Questions and responses 45th Parliament, 1st session May 26, 2025, to present

With regard to the temporary public policy creating two pathways to permanent residence to facilitate the immigration of certain Hong Kong residents: from June 1, 2021, broken down by quarter, how many applications has Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (i) received, (ii) approved, (iii) rejected or denied?

With regard to permanent residency for internationally trained physicians since 2015, and broken down by year: (a) how many internationally trained physicians (i) applied for, (ii) were granted, permanent residency in Canada, broken down by immigration stream; (b) does the government, including all health-related agencies, track how many internationally trained physicians who obtain permanent residency become licensed to practise medicine by a medical regulatory authority; and (c) if the answer to (b) is affirmative, how many of the internationally trained physicians granted permanent residency in (a)(ii) have become licensed to practise medicine in Canada by a medical regulatory authority?

With regard to the Canadian Armed Forces: (a) since December 5, 2022, how many permanent residents have been enrolled by the Canadian Armed Forces, broken down by (i) Regular Force, (ii) Reserve Force, and further broken down by year and by quarter; (b) what Military Occupational Structure Identifications are non-citizens permitted to serve in; (c) what is the number of permanent residents currently serving, broken down by (i) Military Occupational Structure Identification, (ii) rank; (d) of the permanent residents enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces since December 5, 2022, how many have left the Canadian Armed Forces, broken down by (i) Regular Force, (ii) Reserve Force; (e) since December 5, 2022, how many permanent residents enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces have become Canadian citizens; and (f) how many permanent residents enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces since December 5, 2022, are citizens of countries other than North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries?

With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the two temporary public policies tailored for Hong Kong residents since 2021, namely, the Temporary public policy to exempt certain Hong Kong residents from work permit requirements in February 2021, and the Temporary public policy creating two pathways to permanent residence to facilitate the immigration of certain Hong Kong residents in June 2021, broken down by month and year: (a) since the creation of the open work permit public policy in February 2021, what has been the total number of applications; (b) of the applications in (a), how many were (i) accepted, (ii) rejected, (iii) under review, (iv) withdrawn; (c) of the rejections in (b), what is the breakdown of rejections by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada office or processing centre; (d) since the creation of the two pathways to permanent residence in June 2021, what are the application numbers, broken down by (i) stream A, (ii) stream B; (e) of the applications in (d), how many were (i) accepted, (ii) rejected, (iii) under review, (iv) withdrawn; (f) of the applications in (d), what were the average processing times; (g) of the applications in (d), how many applicants have received permanent residence and how many are awaiting a decision; and (h) are all permanent residence admissions confirmed in (g) under the two streams public policy, that is principal applicants and dependents, counted solely toward the Humanitarian and Compassionate and Other category of the Immigration Levels Plan?

With regard to security screening of permanent residence applicants by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada: (a) does the department track security screening wait times for permanent residence applicants disaggregated by (i) country of citizenship, (ii) country of last permanent residence, (iii) visa office processing the application; (b) for each country, region and visa office tracked in (a), what are the mean and median security screening wait times for permanent residence applicants, broken down by year; (c) for each category tracked in (a), which ten countries, regions and visa offices recorded the longest average security screening wait times in each of those years; and (d) what steps, if any, is the department taking to address disproportionately long security screening wait times for permanent residence applicants associated with particular countries, regions and visa offices?

With regard to immigration and border security: (a) what is the government's estimate of the "exit gap", including the number of foreign nationals whose visas expired in 2024 and 2025 but for whom the government has no record of their departure; (b) how is the government currently tracking the exit gap; (c) under what specific legal authority does the minister plan to grant permanent status to individuals who have violated the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by overstaying their visas; (d) what are the estimated cost increases (i) to the federal government, (ii) to provincial and municipal governments, projected to be associated with granting the individuals in (c) permanent status; (e) how many permanent residency spots will be taken away from law-abiding applicants who didn't overstay their visas as a result of the policy change in (c); (f) what internal data was used to justify the policy change in (c); (g) how many foreign nationals currently in Canada on expired visas are currently the subjects of removal orders or similar types of warrants for non-compliance with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act; and (h) how many foreign nationals which were issued a removal order for having an expired visa were removed from Canada in the past year?