Appearance before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) - November 6, 2025

Introductory remarks

Introduction

Thank you, Madam Chair,

For giving us the opportunity to speak to you about the Immigration and Refugee Board.

As you know, the IRB is a quasi-judicial tribunal, established in 1989. We report to Parliament through the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

Our mandate is to resolve immigration and refugee matters
efficiently, fairly, and in accordance with the law.

As an administrative tribunal we must use our expertise to hear and decide a high volume of cases.

The IRB issued one hundred two thousand [102,000] decisions last year – a record for the IRB.

Of those, over 78 thousand [78,000] were decisions from the Refugee Protection Division.

It is a 42% productivity increase from the year before.
And it was beyond our funded capacity – of 60,000 cases.

To resolve so many cases,

• we harmonized, simplified, and standardized our processes across the country; we now manage our inventory nationally;
• we used technology and automated our processes wherever possible;
• and we manage our inventory in a way that maximizes time for hearings.

But high volume is nothing if our hearings are not conducted in a way that upholds natural justice and procedural fairness.

Our reasons for decision must meet the test of the Supreme Court in Vavilov: they must offer sufficient justification,  must be transparent, and they must be easily understandable for the reviewing court and most importantly for the claimant themselves.

That is to be expected – we hear cases daily that involve Charter-protected rights – life, liberty, security. This cannot be reduced to a checklist exercise. 

How do we know if our decisions pass the test:  we look at how often our decisions are overturned:

The RAD overturned 4% of RPD decisions last year, and the FC overturned 1% of the RAD decisions for the same period.

I would like to turn next to our challenges.

You all know about the RPD inventory. It stands now at 290,000.

How did we arrive at that number?

The answer is simple: 2 years of historically high levels of intake.

• 2022-2023: 156,000
• 2024-2025: 176,000

We were funded for 60,000 – we finalised 78,000.

Contrast it with the previous 10 years: intake was on average 29,000 per year and the Board finalised on average 26,000

At the end of 2022, before the massive number of referrals, the caseload stood at 54,100.

At current capacity [80,000], we could manage that intake in just over eight months.

As the pending applications are relatively recent  – 86% of them were submitted within the last two years  – a case decided today has waited about 22 months for decision, including the six months required for the FESS (Front-End Security Screening). And for security and integrity reasons, it is our practice not to decide a case until we have FESS.

A case being sent to us today, given our current capacity, will wait around 44 months before a decision is issued, if it is not otherwise prioritised.

The IRB funded capacity is 70k claims a year this fiscal year, but with the efficiency gains we have made, we will reach at least 80,000.

Conclusion

The IRB has invested to increase its productivity. Some of our projects have already delivered real results, and others are about to become reality.

We have seen real, concrete progress.

That is why I am confident that the IRB can continue to successfully meet the challenges ahead, and play its part, in a much larger in-Canada Asylum system.

With this Madam Chair, I turn the floor back to you
and look forward to our exchange today.

IRB at-a-glance

Corporate

Directive on Telework

• 3-day a week on site: Managers’ attestation and card swipes
• Calgary – exception
• Pre-existing telework groups including linguistic specialists/RAD members

Horizon Efficiencies

• 1-800 Phone and Mail consolidation
• RPD Process leaning of Intake and Scheduling
• My Case Onboarding of all counsel, DRs and pilot of self represented
• NOVA automation of intake tasks and forms
• Reasons Navigator
• Manager self-service productivity
• Inventory management tools to improve triage

IAD/IAD/RAD

RPD

Notices to the Minister

• The IRB sends approximately 4,000 Notices to the Minister annually (to IRCC and CBSA) to signal issues including integrity concerns.
• Roughly 20% of Notices to the Minister (approx. 800) result in interventions by the Minister.

