Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada's 2025 to 2026 Departmental Plan

​​​​​​​On this page

• From the Chairperson
• Plans to deliver on the core responsibility and internal services
• Core responsibility: Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases
• Internal services
• Planned spending and human resources
• Spending
• Funding
• Future-oriented condensed statement of operations
• Human resources
• Corporate information
• Supplementary information table
• Federal tax expenditures
• Definitions
  

​From the Chairperson

I am pleased to present the 2025 to 2026 Departmental Plan for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB or the Board), Canada's largest independent administrative tribunal.

The IRB was created over 35 years ago and remains integral to Canada's commitment to its international obligations towards refugees and persons in need of protection. Our mandate continues to be as relevant as ever, with millions of forcibly displaced people around the world and a growing number of people seeking the protection of Canada. At the same time, Canadians count on the Board to resolve immigration cases while supporting the integrity of the Canadian immigration system, public safety and family reunification. I am confident knowing that while the landscape continues to evolve, the IRB continues to meet and exceed its targets, and successfully makes well-reasoned decisions on immigration and refugee matters efficiently, fairly and in accordance with the law.

The IRB will continue to take a whole-of-Board approach to ensure that it is able to maintain efficient and quality decision-making. While the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) is most impacted, other divisions, particularly the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD), may see increasing appeals in the coming year. The Immigration Division (ID) continues making decisions regarding a person's admissibility to Canada and conducting detention reviews of individuals. While the volume of detention reviews has slightly decreased, this decrease in volume is offset by an increase in volume and complexity of admissibility hearings. The Board's fourth division, the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), continues to be responsible for appeals related to sponsorships, removal orders and residency obligations.

Last year, the RPD continued to implement efficiency measures started under our “Horizon 26-27” Strategic Plan; finalizing more than 20% more refugee claims than for which it was funded. The RPD will start the new fiscal year with an inventory of approximately 170,000 claims that are ready for adjudication. Considering targeted annual finalizations of up to 85,000 for the RPD, the opening inventory level represents approximately two years of work. To keep pace with the significant growth in new claims that are anticipated and to address the surplus inventory, during the next year, the IRB will pursue further efficiency gains, increase its focus on the management of inventory that is ready to be adjudicated, and continue to look for a stable level of funding. The Division will also work closely with stakeholders and partners to manage approximately 100,000 incomplete files that are outside of the RPD's control.

IRB employees continue to be the heart of our organization, demonstrating passion and commitment to our mandate. Through our collective efforts, we will put in place the tools and approaches that will ensure the IRB remains a modern and accessible tribunal.

Manon Brassard
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer

Plans to deliver on the core responsibility and internal services

Core responsibility and internal services

• Core responsibility: Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases
• Internal services

Core responsibility: ​Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases

Description

The IRB renders quality decisions and resolves cases in a timely manner regarding immigration and refugee protection cases. This includes determining refugee protection claims and appeals and applications to vacate or cease refugee protection. It also includes making decisions in admissibility hearings and detention reviews, and on appeals on certain immigration cases (e.g., family sponsorship applications, certain removal orders, applications based on meeting residency obligations and admissibility hearings).

Quality of life impacts

This core responsibility contributes to the “Good Governance” domain of the Quality of Life Framework for Canada. The domain indicator reflected in the core responsibility description is: "Confidence in institutions".

Indicators, results and targets

This section presents details on the Board’s indicators, the actual results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, the targets and target dates approved in 2025 to 2026 for Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases. Details are presented by departmental result.

Table 1: Fair and timely adjudication of immigration and refugee cases

Table 1 provides a summary of the target and actual results for each indicator associated with the results under Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases.

Additional information on the detailed results and performance information for the IRB's program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.

Plans to achieve results

The following section describes the planned results for Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases in 2025 to 2026.

