February 14, 2018 – Mississauga, ON – Over the past year, the Government of Canada has made significant improvements to the spousal sponsorship process, making it faster and easier for Canadians and permanent residents to reunite with their spouses.

In December 2016, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced that it would reduce the backlog of spousal applicants by 80% and shorten processing times to 12 months. It also announced improvements to the spousal sponsorship application process to make it more efficient and easier to navigate.

Today, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced that the government has successfully met these commitments:

• More than 80% of those who were in the global spousal sponsorship backlog on December 7, 2016, have now received final decisions for their applications. We reduced the spousal inventory from 75,000 persons to 15,000 as of December 31, 2017.
• As of December 31, 2017, we met our commitment to process 80% of spousal applications that were received in December 2016.

In addition, after introducing a new spousal sponsorship application package in December 2016, IRCC continued to respond to client and stakeholder feedback to further improve the application process, and make it simpler and easier for sponsors and applicants to understand and navigate. As a result, we made a number of improvements to the application package in June 2017. And today, we introduced further updates to the application kit and process to improve the client experience and make sure we can process applications as quickly as possible.