High Volume Counsel

• 215 counsel hold over 111,000 complete cases
• This represents 57% of complete claims

Budget and HR

Key messages

• The IRB budget:
• Main Estimates for FY 2025–26: $345.4M
• Carry forward + Workforce Economic Increases and Adjustments: $12.2M
• Total authority to $358M.
• Approximately 2,480 FTE
• including approximately 420 public servant decision-makers and 134 GiC decision-makers
• The budget is set to drop by $45M (12.5%) in FY 2026-27 from 2024-25 final authorities.

O&M: Most expenditures on contracts support direct adjudication costs – see chart. The IRB has reduced all discretionary costs, including on travel.

Divisions

Refugee Protection Division – Key facts

Key messages

• Fiscal year to date (to September 30, 2025), the RPD finalized over 39,000 cases, with a published target for the fiscal year of 80,000 finalizations.
  
• During the same period, the RPD received approximately 53,900 asylum claim referrals, a decrease in referrals of 46% compared to the period of April to September 2024 (99,800 claims).
  
• As of September 30, 2025,
• inventory of 192,900 claims that are ready to be heard.
  
• A further 103,400 claims are incomplete due to a pending security screening and/or other outstanding requirement.
  
• The acceptance rate for the first half of FY 2025-2026 was 64%, which is aligned with the average of the past three years of 64%. Fluctuations occur over time due to volume of intake by country and type of claims received.
  
• We continue to perform above funded levels.

Key statistics

• Status: As of September 30, 2025, about 35% of the current inventory of refugee claims were not ready for scheduling, which means they cannot proceed to a hearing and finalization due to a pending security screening and/or other outstanding requirements.
• Age: 41​% of pending claims were less than 1 year old (received between October 2024 and September 2025.)
  • 46% of cases were received between October 2023 and September 2024.
• 13% of cases were received in or prior to October 2023.
• Claimants’ location:
• 37% Quebec,
• 46% in Ontario,
• 12% in the Western provinces
• 1% in Maritime provinces.
• 4% have yet to provide a valid address.
• Average wait time for a decision at the RPD at the end of September 2025 was 22 months from the time of referral and 16 months from the time a claim is ready for adjudication:

Processing and wait times

Key messages

• As of September 30th, 2025:
• claims decided take 22 months from referral to decision
• once they were ready for adjudication: 16 months
• Front-End Security Screening (FESS) + frontend processes take 6 months on average
• Last fiscal year, the IRB issued 78,700 decisions, an increase of 42% from the previous year’s output of 55,300 decisions.
• IRB’s funded capacity for RPD was 60,000 in FY2024-25 (57,500 of funded capacity and 2,500 in commitment of efficiency gains).
• With intake higher than IRB’s funded capacity, and despite significant investments in productivity, wait times will continue to grow as the inventory of cases continues to grow – it sits at over 296,000 cases today and intake continues to exceed capacity.

Background

• As of September 30th, 2025, the RPD inventory was comprised of more than 296,200 claims, representing 51 months of work at the RPD’s funded capacity for 2025-2026 of 70,000 claims per year.
• Approximately 35% of this inventory (103,400 claims) were awaiting documents from external parties or the claimant before the claim can be scheduled for adjudication.
• Budget 2024 provided permanent funding to the IRB starting in 2025-2026, providing the Refugee Protection Division with the capacity to finalize 70,000 claims a year.
  
• The implementation of the Horizon 2026-27 initiatives has supported an increase in finalized RPD claims from 78,700 in 2024-25 to a projected 85,000 in 2025-2026. Next year’s output will be reduced with budget reductions and pending Comprehensive Expenditure Review.
  
• While the IRB workforce has grown by 156% since FY 2015/16, during the same period, asylum decision output has grown by over 417% and asylum claims intake has grown by 921%.
  • Growth in asylum decisions output: 15,200 decisions rendered by the RPD in 2015-2016 and 78,700 decisions rendered by the RPD in 2024-25 = a growth of 417%.
  • Growth in asylum claims input: 16,700 claims received at the RPD in 2015-2016 and 170,500 claims received at the RPD in 2024-25 = a growth of 921%.