Fair and timely adjudication of immigration and refugee cases

The IRB is an independent, accountable administrative tribunal established by Parliament on January 1, 1989, to resolve immigration and refugee cases. Decisions on refugee claims made by the IRB must conform with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) and Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. The IRPA provides that it is to be interpreted and applied in a manner that complies with the international human rights instruments to which Canada is a signatory.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights apply to the determination of refugee claims by the IRB.^{Footnote 1} The Supreme Court also held that where a serious issue of credibility is involved, fundamental justice requires that credibility be determined in an oral hearing. The courts have also consistently held that given the nature of the rights being adjudicated, both the Refugee Protection Division and the Refugee Appeal Division must afford the parties before them a high degree of procedural fairness.^{Footnote 2} More recently, the Supreme Court emphasized that an administrative tribunal must provide cogent reasons for decision,^{Footnote 3} and that in conducting a judicial review of the reasonableness of a decision of an administrative tribunal, a court must ensure that the decision as a whole is transparent, intelligible and justified.

As is the case in many other countries, the in-Canada asylum system (ICAS) has seen a dramatic increase in the number of refugee claimants over the last two years. This has challenged the IRB, which performs a vital role within the ICAS continuum with its partners. The Board will continue to rise to meet this challenge.

The IRB, as the administrative tribunal mandated to decide asylum and immigration matters in an impartial and fair manner, is keenly aware of its critical role in the process and the need to hear and decide cases quickly once people appearing before the Board have provided the required information and a complete file is received from Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency. Over the past two years, the number of refugee claims being referred to the RPD has grown significantly and has been greater than the number of claims it is funded to decide. To keep pace with the volume of claims, in fiscal year 2025 to 2026, the IRB will pursue further efficiency gains, increase its focus on the management of inventory that is ready to be adjudicated, and continue to engage with Central Agencies to ensure a stable level of funding. The IRB's other three divisions, ID, IAD and RAD are currently able to hear and decide as many cases as are referred to them within targeted time frames.

In fiscal year 2025 to 2026, the Board plans to continue meeting its targets, consistent with its achievements in recent years. The IRB will advance its efforts to optimize its operations, ensuring the principles of “user-centric” and “modern” are foundational to its efforts to scale capacity and manage performance. The IRB must strike the right balance between dedicating resources to meet the immediate needs of adjudication, while also investing in improvements that will have significant impacts.

While there is increased focus on scaling capacity, the IRB's robust quality assurance practices remain in place. These are identified in its Quality Assurance Framework for Decision-Making, which identifies the activities, processes and strategies in place to ensure the Board continues to make fair and timely decisions in accordance with the law. The IRB will continue its regular quality performance reviews as part of measuring the effectiveness of the quality initiatives in place. The Board plans to maintain its recent results on quality, which are measured as part of its departmental results.

Results we plan to achieve

Scaling capacity

The IRB's priority in the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year is to maintain and increase the RPD's productivity gains in relation to its funded level, in order to address the current demand and to prepare for a potential influx of incomplete files that may become ready for adjudication. It is also paramount that the ID, IAD and RAD maintain their capacity to hear and decide as many cases as are referred to them despite the anticipated increase in the number of cases each may receive. To that end, the IRB is pursuing efforts to lean and standardize its processes, including by leveraging technology for efficiency gains, while maintaining quality decisions. Areas of focus will include the following.

• Intake: Ensuring the IRB has robust processes and tools to manage the significant volume of claims and to ensure effective inventory management practices.
• Building on the success of the My Case portal, the Board will enhance and expand its functionalities to further simplify and support digital communication between the IRB, claimants and their representatives. This will provide increased operational efficiencies, user expansion and enhanced user experience.
• Leveraging best practices and principles to improve process efficiencies, the IRB will implement a simplified national process from intake to scheduling or abandonment. Through these improvements, the IRB will increase the number of cases ready to be scheduled and prioritize cases for abandonment where the claimant has not provided complete documentation.
• Expediting processes for straightforward cases: The IRB will continue its work to identify less complex refugee claims that can be finalized without a hearing or through a short hearing by conducting an in-depth analysis of objective evidence and case law. This will support better planning and allocation of resources and increase the number of cases finalized each year.
• Scheduling: The IRB will resolve the administrative burden of scheduling and mitigate the likelihood and impacts of postponed hearings.
• The IRB will automate low-complexity processes to optimize intake and scheduling. For example, new scheduling tools will be launched for all divisions, to increase functionality and focus on automation.
• Decision-making: The IRB will invest in technology-enabled adjudicative tools for decision-makers to accelerate file preparation and decisions.
• The IRB will provide decision-makers with a tool that helps them work through the framework of analysis to generate their reasons, oral or written, in a format that is concise, focused, and accessible. This is expected to reduce the amount of time spent writing decisions on refugee protection claims.
• The IRB will develop an automated electronic filing solution that improves case management by enabling more seamless access and online interaction to support the administration and adjudication of case files. This solution will improve efficiency and productivity, enabling decision-makers and registry staff to focus more attention on higher value and more complex tasks during case management.
• Adjudicative framework: The IRB is revising its rules and procedures to enable the work of a high-volume tribunal, ensuring a simple, standardized and fair approach to the administration of justice.
• As part of its Forward Regulatory Plan, the IRB is revising its Rules of Practice for all four divisions to make it easier to navigate and understand the adjudicative process, while also modernizing the means and forms of documents that can be provided in order to better support virtual and electronic processes, as well as efficient case management. This work will be done in accordance with the established regulatory process. 
• The IRB will update internal documents and processes to support changes to new adjudicative tools, if applicable, to ensure simple, consistent, standardized processes and procedures, in support of a high-volume tribunal.
• The IRB will improve information and accessible tools for refugee claimants navigating the claim process. Claimants will have further access to easy-to-understand information designed to educate refugee claimants about Board requirements, hearing preparation and the hearing process. These outcomes will help claimants better prepare for and participate in their hearings, as well as respond to operational pressures of incomplete files, late disclosure and unprepared hearing participation.

