Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2024 to 2025 Departmental plan

​​​​​​​​​​​​On this page

• From the Chairperson
• Plans to deliver on the core responsibility and internal services
• 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 2024 to 2025 Departmental plan for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB or the Board), Canada's largest administrative tribunal.

The IRB is proud to celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2024. The Board reflects Canada's commitment to its international obligations towards refugees and persons in need of protection.

More and more, we notice increasing and shifting migration patterns. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees noted that 1.6 million new claims were filed by asylum-seekers around the world in the first half of 2023. In 2023, the Board received approximately 140,000 refugee claims, a record number.

The Board's mandate is to hear and decide cases in a timely way, fairly and in accordance with the law. The growing intake of refugee claims poses a challenge to the Refugee Protection Division of the IRB in particular, where its current capacity is closer to 50,000 claims a year. While refugee protection claims make up the highest number of decisions rendered, the IRB is also responsible for refugee appeals through its Refugee Appeal Division, which considers appeals against decisions to allow or reject claims for refugee protection. Through the Immigration Division and the Immigration Appeal Division, the Board also makes decisions regarding a person's admissibility to Canada, reviews detention of individuals to determine if detention should continue, and decides on appeals of immigration cases related to sponsorships, removal orders, and residency obligations.

The IRB is developing and will implement a new strategic direction, “Horizon 26-27”, to ensure its operations are streamlined and its processes are simplified so that the Board is ready to address the growing needs. Appropriate use of technology, to automate routine and repetitive tasks, to receive and communicate information, or to make available general information, will be key in this endeavour.

The IRB's employees are the real strength of our organization. The Board will continue to invest in a workplace culture that embraces innovation and change and will support its people and provide them with the tools they need as we shape our future together.

As someone who was at the Board when it was first created, I am very proud of what it has accomplished over its 35-year history. It has faced and overcome an evolving operating context, time and time again.

There are challenges ahead of us, but I am confident that the Board is well placed to meet them, and work undertaken in 2024 to 2025 will help set the direction of the IRB in the years to come.

Manon Brassard​
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer

Plans to deliver on the core responsibility and internal services

Core responsibility and internal services:

• Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases
• Internal services

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

Results and targets

The following table shows, for the departmental result of fair and timely adjudication of immigration and refugee cases, the indicators, the results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, and the targets and target dates approved for fiscal year 2024 to 2025.

Table 1: Indicators, results and targets for departmental result of fair and timely adjudication of immigration and refugee cases

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

Plans to achieve results

Refugee claim volumes have significantly increased and are expected to continue to rise in Canada. Budget 2022 announced a temporary investment of $87 million, representing close to 10% and 20% above base funding respectively for fiscal years 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. The additional funding has and will help increase the number of refugee protection claims finalized over the two-year period. While the additional temporary funding provides much‑needed assistance, the IRB remains under significant pressure as the number of new refugee claims continues to outpace funded capacity. In 2023, annual asylum intake more than doubled to approximately 140,000 claims (a year-over-year increase of 128%), while funded capacity remained constant.

Faced with this challenge, the IRB is optimizing the use of its temporary funding by ensuring its governance is robust, and its operations are streamlined. With that in mind, the Board will ensure decisions continue to be timely, fair and made in accordance with the law and will focus on ensuring its processes are streamlined and simplified, so that members (also known as decision-makers) and employees are more effective and the IRB’s overall performance is more efficient. This work will be focused through five objectives; the first three objectives are included below under “Adjudication of immigration and refugee cases” and the remaining two are described in the Internal services section.

Should the asylum intake continue to increase at the 2023 rate, the IRB’s need for the current temporary funding will become permanent and will not be sufficient to ensure that the number of cases heard is on par with the number of cases received. There will likely be a need to seek additional funding to protect the integrity of the asylum system and avoid growing backlogs and wait times.