Claim acceptance rates

Task Force on Less Complex Claims (TFLCC)

Key Messages

• Overview of Less Complex Cases / Paper Decisions by Minister
• The IRB streams “less-complex claims” that do not require a hearing and those which may be decided through a short-hearing process.  
• Minister is currently notified of cases that are streamed.  
• This accounts for less that 20% of cases that are triaged and many still are referred to a short hearing. 
• The average wait time for these cases is lower, however most of the time delay is front end: Front-End Security Screening (FESS) and case completion by claimant. 
• Subsection 69.1(7.1) of the former Immigration Act back in 1993, allowed the IRB to accept claims without a hearing.
• This authority was continued in 2002 under paragraph 170(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act - it explicitly provides that the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) may “… allow a claim for refugee protection without a hearing, if the Minister has not notified the Division, within the period set out in the rules of the Board, of the Minister’s intention to intervene”.
• In January 2019, the IRB put in place a Task Force on Less Complex Claims (Task Force or TLFCC) to ensure that resources are used efficiently and, in a manner, proportionate to the complexity of the claim.
• The TLFCC is guided by the principles of fairness, efficiency, and integrity.
• Claims can be granted a positive decision without a hearing, or, if only one or two issues need to be resolved, can proceed with a short hearing.
• If on review the case does not meet criteria, it reverts to a full hearing process.
• No claim is heard or decided without Front-End Security Screening (FESS) and the Minister may intervene in any refugee claim, including a TLFCC claim.
• The processing time for finalizing less complex claims on merit in the first half of FY 2025-2026 was 11 months, compared with 20 months for other claims over the same period, including the time required for claims to be ready for adjudication (i.e. to receive the Minister's Package, the Basis of Claim, FESS, etc).
• National procedures for exercising this jurisdiction were first adopted at the IRB in 1993 and later formalized in the IRB’s Policy on the Expedited Process issued in 2001.

Finalizations:

• In the first half of FY 2025-2026, approximately 27,400 claims were streamed to the less complex process, with approximately 13,200 sent back for processing as part of the regular stream.
• In the first half of FY 2025-2026, the members of the Expedited Cases Team (ECT) finalized approximately 9,000 less complex refugee claims, or 23% of the total 39,000 refugee claims decided. Of the 9,000 less complex claims finalized
• 62% through the file review process (5,600 refugee claims);
• 29% through a short hearing (2,600 refugee claims); and,
• 9% were abandoned, withdrawn, or otherwise concluded (800 refugee claims).

Acceptance rates in the Task Force are broken down as follows:

• Of the less complex claims that are processed by the ECT:
• 100% of the files finalized through the file review process were accepted (as a general rule, no claims are refused without a hearing).
• Out of the claims heard in short hearings, 96% were accepted.

Criteria:

• The RPD generally considers the following criteria when determining if a country or claim type is appropriate for the file-review process:
  • Countries or claim types that have an acceptance rate of 80% or higher.
  • Countries or claim types where identity is generally established by reliable documents.
  • Countries or claim types where the evidence is not ambiguous regarding the risk generally faced by claimants.
  • Countries or claim types where complex legal or factual issues do not often arise at the hearing.
    
• Many Task Force claims arise from conflict situations and changing country conditions. ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Levers impacting processing times

Key messages

The following impact processing time:

• IRB Processing Capacity– must be equal to intake, i.e., system must be at equilibrium (intake = adjudicative capacity).
• Efficiency gains have increased processing capacity and will continue to do so, but currently not a match for intake. 
• The IRB has no control over intake 
• Timely Front-End Security Screening (FESS) Processing
• Ministerial Review and Intervention Capacity (Minister’s Due Diligence) - Timely front-end processing (i.e. receiving a complete file from the Minister: seized documents, interview notes, notice of intervention, etc.) is key to overall processing timeline
• Counsel Availability – Counsel availability directly affects the ability to schedule a hearing.
• Interpreter Availability – Interpreter availability directly affects the ability to schedule a hearing. 
• Access to Legal Aid – Where claimants elect to have counsel, early access to legal representation is essential for timely processing of refugee claims (e.g., timely receipt of BOC).  In addition, the fee structure must be conducive to timely processing of claim.
• Changes to the rules – Changes to the rules would be required to support operational efficiency.
• Reduction of the Current Inventory – The current pending inventory of claims is approximately 300K.  Inventory should be reduced to a working inventory, which represents between 6-9 months of processing capacity.  Failure to tackle the inventory will result in longer processing time.

