This government service has to deal with the most information complaints

It’s a record Canada’s Immigration Service would rather forget.

For the fifth year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada tops an inglorious category and received the highest number of complaints from anywhere in the federal government regarding the handling of access to information requests.

Immigration applicants and lawyers have long complained that they are forced to make these formal requests for information because the department’s call center agents cannot answer their questions and other officials do not respond to questions.

The situation worsened during the pandemic, as the department was besieged by skyrocketing backlogs.

According to the annual report of the Office of the Information Commissionerthe department was the subject of 4,658 public complaints in 2022, up 12 percent from the previous year and accounting for more than half of the commissioner’s workload.

Despite a special report to Parliament in 2021 detailed problems with officials handling requests for access to information, there has been little improvement, Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard said.

“The number of requests and complaints received has not decreased. It appears that several of IRCC’s commitments remain ‘in progress’ and with no concrete timelines for completion,” Maynard wrote in her report released Tuesday.

“IRCC has yet to provide applicants with alternative methods of accessing the information they seek in their immigration records.”

Maynard’s office is responsible for investigating complaints under the Access to Information Act, which affects approximately 250 federal government agencies.

Her latest report showed that the number of requests for access to information and privacy (ATIP) to the Immigration Department more than doubled from 82,387 in 2018 to 177,437 in 2022. Maynard’s office investigated and closed 4,397 complaints against the Immigration Department last year.

“The extraordinarily high number of requests, and the correspondingly high number of complaints, is a direct result of the inability of applicants and/or their representatives to otherwise obtain information they seek on immigration application files,” the report said. of the commissioner.

“As the results of this study have shown, the access system is not the most efficient means of providing potential immigrants with the information they need.”

Immigration Secretary Sean Fraser told media on Thursday that he disagreed with the information commissioner’s finding that his department had not taken action to improve information sharing with immigration clients.

“We’ve taken some steps to proactively share information, and for what it’s worth, the reason we’re seeing so many requests is that people living abroad have the opportunity to access information on their individual records, Fraser told reporters.

“The real solution is going upstream and proactively sharing information with applicants to come to Canada about their filing so they don’t have to go down the information access route in the first place.”

Fraser referred to the case trackers the department has been rolling out over the past year to enable permanent resident and citizenship applicants to get online updates of their records. The trackers will be extended to temporary residence applicants such as applicants for study and work permits, he said.

“If people get information that knows where their business is in real time by creating a simple portal – by simply accessing the portal on their phone, I’m confident we won’t see as much access to information requests in the next few years ,” noted Fraser.

The Immigration Department is also starting a pilot project to actively disclose officers’ decision notes to some temporary resident visa applicants to improve clarity on reasons for refusal so that applicants do not have to submit a formal request for reasons.

Since 2018, the total number of complaints handled annually by the Office of the Information Commissioner has grown by 185 percent, while the number of complaints closed has increased by 310 percent each year.

Despite a record 7,407 new complaints in 2022, the firm managed to reduce its inventory by 16 percent; as of April, the number of outstanding complaints was 3,472.

Canada Border Services Agency received the second most complaints about access to information in 2022, with 613 new cases filed. It was followed by the RCMP (479), Canada Revenue Agency (199), and Privy Council Office (172).

In her report, the Information Commissioner also found:

Maynard said her office needs additional funds to process complaints in a timely manner, but the request has proved difficult, if not impossible.

“I have to submit my (funding) applications through a minister whose department I am researching. I am convinced that … conflicts with our oversight role,” she said in her report.

Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based reporter who covers immigration for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung

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