Objective one: Maintain quality and consistent decision-making ensuring IRB decisions continue to be timely, fair and made in accordance with the law

The IRB has well-established mechanisms in place to ensure it continues to make fair and timely decisions in accordance with the law. Guided by its Quality Assurance Framework for Decision-Making, the Board has robust quality assurance practices in place such as regular quality performance reviews and Quality Centres that have been established by the Refugee Protection and Refugee Appeal divisions. In fiscal year 2024 to 2025, the IRB will maintain its focus on management training, specifically for supervisors and first-line managers, to ensure they are equipped to effectively manage new and existing staff and support streamlined and simplified operations.

Additionally, the Board will continue to advance its work to simplify and modernize the interpreter and designated representative programs. The enhancements to these programs, including a new recruitment plan, will ensure appropriate support continues to be provided in hearings.

The IRB will progress its work to finalize updates to the Immigration Division Rules, which have been informed by consultations with stakeholders and other government departments. These updates will include modernized processes and plain language to facilitate alignment with jurisprudence, changes with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and the Rules of other divisions.

Objective two: Increase efficiency through streamlined operations

At the IRB, streamlined operations means ensuring that files are triaged and scheduled to appear before a member as quickly as possible. To that end, the IRB will be looking at all the key steps in its process, ensuring, amongst other things, that parties are filing completed applications sooner, that preliminary issues in applications are dealt with early in the process, and that there are fewer instances of late filing of evidence.  

Streamlining operations also means that the IRB will make better use of technology. For example, the newly developed country landing pages will provide members with quick access to country-specific information. Additionally, automated production of hearing transcripts will help streamline decision-making for Refugee Appeal Division members.

More effective operations at the IRB will lead to a greater number of people who can appear before it. To achieve this, the participation of all concerned is essential. Increased conformity to the Board’s Rules of Practice from those appearing before it, including its timelines for proceeding, will be required. Additionally, the IRB will promote the use of a single channel through which parties can submit information.

The Board will advance a national case management approach that will build on the work completed to date to enhance triage, file preparation, and strategic scheduling and assignment of cases to members nationally.

Effective collaboration with portfolio partners (e.g., Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada [IRCC] and the Canada Border Services Agency [CBSA]) remains key to the success of the asylum system as a whole. The IRB will continue its collaboration with the IRCC and CBSA through the Asylum System Management Board, being mindful to maintain its institutional and adjudicative independence, to inform the conversation on key, strategic issues.

Objective three: Transition from a technologically enabled to a more fully digital tribunal

Enhancing and building on achievements to date, the Board will continue to leverage technology to become a more fully digital tribunal. This will support increased operational efficiencies and enhanced user access and experience. Access to the My Case portal will expand to include claimants, appellants, and designated representatives. The IRB will work with immigration and refugee partners on increasing the information available digitally.

To help improve productivity and resource allocation, the IRB will look at opportunities to automate high-volume routine and repetitive tasks (e.g., data entry). The Board plans to reduce the time it takes employees to conduct intensive repetitive tasks and allow resources to be better utilized. Building on previous developments, the IRB will focus on triage, improving scheduling of claims, and gaining efficiencies to manage a high volume of cases.

In support of advancing the transition to a fully digital tribunal, the Board will continue to invest and realign its information management and information technology. The Board will further develop its human resources strategies and streamline its recruitment processes and training needs in order to address capacity gaps.

Key risks

The following key corporate risks could impact the planned results.

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
• Internal services

Supporting information on planned expenditures, human resources, and results related to IRB’s program inventory is available 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

In fiscal year 2024 to 2025, the IRB will advance work on the following two internal services objectives to support its continued focus on delivering client‑centric services that are accessible, effective, and responsive to the needs of those appearing before the Board. This work will help support the IRB's departmental result of fair and timely adjudication of immigration and refugee cases.

Objective four: Ensure an effective and diverse workforce

People management remains a key focus at the IRB with its commitment to recruiting and retaining a highly skilled workforce. The Board will continue to invest in onboarding and developing the skills of new and existing employees and members. The IRB's Member Learning Secretariat, using adult learning approaches, will continue to support the IRB's divisions in adjudicative training for members. This includes timely and efficient training of new members. Additionally, Board-wide, there will be a continued focus on building management capacity by equipping supervisors and first-level managers to ensure organizational effectiveness and objective-based performance management.

