. Temporary foreign worker applications are heavily subsidized
The Report on Plans and Priorities specifies the amount assigned per year to each immigration stream and the minimum and maximum goals for processed applications that year.
For example, for TFWs, the amount assigned for the 2014-15 year is $23,488,233, and the processing goals are between 15,000 and 30,000 applications. This means that processing each application will cost between $782.94 and $1,565.88.
However, applicants requesting a TFW permit pay only $155, which only covers 10 to 20% of the real cost of processing their application. The remaining 80 to 90% of the cost for processing TFW applications goes from nearly 19 to 21 million dollars (tweet this), which are subsidized by CIC.
Of course, since refugee claimants don't pay fees, people might think profits from Family Reunification and other PR categories are going to fund these applications, and this is in part true. However...
3. Only half of the profits from other applications are invested in refugee claims
Total expenses for refugee applications and related services go between 44 and 45 million dollars in the 2014-15 period, according to the mentioned report. However, the profits made over 8 out of 9 permanent residency streams go between 80 and 92 million dollars.
While subsidies to the TFW program oscillate between 19 and 21 million dollars, this is not the only temporary stream to be subsidized. So is the International Student program.
Processing fees for International Students are currently $150. Student permits now allow students to work in Canada, inside or outside campus, without any extra requirements. The amount invested by CIC to process these applications and grant these permits goes between $782,94 and $1565,88, between 80 and 90% more of what's charged to applicants.
The deficit to process these applications in the 2014-15 period is around 10 million dollars.
Although we can't establish a link between the profits generated by Family Reunification and the losses for the Temporary Foreign Worker applications since CIC has consistently declined all our interview requests or follow up to our still unanswered questions.
Despite the lack of replies, there's a clear problem: family reunification has experienced an increase in processing times and a higher error rate, while fees have been increased, and half of the fees these families are paying are not being invested in their stream. This while they are told CIC has no resources to improve their stream.
In the meantime, applications for a Temporary Work Permit have considerably faster processing times, between 1 to 13 months depending on the visa office that processes it. Average processing times in the 50 Canadian visa offices abroad processing work permits is 3 months.
The impact of cutting existing resources from one stream and increasing them for other is clearly visible in terms of processing times. However, if Canadian families are in fact paying much more than what's invested in their application, they deserve to know why this is happening and where are their fees going.
And there are still more discouraging facts in this report...
4. Staff and resources decrease for all PR categories and increase for all temporary ones each year
This report shows the amount to be spent and staff assigned to process applications for each stream in the next three years. All permanent residency and refugee categories see a decrease in staff and budget for the next three years, while it's expected that the fees remain the same or, worst case scenario, increase. Application goals are kept the same, which means less money will be invested to process each application, while the same or more fees will be charged to applicants, generating more profits.
The only two categories that see an increase in both staff and budget, while the goals are also the same, are Temporary Foreign Workers and International Students, which means more money will be invested per application.
Conclusion
Family sponsorship is one of the few immigration categories that involves Canadian citizen and permanent residents. Canadians sponsoring their spouses to become permanent residents are charged $1,100 to process these applications.
They have seen processing times for their stream increase from 14 months in 2013 to 25 months in 2015.
They have been told it was due to marriage fraud investigations, but they (and we) learned through CIC's own eCas system that applications remain untouched for 15 months and are then processed in between 2 and 3 weeks. We also learned through expert Klaudios Mustakas that CIC is not mandated to further investigate into a marriage.
They have been told this delay is due to lack of resources, but now this report shows us that half of the fees they are paying to get their applications processed are not being invested in their stream (tweet this) and that, in the meantime, 80% of the costs associated with processing temporary foreign worker permits are being subsidized by CIC.
Now, CIC's new policy doesn't allow Spousal Sponsorship applicants to check the status of their files via call centre until 15 months have passed (tweet this), which means they can't check if documents they sent have been received or if there has been any problem with their file.
We have received reports of documents and entire applications going missing after submitted to CIC (tweet this). It has been documented in the press. The most recent audit made at CPC Vegreville, where Inland Spousal Sponsorship applications were processed until February, 2014, showed a 2/3 error rate (3).
Despite all these facts, Canadians are told they have to wait 25 months. They don't know why the long wait. They don't know why their fees are being invested somewhere else when there are obvious problems in their streams. They don't know why, despite CIC's high error rate and problems with their online monitoring system, they are not allowed to check the status of their applications on the phone.
Please help us find the answers and give this issue the awareness it deserves.
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Sources:
1. Report on Plans and Priorities 2014-2015. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Published: 2014. Retrieved: June 22, 2015.
2. 300,000 skilled worker applications are being eliminated. Canadian Immigrant. Published: March 29, 2012. Retrieved: June 23, 2015
3. ‘High error rate’ found in Canada’s immigration processing. The Toronto Star. Published: January 5, 2015. Retrieved: June 24, 2015
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