Changes are being proposed to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) that will support greater use of technology across temporary and permanent resident immigration programs, and streamline and clarify processes for international adoptions and permanent resident sponsorship applications.

The proposed changes to the IRPR are outlined in the Canada Gazette, Part 1. The consultation period closes on February 24, 2018. The proposed changes involve:

• ensuring that applicants who are paying fees or applying electronically only use the electronic systems provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), where available
• requiring that most temporary resident applications submitted from within Canada, as well as International Experience Canada applications, be submitted electronically on Canada.ca
• requiring that all IRCC clients pay their immigration fees online, unless
  • a disability prevents them from doing so, or
  • IRCC provides other payment methods, such as paying in person at a visa application centre
• listing situations where the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, or the Minister of Public Safety, can provide applicants with alternative ways to apply for immigration services in the event of an unforeseen circumstance, such as a natural disaster or system outage
• outlining a clear process for IRCC officers to timestamp electronic applications, or other application-related communication, to give both clients and IRCC officers a clear and consistent point of reference when calculating processing times
• allowing sponsorship and permanent residence applications for inter-country adoptions to be submitted before a child has been identified, so that the approval process can start earlier
• requiring that clients include their permanent resident application with their family sponsorship application submission to help reduce processing delays
• removing existing requirements that specify where all non-electronic (paper) applications can be submitted, to give IRCC more flexibility in order to maximize processing efficiency and accommodate clients

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