The Board will leverage the IRB Accessibility Plan 2023 to 2025 and its new Strategic Plan on Diversity and Inclusion 2023 to 2026 to support its human resources activities. Guided by these plans, the IRB will advance its work toward becoming barrier-free for people with disabilities, whether they are working at the Board or appearing before it. In 2024 to 2025, the IRB will continue to implement actions to improve accessibility, such as ensuring IRB staff receive disability and accessibility awareness training. Given the importance of written decisions for persons appearing before it, the IRB will continue to provide training on the use of plain language to ensure decisions remain accessible, maintaining access to justice. Additionally, the Board will endeavour to promote a diverse and inclusive culture by developing tools, networks, and training, and will prioritize building a diverse and inclusive workforce that is representative of Canada's population. The IRB will embed diversity and inclusion in IRB policies and programs and will implement strategies to measure and communicate its progress. The IRB remains committed to ongoing work, including the implementation of its Strategy for Psychological Safety and Mental Health.

Objective five: Improve efficiency through a performance-focused organizational culture

At all levels, the IRB remains committed to achieving efficiencies, while ensuring decisions are fair, timely and made in accordance with the law. The Board will improve effectiveness by leveraging data and analytics to remain results- and performance-focused and by strengthening internal management structures. The Board will continue to foster a culture of operational awareness through regular monitoring and reporting of results against targets, identifying challenges as they arise and adjusting practices as required. This work will help position the Board to respond to the growing demands and pressures on its internal services, and help build a performance-focused culture.

Related government priorities

Planning for contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses

Under the Directive on the Management of Procurement, which came into effect on May 13, 2021, federal organizations must ensure that a minimum of 5% of the total value of the contracts awarded are held by Indigenous businesses. This requirement is being implemented over three phases, with completion expected by 2024.

The IRB is a phase 2 organization (completion by March 31, 2024) and has not identified any risks that would result in an inability to meet its target. 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. The following chart shows the Board's progress since fiscal year 2021 to 2022.

Most of the IRB's contracting activity is facilitated using Public Services and Procurement Canada's mandatory ProServices, which include prequalified Indigenous business vendors. However, the Board was unable to meet its targets using these tools, so it explored additional means to broaden its outreach to Indigenous 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 Industry Days.

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 2024 to 2025 with actual spending from previous fiscal years.

Spending

Figure 1: Spending by core responsibility in fiscal year 2024 to 2025

Table 2: Actual spending summary for the core responsibility and internal services ($ dollars)

The following table shows information on spending for the IRB’s core responsibility and its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Amounts for the current fiscal year are forecast based on spending to date.

Table 3: Budgetary planning summary for the core responsibility and internal services (dollars)

The following table shows information on spending for the IRB’s core responsibility and its internal services for the upcoming three fiscal years.

Funding

Figure 2: Departmental spending from fiscal year 2021 to 2022 to fiscal year 2026 to 2027

The following graph presents planned spending (voted and statutory expenditures) over time.

Estimates by vote

Information on the IRB’s organizational appropriations is available in the 2024 to 2025 Main Estimates.

Future-oriented condensed statement of operations

The future-oriented condensed statement of operations provides an overview of the IRB’s operations for fiscal year 2023 to 2024 to fiscal year 2024 to 2025.

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.

A more detailed future-oriented statement of operations and associated notes, including a reconciliation of the net cost of operations with the requested authorities, are available on the IRB’s website.

Table 5: Future-oriented condensed statement of operations for the year ending March 31, 2025 (dollars)

Human resources

Table 6: Actual human resources for the core responsibility and internal services

The following table shows information on human resources, in full-time equivalents, for the IRB’s core responsibility and its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Human resources for the current fiscal year are forecast based on year to date.

Table 7: Human resources planning summary for the core responsibility and internal services

The following table shows information on human resources, in full-time equivalents, for the IRB’s core responsibility and for its internal services planned for 2024 to 2025 and future 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.

Tax expenditures are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for government-wide tax expenditures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures.

This report provides detailed information on tax expenditures, including objectives, historical background, and references to related federal spending programs, as well as evaluations, research papers and gender-based analysis plus.

Definitions