Performance management and accountability

Performance management and accountability are increasingly important for guiding the IRB in its efforts in optimizing the use of its resources, maximizing productivity and minimizing cost, while maintaining quality decision-making. In support of the introduction of the initiatives described above, the Board will focus on measuring the impact of these initiatives on the time frames for rendering decisions, and the resources required to do so, in order to maximize the time decision-makers spend on adjudication. Therefore, in fiscal year 2025 to 2026, the IRB is expanding its focus on performance monitoring and measurement, permitting it to ensure it is maintaining quality, and to adjust and pivot as quickly and efficiently as possible. It will do this by:

• Assessing redistribution of resources to calibrate workloads and assure quality of decision-making.
• Monitoring collective goals through key performance indicators to help the IRB measure the impact of initiatives on adjudication and inform management decision-making, including responses to the Board's key risks.

Key risks

There are many factors impacting the IRB's current operating context, several of which are outside of the Board's control. Specifically, the in-Canada asylum system is facing pressure like never before, largely due to evolving global migration trends and approaches. Increasing and unprecedented asylum and immigration levels will have an impact across the IRB. For example, intake of refugee claims is now beyond the IRB's funded processing capacity, with trends continuing to show additional increases. While the Board does not directly influence immigration- and refugee-related legislation, policy changes may further impact the IRB. Broader immigration policies intended to alleviate pressure on the immigration and refugee system are not having an immediate impact on the Board's intake and surplus inventory levels.

Given this context, the IRB​ has identified a significant risk, which is the risk that the intake of refugee claims continues creating surplus inventory levels beyond working inventory​.​ Moreover, if the Board has insufficient and/or unpredictable funding, it may not be able to optimize operations and sustain productivity. This could result in organizational performance, including the delivery of essential organizational functions, being hampered by an inadequate workforce capacity to meet the current operational demand. Additionally, productivity is reliant on capacity and integration within the entire immigration and refugee system. However, given the pressure on the IRB's partner organizations and stakeholders, there is a risk that their decisions may have impacts on the IRB's operations and priorities. 

The IRB's plans for 2025 to 2026 are largely designed to mitigate these risks to the extent possible. As outlined in the “Plans to achieve results” section, the Board is taking steps to scale its capacity, while maintaining quality decision-making. It continues to focus on measuring performance so it can respond with agility. The work the IRB has planned around automation of low-complexity processes in order to optimize intake and scheduling, as well as the efforts intended to expedite processes for straightforward cases, are examples of strategies that are helping the Board reduce potential and actual risks. The IRB's management team will continue to monitor these risks closely and will adjust its mitigation responses as necessary. It will maintain effective management oversight to optimize the use of current funds. Furthermore, the IRB continues to work with central agencies to ensure a sustainable and stable funding strategy.

