Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is the department of the Canadian federal government responsible for immigration and citizenship matters. Among its duties, the IRCC aids in the arrival of immigrants, offers protection for refugees, grants citizenship to newcomers and helps them settle in Canada, and issues travel documents to Canadian citizens. The department was created in 1994 as the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), although its predecessor agencies date back to 1917. In 2015, the CIC's name was changed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to better reflect Canada’s stance toward displaced individuals seeking safety in the nation.

Background

French explorers were the first Europeans to establish permanent settlements in Canada in 1604. British settlers soon followed, leading to a century and a half of conflict between the two nations over their North American colonies. The British eventually emerged victorious and, by 1763, had control over all of Canada. After the American Revolution (1775–1783), defeated British loyalists streamed into Canada as refugees from the United States. In the nineteenth century, they were followed by scores of Irish immigrants fleeing famine and political unrest in their homeland.

Canada’s British colonies unified into a self-governing nation in 1867 and began a western expansion to the Pacific Ocean. To accommodate this growth, the nation encouraged immigration, although newcomers from non-European and non-Christian backgrounds often faced legal hurdles to entering the country. Canada experienced an explosion of immigration in the first years of the twentieth century, with 750,000 newcomers arriving from the United States alone between 1901 and 1914, and hundreds of thousands more coming from Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France, and Norway. By the 1960s, an estimated one-third of Canadians were descended from people who did not come from France or Great Britain. In the twenty-first century, over 20 percent of the population was foreign-born.

Overview

After the confederation of Canada into a self-governing nation in 1867, the issue of immigration was jointly handled by the federal government and the governments of the provinces and territories. The federal Department of the Interior oversaw immigration in relation to the nation’s expansion and the eventual creation of the western provinces of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. To deal with the immigration boom of the early twentieth century, the Ottawa government created the Department of Immigration and Colonization in 1917. From 1936 to 1994, Canada’s immigration concerns were shifted several times, spending periods under the control of other departments and other periods as an independent agency.

In the early 1990s, immigration was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship. With the installation of the thirty-fifth Canadian Parliament in 1994, the federal government was reorganized and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada was created to handle immigration and citizenship concerns.

In 2015, millions of refugees displaced by wars and poverty in Syria and Africa streamed into Europe, threatening to overwhelm many countries’ ability to care for the newcomers. In November 2015, the new Canadian government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to take in twenty-five-thousand Syrian refugees to help ease the crisis in Europe. In response, the CIC was rebranded as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

The IRCC is headed by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. The department’s duties are to facilitate the arrival of immigrants and refugees to Canada, offer programs to help newcomers adjust, grant citizenship, and issue travel documents such as passports. Canada is one of the most open nations in the world to accepting immigrants, providing newcomers with numerous pathways to citizenship, orientation programs, training programs, and social services. According to IRCC statistics, the nation accepted about 340,000 immigrants in 2019. In contrast, the United States, which had a population almost ten times that of Canada, accepted 577,000 immigrants. An estimated 70 percent of the IRCC’s operating budget was used for settlement programs.

Between 2016 and 2021, over 1.3 million individuals immigrated to Canada. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly decreased the number of immigrants Canada accepted to 184,575, the country's lowest number since 1998. In subsequent years, the immigration rate recovered, with 405,303 new residents in 2021 and 437,000 in 2022, the country's highest in history. The IRCC continued to increase its target number of new residents in 2023 and 2024.

The IRCC coordinates immigration under three broad classes: economic immigrants, immigrants sponsored by family, refugees, and other immigrants. In the late 2010s and early to mid-2020s, between 45 and 55 percent of immigrants entered Canada for economic reasons each year. Canada offers numerous foreign-worker programs, the most popular of which is the federal high-skilled worker program. Applicants are graded on a points system, with younger, better-educated, and more experienced candidates receiving priority for permanent residency status. According to the IRCC, before the 1980s, most Canadian immigrants came from Europe, but in the twenty-first century, the overwhelming majority of immigrants come to Canada from Asia and the Middle East, with a small population from Africa. The most common countries of origin include India, the Philippines, China, Syria, and Nigeria. Many of them were professionals who entered under the high-skilled worker program.

This family class consists of spouses, domestic partners, same-sex partners, and children of legal permanent residents of Canada. The IRCC oversees the sponsorship programs that allow permanent residents to have their family members join them and apply for permanent status themselves. About two-thirds of refugees enter Canada under the sponsorship of private individuals or groups. These sponsors must first be approved by the federal government and assume financial and legal responsibility for the newcomers. A smaller percentage of refugees are resettled as part of government programs. The refugees are referred to the IRCC by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and receive government assistance during the transition process. A small number of refugees can also apply to enter Canada on humanitarian or compassionate grounds.

The IRCC coordinates many programs to help those with legal residency status become Canadian citizens. Candidates must have been permanent residents for at least three years and have lived in Canada for three of the past five years. Candidates may not be delinquent on Canadian taxes. Applicants must also pass a language skills proficiency test, a citizenship test, take an oath of citizenship, and meet several other requirements. The IRCC also oversees the process of resuming or renouncing Canadian citizenship. For Canadian citizens, the IRCC provides passports for foreign travel. Returning citizens need only provide a valid passport to be allowed to reenter the country.

Bibliography

“Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity Statistics.” Statistics Canada, 23 Dec. 2024, www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/subjects-start/immigration‗and‗ethnocultural‗diversity. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.” Government of Canada, 30 Dec. 2024, www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship.html. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Paquet, Mireille. “Immigration in Canada: From Low to High Politics.” Canadian Politics, edited by James Bickerton and Alain-G. Gagnon, 7th ed., U of Toronto P, 2020.

“Reports and Statistics—Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.” Government of Canada, 6 Feb. 2024, www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics.html. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Roy, Diana, and Amelia Cheatham. “What Is Canada’s Immigration Policy?” Council on Foreign Relations, 28 Mar. 2024, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-canadas-immigration-policy. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

Troper, Harold. “Immigration to Canada.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 19 Dec. 2024, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.

“When Was the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Established?” Canadian Immigration Direct, www.immigrationdirect.ca/blog/2013/03/04/department-of-immigration-est. Accessed 7 Jan. 2025.