Refugee Appeal Division – Key Facts

Key messages

• Last fiscal year the RAD rendered 9,400 decisions.
• In the first half of Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-2026 (April to September 2025 inclusively), the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) finalized approximately 5,100 appeals.
• 29% of appeals decided were allowed, while 70% were dismissed, and 1% were withdrawn or administratively closed.
• For the same period, approximately 535 applications for leave contesting RAD decisions were submitted to the Federal Court.
• The Federal Court granted approximately 40 applications for leave and overturned approximately 25 RAD decisions, representing less than 1% of the decisions rendered at the RAD for the period.
• As of the end of September 2025, the average wait time for a decision from the time the appeal was filed was 4 months.

Inventory

• Scope: At the end of September 2024, the RAD inventory was comprised of approximately 3,900 appeals, up to 30% in 12 months and about 63% down from its peak of 10,400 in September 2019.

Immigration Division – Key Facts

Key messages

• Last fiscal year the Immigration Division (ID) rendered 10,400 decisions: 8,300 Detention Reviews and 2,100 Admissibility hearings.
• From April to September 2025 inclusively, the Immigration Division (ID) finalized approximately 3,550 detention reviews and 1,140 admissibility hearings.
• The target for FY 2025-2026 is to complete at least 9,000 detention reviews and 1,200 admissibility hearings.
• ID is experiencing an upward intake trend in admissibility hearings of 21% over the past 3 years (from 1,700 in the 12-month period ending in September 2023 to 2,100 in the most recent 12-month period). We continue to monitor this trend closely.
• In the first half of FY 2025-2026, 80% of admissibility hearings were conducted within 4 months.
• Detention reviews in the first half of FY 2025-2026
• 99% of more than 3,550 detention reviews were concluded within legislative requirements (target of no less than 96%).
• 21 persons were detained for 180 days or more at any point during the first half of FY 2025-2026.

Immigration Appeal Division – Key Facts

Key messages

• Last fiscal year, the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) rendered 4000 decisions.
• From April to September 2025 inclusively, the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) decided on approximately 2,070 cases and is on track to decide at least 3,000 appeals for the fiscal year.
• IAD is experiencing an upward intake trend from last year, from 3,300 cases in the previous 12-month period to 4,500 (+36%). We continue to monitor this trend closely.
• IAD finalizations have surpassed or matched intake for the past 11 years.
  • The average wait time for a decision at the IAD as of the end of September is approximately 5 months.
• In the first half of FY 2025-2026, 38% of appeals decided were allowed, while 36% were dismissed.
  • The abandonment and withdrawal rates remained stable year-over-year at around 7% for abandonments and 19% for withdrawals.