As the IRB continues to invest in digital tools to support its strategic and operational priorities, it also faces the risk of evolving and increasingly sophisticated cyber security threats that could impact its ability to safeguard its operational systems and information, despite existing prevention, detection and response measures. Significant reputational, operational and legal consequences could arise if the IRB does not safeguard its information from unauthorized access, modification or loss. Various mitigation strategies will be deployed to reduce this risk, including comprehensive assessments of new information technology systems to identify, assess and respond to potential vulnerabilities, in collaboration with Government of Canada lead security agencies. Aligned with the Government of Canada's Application Hosting Strategy (2024), the Board will assess the hosting requirements of all future digital-enabled initiatives to ensure best-fit for operational efficiency and cyber security.

Planned resources to achieve results

Table 2: Planned resources to achieve results for Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases

Table 2 provides a summary of the planned spending and full-time equivalents required to achieve results.

Complete financial and human resources information for the IRB's program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.

Innovation

Innovation is key to achieving and upholding the IRB's mandate, including ensuring access to justice. As highlighted in the departmental results “Plans to achieve results” section, in 2025 to 2026 the Board continues to leverage technology to support its employees and those appearing before it, with a focus on rendering decisions efficiently.

Program inventory

Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases is supported by the following programs:

• Refugee protection decisions
• Refugee appeal decisions
• Admissibility and detention decisions
• Immigration appeal decisions

Additional information related to the program inventory for Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases is available on the Results page on GC InfoBase.

Internal services

Description

Internal services are the services that are provided within a department so that it can meet its corporate obligations and deliver its programs. There are 10 categories of internal services:

• management and oversight services
• communications services
• legal services
• human resources management services
• financial management services
• information management services
• information technology services
• real property management services (not applicable to the IRB)
• materiel management services
• acquisition management services

Plans to achieve results

This section presents details on how the IRB plans to achieve results and meet targets for internal services.

The IRB's internal services priorities for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 are foundational to the Board's achievement of its mandate. The IRB continues to advance its commitment to providing all staff with the tools and training they need to succeed in a respectful and diverse environment. The Board is committed to transparent communication with staff, to the greatest extent possible, as it navigates through a changing operating context.

The IRB will continue to equip its employees with the modern technology to ensure they are able to work efficiently and effectively. The Board will adopt modern application hosting approaches, consistent with TBS direction. Automation and machine learning will also be explored to help reallocate effort from repetitive tasks (e.g., transcription and administrative services) to focus on more strategic functions. An updated digital governance will support the Board's strategic direction, providing increased clarity and prioritization of information management and technology.

The Board continues to foster a positive and healthy workplace culture. Through the continued implementation of its 2024 to 2026 Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, the Board will foster a workplace culture characterized by collaboration, fairness and a true sense of belonging. Additionally, building on its previous efforts to become an increasingly accessible and barrier-free organization, the IRB will develop an updated Accessibility Plan in 2025 to 2026. The Board seeks to promote a workplace culture of diversity and inclusiveness by providing training opportunities, supporting employee networks, and embedding diversity and inclusion into all its policies and programs. It also continues to take important strides in enhancing psychological health and safety in the IRB workplace, as outlined in its 2024 to 2027 Psychological Safety and Mental Health Strategy. This strategy is helping the Board to continue embedding wellness and psychological safety practices into its daily operations and culture. This remains especially important as employees navigate ongoing changes and an evolving operating context. The Board is building the capacity to address and prevent psychological risks in the workplace by seeking to address, develop, provide and promote comprehensive tools and resources on the risks of vicarious trauma, particularly for employees exposed to higher levels of psychological risk in their roles.

The Board remains committed to maintaining a highly skilled workforce. Building on the previous successes of improving the onboarding process, the Board will set its attention on strengthening the management capacity of new and existing supervisors and managers. The IRB will continue the implementation of a training program to equip supervisors and managers with the core knowledge and skills to ensure organizational effectiveness and objective-based performance management.

Finally, achieving efficiencies at all levels without compromising effective decision-making remains a commitment for the IRB. Through its regular integrated planning discussions at the senior management level and ongoing effective management oversight, the Board will continue to optimize the use of current funds and resources to achieve departmental results, meet operational targets and deliver on priority initiatives, and will work with central agencies to ensure a sustainable and stable funding strategy.

Planned resources to achieve results

Table 3: Planned resources to achieve results for internal services this year

Table 3 provides a summary of the planned spending and full-time equivalents required to achieve results.

