Maria Juliana Prieto Gracia is among 39,000 accepted refugees in Quebec who are waiting on a decision about her permanent residence application.
When she first submitted her application in February 2023, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada estimated a wait time of just under two-and-a-half years. Over three years later, she’s still waiting for a decision.
“What’s supposed to be two years and half, and now they added more time to my waiting,” Gracia said.
“Putting and releasing these waiting times is a way of saying, ‘if you don’t want to wait this long, you can just move out of the province.’”
While Gracia wats for an answer, the timeline given to her in 2023 would now be considered a blessing. For accepted refugees applying today in Quebec, the wait time for their permanent residence applications to be processed is 117 months — nearly 10 years. In the rest of Canada, the wait time is 15 months.
The IRCC attributes the long wait to the Canada-Quebec Accord, which allows the province to set its own immigration levels each year. Quebec plans to admit up to 6,000 refugees and “people in similar situations” in 2026.
“They are the ones who have the possibility to choose how many numbers on immigration they accept in the province,” Gracia said. “Sadly, for humanitarian immigration, it’s much, much lower.”
The IRCC notes there are more applicants than spaces available.
“This has led to an increase in the number of pending applications and longer waiting times for many applicants,” the IRCC said in a statement. “We understand that waiting for a decision can be a significant source of stress and uncertainty, especially when it affects a person’s ability to reunite with loved ones, plan their future, or make major life decisions.
“The number of applications we process cannot exceed the number of spaces Quebec has allocated for this program. This can result in longer processing times than for admissions in other regions, primarily because demand exceeds the number of available spaces. To maintain transparency and better manage client expectations regarding processing times, IRCC publishes information on the processing of Quebec applications separately from data for other provinces and territories.”
Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration blames the long wait on the federal government.
“The processing of permanent residence applications and the estimation of their processing times are the responsibility of the federal government,” the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration said in a statement..
Immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo said the processing times are the responsibility of both the federal and provincial governments.
“It’s not helpful for them to say, ‘well, the delay is provincial, the delay is federal.’ The reality is we need to get to the table, understand what our obligations are and make sure we’re discharging at the highest levels because these are amongst the most vulnerable people in our society,” Bellissimo said.
“We run a federal immigration program. I know there’s provincial nuisance and considerations, but these individuals, as I said, have already gone through incredible, incredible persecution, unimaginable tragedy for many of them. They need to be prioritized just like other programs.”
As accepted refugees wait for their permanent residence applications to be processed, advocates say there are significant mental and physical tolls.
“The first and most important impact is family separation, but other impacts are, for example, access to services,” said Louis-Philippe Jannard, the protection coordinator at the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiés et immigrantes (TCRI).
“It’s kind of an in-between status as you say, being accepted as a refugee but not having permanent residence.”
Jannard said the intake level of protected persons and refugees shouldn’t be included in Quebec’s immigration plan, because most of them are already living in the province.
“It’s an old mechanism that was designed when most people working as an immigrant, receiving permanent residence, were living outside of the country. Now people are living here. So, it makes no sense to delay the permanent residence because of levels that were designed to plan how many people are coming in.”
The IRCC’s processing portal estimates the time for new and existing applications submitted to the department and considers factors like how many applications are received and expected.
The IRCC releases new calculations on a monthly basis, with the next update scheduled on June 12.