Topics of interest

Bill C-12 - Impact on IRB Operations

Key messages

1. New grounds of ineligibility: Bill C-12 adds two (2) new grounds of ineligibility to have a claim referred to the RPD:
1. Individuals are ineligible if the claim was made 14 or more days after the claimant entered Canada irregularly between Canada-U.S. border crossings;
2. Individuals are ineligible if the claim was made on or after June 3, 2025, and if claim was made more than one year after date of entry (after the claimant’s first arrival after June 24, 2020).
2. Consideration of claims prior to referral (MDD prior to referral to the IRB):  With Bill C-12, If an officer determines that the claim is eligible to be referred to the RPD, the Minister must consider it further. The Minister receives documents and information from the claimant and therefore has an opportunity to perform Ministerial Due Diligence (MDD) prior to referring the claim to the IRB.
3. Documents and information to be provided by claimants (single online application): Under the proposed new process, the claimant must, within the time limits provided for in the regulations and in the manner specified by the Minister, provide the Minister with the documents and information specified by the Minister and the documents and information required by the rules of the Board.  This new process applies both to port of entry and to inland claims.
4. Abandonment before claim is referred to the RPD (pre-referral abandonment): Under a new provision, if a claimant fails to provide documents or information or fails to appear for an examination before the claim is referred to the RPD, the Minister must “transmit” the claim to the RPD to determine whether the claim was abandoned. The RPD cannot compel the Minster, an officer or any other person who is authorized to act on the Minister’s behalf, to appear for an abandonment hearing.
5. Chairperson’s power to specify the “manner” of reasons and decisions: The amendment clarifies that the Chairperson may specify the “manner” in which decisions must be rendered and reasons for decisions must be given. Members remain independent decision-makers, but this provision permits the Chairperson, for example, to require members to use electronic tools such as templates when preparing reasons for decision.
6. Requirement that person be “physically present in Canada”: Bill C-12 amends the IRPA to provide that the RPD, the RAD, and the ID may proceed only if the subject of the proceeding is physically present in Canada.

System Integrity

Key Messages

• CBSA and IRCC have the primary responsibility of ensuring the integrity of the in-Canada Asylum system.
• The IRB plays an important role in supporting the integrity of the immigration and asylum continuum.
• Adult refugee cases do not proceed to hearing without the completion of the front-end security screening by CBSA and security partners.
• The IRB routinely notifies the CBSA and IRCC in cases where an intervention should be considered in refugee cases.
• The IRB’s case management strategies also support the integrity of the asylum system, prioritizing cases where the Minister is seeking to intervene.
• For detention cases, the onus is on the Minister’s counsel to bring forward the case against the person to justify the case for continuing detention.
• Specialized support is provided for decision-makers, such as training, case management tools and research functions, all supporting fair, transparent and well-reasoned decision-making.
• Asylum hearing is inquisitorial with onus on the claimant to satisfy the threshold for well-founded fear through evidence and testimony.
• Minister’s counsel is afforded the opportunity to present adverse or contrary information.
• The Minister intervenes in about 6% of total cases and the IRB prioritizes these for hearing. This figure is further broken down:
• The Minister proactively intervenes in 4% of total cases.
• The Minster intervenes in an additional 2% of total cases where the IRB notified the Minister.
• Refugee Appeals, cessation or vacation hearings provide additional avenues for the Minister to argue that protection is no longer merited or where the person misrepresented their case.
• The IRB also employs case management strategies to support the integrity of the asylum system, including short processes for:
• Cases that appear to be abandoned by the claimant.
• Straightforward cases (e.g., TFLCC less complex claims) allows focus of resources on more difficult ones.
  

Key Integrity Issues

Similar Bases of Claims (BOCs)

• IRCC and CBSA investigate where groups of cases have similar or the same basis of claim narratives, indicating potential fraud or counsel misconduct.
  
• Recently, the Federal Court allowed the judicial review and overturned the negative RAD decision in a similar BOC case where the Minister had argued similar BOCs at the Refugee Appeal Division. The Court confirmed a high standard needs to be met to establish that a similar BOC is fraudulent.
• The IRB has mechanisms in place to address instances of similar basis of claim or documentary evidence - whether raised by the Minister via intervention or internally by the member.
• Where raised internally, there is a clear process to notify and disclose to IRCC/CBSA for further investigation.

Notices to the Minister

• Should issues of exclusion or integrity arise in a claim where no intervention has been filed, the RPD may notify the Minister.
  
• A Notice to the Minister provides the Minister with an opportunity to review the issues and determine whether to intervene in the claim.
• This process is spelled out in the IRPA, to maintain the integrity of the Canadian refugee protection system, the security of Canadian society and to promote international justice.
  
• Some common examples of when the RPD would send a Notice to the Minister to the Minister include:
• Exclusion – if there is information in the file that the claimant committed a serious, non-political crime before coming to Canada, committed crime against peace, war crime or crime against humanity, or had a status in at third country similar to a national of that country.
• Integrity/Credibility – if the claimant makes substantial amendments to the BOC Form or it appears that the claimant submitted a fraudulent document.
  
