Thousands of job cuts to the department of Immigration are causing delays in processing cases as the department this week announced an additional 300 job cuts and program spending cuts, with more on the horizon. 

“A slash-and-burn strategy is being unleashed upon immigration, seriously impacting communities, families, businesses and the Canadian economy,” said Rubina Boucher, National President, Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU). 

Public servants stressed that widespread job cuts are causing delays in processing immigration cases, straining businesses waiting for work permit renewals, and creating a toxic work environment. 

Here are Immigration department workers in their own words: 

• “This is not well thought out. The impact in operations is huge.  We need to do the jobs of the people that got cut.” 

• “The increased demands that are placed on us has drastically increased processing times, causing clients to be extremely angry.” 

• “Immigration application processing times have increased.  This has reduced services to people who have applied for work permits, study permits, or permanent resident applications. This has led to an increasingly negative impression of IRCC in the public and settlement service providers and clients. This continues to contribute to unstable workforce in various sectors of the economy: business are unsure of their ability to remain open or expand if they are not confident in the renewal of work permits or retention of skilled workers through permanent residence.” 

• “My team was brutally cut. We were told we are doing less with less, but that is not true. I have never felt more overworked and overlooked in this department…but you better hit your targets. We are so behind and client service is out the door. Office morale has gone down, stress has gone up, and sick days are being taken just to try and cope with all the constant and unsuccessful changes.” 

Further cuts to jobs, programs announced 

Letters for the additional 300 job cuts announced this past Tuesday are set to go out mid-January, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says, “additional reductions will likely be required to align with anticipated adjustments to immigration levels-related funding.”  

This is in addition to the 3,300 job cuts already underway, along with term position non-renewals and department plans to cut 10-15 per cent of executive positions. 

The department will also implement program spending cuts to housing assistance, transfer employer-focused inspections to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and plans to sunset certain undisclosed initiatives. 

The department is also reducing settlement program eligibility and adjusting Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) eligibility and the copayment model. 

Immigration will also adopt “AI solutions to boost productivity” as concerns rise about Canadians struggling to contact a human public servant rather than a chat bot. 

ESDC job cuts, AI expansion looming 
 
This echoes a recent ESDC memo stating there will be job cuts early in the new year and that there is, “significant potential to drive adoption of digital service channels such as Old Age Security online applications, to further deploy optical character recognition and robotic process automation, and to embrace innovative and responsible AI capabilities.”