Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, June 19, 2019 -

The Canada Border Services Agency, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada operate Canada’s refugee determination system, which has seen a marked increase in the volume of claims in recent years. However, this system was not equipped to process asylum claims per the required timelines, according to a report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented today by the Honorable Kevin Sorenson, Chair of the Committee.

In the spring of 2019, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) released a performance audit whose purpose was to determine whether the federal government consistently processed asylum claims in an efficient and timely manner. Despite reforms introduced in 2012, the OAG found that the three organizations faced a significant backlog of unresolved claims and a surge of asylum seekers to Canada in 2017 led to a greater backlog and increased wait times for refugee protection decisions.

Several inefficiencies contributed to these delays including problems with sharing information and different information technology systems, which meant information on specific claims was shared between organizations using paper files and faxes. These limitations led to few asylum claims being eligible for faster processing, creating a greater backlog.

Additionally, the OAG found that two thirds of claims were postponed, causing delays of several months.

As part of its report on this audit, the Committee has made six recommendations to ensure that the Canada Border Services Agency, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada addresses these matters, so that Canada’s refugee determination system will operate in an efficient and timely manner.