• The CBSA and IRCC intervene in approximately 6% of all claims, on average. Approximately two-thirds of those interventions are initiated by the Minister, and one third are initiated in response to Notices to the Minister sent by the IRB.

Direction on Prescribed Presence in the Workplace

• The IRB ensures compliance with Treasury Board Secretariat's Direction on Prescribed Presence in the Workplace.
• Employees are expected to be present in the workplace at least 3 days a week, or 60% of the regular work schedule unless they are:
• under specific exceptions due to capacity at the Calgary office, or
• a group who had an established telework business model prior to the pandemic and continue to operate under this model. These four groups are:
• Non-clerical Access to Information and Privacy staff
• Transcription Team staff
• Linguistic Services Editing Team (IS employees) staff
• Members and Assistant Deputy Chairpersons in the Refugee Appeal Division
• The Board regularly monitors compliance of in-office presence.
• Managers attest to in-office presence and compliance on a monthly basis by reviewing the in-office attendance of their staff.
• The Board validates the attestations of managers against data of security card swipes at IRB offices.  The number of security card swipes are compared to the number of employees who should be in the office based on the managers’ attestations.
• Results are discussed at the Executive table and spot checks are done where necessary.  The Executive receives information on managerial attestations, security card swipe validations, and the number of exceptions or accommodations requested, pending and approved.

Pre-Removal Risk Assessment

Key messages

• Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) decision-makers at IRCC conduct first-level protection decisions through a paper-based process, though where credibility is at issue an interview is required (per SC Singh decision).
• Allows individuals in Canada with an in-force removal order to apply to the Minister for protection if they allege a risk of torture, risk to life or risk of cruel and unusual treatment upon return. 
• Failed asylum claimants will receive a PRRA if removal is not executed within one year of the last decision based on any changed circumstances.
• Similar decisions but PRRA is only triggered when removal is planned
• Both IRCC and IRB apply the same law: PM04’s conduct PRRA / PM06’s conduct RPD hearings.
• Currently PRRA decisions take longer than RPD decisions
• PRRA was to transfer to IRB as part of 2010 Refugee Reform. The 2010 and 2012 IRPA amendment never came into force and was repealed in 2022.

Policy Ideas - Improving the Asylum System

Key messages

Intake:

• Measures could target intake control measures, including access to Canada (e.g. temporary resident visas)
• System is not funded nor designed to process the significant uptick in intake experienced in the last two years (156,900 in 2023-24 and 173,100 in 2024-25)
• For a balanced system, processing capacity needs to align with intake (current processing capacity is approximately 80K per year) 

Efficiency Measures:

• Front-End Security Screening:
  • Funding CBSA capacity to complete Front-End Security Screening (FESS) will allow for more efficient case management strategies
• Effective and Efficient Case Review and Interventions:
  • Integrity is critical to deterring misuse of asylum procedures to prolong stays in Canada
  • Weaker system integrity will impact on the number of claims received- creates a “pull”

Legal Aid:

• Fee Structures:
• Low flat rates (Quebec) and capped hours (Ontario, BC) underpin the nature of the work in support of the asylum process that may adversely impact quality of cases, adjournments, appeals, and hearing time.
• Incentive to prioritize expedited cases:
• Legal Aid Ontario grants an additional 3 hours for claim submission if the case is selected for the file review process (expedited hearings and TFLCC). Compensation is therefore increased for these cases, creating a financial incentive for lawyers to prefer or prioritize cases eligible for expedited processing, which can affect scheduling priorities.

Temporary Funding:

• Even with a balanced system, additional funding will be required to address the backlog
• A more responsive approach to funding has been proposed several times. A flexible funding arrangement will allow the asylum system easier and faster access to surge funding to address spikes in intake and/or to address the backlog
• Increased funding for processing claims will reduce costs to government (e.g. Federal Interim Health Program).