Complete financial and human resources information for the IRB’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.

Planning for contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses

Government of Canada departments are required to meet a target of awarding at least 5% of the total value of contracts to Indigenous businesses each year. This commitment is to be fully implemented by the end of the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year.

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, as a Phase 2 organization, is on track to maintain this goal by March 31, 2025. It is anticipated that the Board's procurement activities to date will have contributed to its annual minimum target of awarding 5% of the total value of contracts to Indigenous businesses.

Table 4: Percentage of contracts planned and awarded to Indigenous businesses

Table 4 presents the actual results with forecasted and planned results for the total percentage of contracts the department awarded to Indigenous businesses.

Most of the IRB's contracting activity is facilitated using Public Services and Procurement Canada's mandatory ProServices, which include prequalified Indigenous business vendors. The IRB's procurement strategies encourage procurement officers to include one or more of these Indigenous vendors in every solicitation request processed. This has proven successful in reaching annual incremental percentage growth in awarding IRB contracts to Indigenous businesses. The Board's procurement activity growth for Indigenous vendors has demonstrated positive results towards meeting the planned target.

The IRB's annual procurement plan will include engagement strategies to help promote and support the participation of Indigenous businesses in competing for IRB contract awards and will monitor those results. The Board's procurement team will make themselves available to meet with Indigenous businesses, as appropriate, to present the IRB procurement model and identify any future business opportunities. In addition, the team will participate in future outreach activities and identify procurement opportunities reserved exclusively for Indigenous businesses.

Planned spending and human resources

This section provides an overview of the IRB’s planned spending and human resources for the next three fiscal years and compares planned spending for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 with actual spending from previous fiscal years.

Spending

This section presents an overview of the IRB's planned expenditures from fiscal year 2022 to 2023 to fiscal year 2027 to 2028.

Graph 1: Planned spending by core responsibility in 2025 to 2026

Graph 1 presents how much the IRB plans to spend in 2025 to 2026 to carry out core responsibility and internal services.

Budgetary performance summary

Table 5: Three-year spending summary for core responsibility and internal services (dollars)

Table 5 presents how much money the IRB spent over the past three years to carry out its core responsibility and for internal services. Amounts for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on spending to date.

Table 6: Planned three-year spending on core responsibility and internal services (dollars)

Table 6 presents how much money the IRB plans to spend over the next three years to carry out its core responsibility and for internal services.

Funding

This section provides an overview of the IRB's voted and statutory funding for its core responsibility and for internal services. For further information on funding authorities, consult the Government of Canada budgets and expenditures.

Graph 2: Approved funding (statutory and voted) over a six-year period

Graph 2 summarizes the IRB's approved voted and statutory funding from fiscal year 2022 to 2023 to fiscal year 2027 to 2028.

Future-oriented condensed statement of operations

The future-oriented condensed statement of operations provides an overview of the IRB’s operations for fiscal year 2024 to 2025 to fiscal year 2025 to 2026.

Table 7: Future-oriented condensed statement of operations for the year ended March 31, 2026 (dollars)

Table 7 summarizes the expenses and revenues which net to the cost of operations before government funding and transfers for fiscal year 2024 to 2025 to fiscal year 2025 to 2026. The forecast and planned amounts in this statement of operations were prepared on an accrual basis. The forecast and planned amounts presented in other sections of the Departmental Plan were prepared on an expenditure basis. Amounts may therefore differ.

Human resources

This section presents an overview of the IRB’s actual and planned human resources from fiscal year 2022 to 2023 to fiscal year 2027 to 2028.

Table 8: Actual human resources for core responsibility and internal services

Table 8 shows a summary of human resources, in full-time equivalents, for the IRB’s core responsibility and for its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Human resources for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on year to date.

Table 9: Human resources planning summary for core responsibility and internal services

T​able 9 shows information on human resources, in full-time equivalents, for the IRB’s core responsibility and for its internal services planned for the next three years.

Corporate information

Supplementary information table

The following supplementary information table is available on the IRB’s website:

• Gender-based analysis plus

Information on the Board’s 2023 to 2027 Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy can be found on the IRB’s website.

Federal tax expenditures

The IRB’s Departmental Plan does not include information on tax expenditures.

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures.

This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs as well as evaluations and GBA Plus of tax expenditures.

Definitions