Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) (in French: Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada) is a department of the Government of Canada responsible for matters relating to immigration, refugees and Canadian citizenship. The department was created in 1994 following a reorganisation of the federal government.

Overview

• Established: 1994
• Directly supervising authority: the Government of Canada
• Head office: Ottawa, Ontario
• Number of employees: 10,248 (2022 figure)
• Budget: CAD $3.6 billion (2022 figure)
• Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)in office: Lena Diab
• Website: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship

Name

IRCC was formerly known as Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). The department’s new name came into use shortly after Canada’s new government took office in November 2015.

The addition of the word “refugees” to the department’s official name reflects the government’s increased focus on humanitarian immigration and refugees coming to Canada. The government has, however, made clear that Canada will maintain an open and welcoming immigration policy for skilled immigrants and family reunification programmes.

There is no evidence that economic immigration or family reunification matters any less to this government than to previous ones; indeed, the government has committed to increased funding for IRCC in order to improve programme delivery and processing times.

CIC and IRCC are not two separate departments. If documents or publications refer to CIC in one place and IRCC in another, they are in fact referring to the same department. IRCC is not a new department but the successor of one that has existed for many years. CIC was given additional responsibilities and renamed IRCC. The name CIC may nonetheless continue to be used for some time by certain stakeholders, such as Canada’s provincial and territorial governments.

Mandate, role and objectives

Immigration

The “Immigration” element of the department’s name refers to Canada’s efforts to build and maintain a policy that welcomes immigrants in a way that benefits both Canadians and newcomers. Canada has traditionally been a country with a progressive and open immigration policy, and most Canadians can trace foreign origins within just a few generations.

As Canada faces demographic challenges and seeks economic growth and national security, immigration is likely to continue playing an important role in Canada’s future.

Find out more aboutCanadian immigration.

Refugees

The “Refugees” element of IRCC reflects 2 main factors:

• First, the instability and conflict of recent years in several parts of the world have driven a global rise in the number of refugees. These individuals and families have been forced to leave their homes and are often in extremely vulnerable situations. The United Nations refugee agency estimated that, as of June 2015, there were 60 million refugees worldwide.
• The second factor is that the current government has approached the issue swiftly and with a degree of humanity. Throughout Canada’s 2015 federal election campaign, Trudeau and members of the Liberal Party maintained the strongest policy for ensuring that Canada would receive large numbers of refugees, thereby providing further resources to secure the country’s safety and opportunity.

Citizenship

One of the defining features of Canada’s immigration policy is that it provides a pathway to Canadian citizenship. Becoming a Canadian citizen is a modest yet deeply emotional milestone for an immigrant.

Citizenship remains an important component of IRCC, as it was before the department was renamed.

Find out more aboutCanadian citizenship.

Administrative organisation

According to the 2018-2019 report, IRCC had a total of 7,414 full-time employees.

Position	Incumbent
Minister	Lena Diab
Permanent Deputy Minister	Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar
Deputy Minister	Scott Harris

The Citizenship Commission of Canada

The Citizenship Commission of Canada is administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and is responsible for administering the grant of citizenship to applications that qualify for Canadian citizenship. Made up of a panel of citizenship judges across Canada, the Commission’s mandate is to preside over citizenship oath ceremonies, to process and approve citizenship applications that have met the residence requirement, and to educate new citizens about their civic responsibilities.

Decisions are made on the specific circumstances of each application, and each citizenship judge is therefore an independent decision-maker. Their decisions may nonetheless be reviewed at the request of the applicant and by the Minister of IRCC. Citizenship judges must comply with administrative principles and regulations, as well as the Citizenship Act, the Citizenship Regulations and the relevant legal precedents applicable to each individual case.