Urgent: Sudden Increase in PR Processing Times for Refugees and Protected Persons (Up to 99 Months!)

[PR waiting]

IRCC Confirms a One-Time Fast-Track for Protected Persons’ PR Applications

For anyone still waiting on their PR under the Protected Person category, the 2025 Federal Budget officially includes a one-time initiative to finalize our applications faster.

According to the government’s own statement in Budget 2025 (Chapter: Immigration System Recalibration):

“The Government is implementing a one-time initiative over a two-year period to streamline the transition of approximately 115,000 Protected Persons in Canada who are already on a pathway to permanent residence and in alignment with their protected status under domestic and international law.”

This means IRCC will prioritize existing PR applications from recognized Protected Persons over the next two years — not new temporary or economic applicants. These are additional admissions, not part of the regular quota, so they won’t reduce spots for other categories.

In simple terms, it’s an official fast-track for those already waiting in the final stages of their PR processing. It recognizes that we’re not temporary residents but individuals with legal protection under Canadian and international law, and it aims to give us the permanent status we already qualify for much sooner.

So yes — this isn’t a rumor or speculation. It’s a confirmed measure in the federal budget, backed by IRCC and the Government of Canada.

• The most relevant section in the 2026‑2028 Immigration Levels Plan (Annex) on the 2025 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration, which states: “the Government is implementing a one-time initiative over a two-year period to streamline the transition of approximately 115,000 Protected Persons in Canada…” 
• The ºBudget 2025 – Chapter 1: Building a stronger Canadian economy page, which repeats that the measure is included in the budget and describes the cost and time-frame. 

 

[PR waiting]

Post
Marc Miller DPLADö<ÄA>*X.com
@MarcMillerVM
Completely false. The budget proposes to give Permanent Residency to Protected Person.
That's people who have already been given protection in Canada by a tribunal and are just waiting for their permanent residency. Confusing asylum claims with protected persons is a dirty trick.

Michelle Rempel Garner # @michellere...• 1d
The Liberals allowed hundreds of thousands of backdoor economic migrants to make asylum claims after illegally crossing the border.
Instead of fixing the system they broke, the Libs are letting them jump the queue en masse to get PR over people who played by the rules.

Marc miller gave perfect reply to haters or manipulating people and we have some in this group tooo

 

[abff08f4813c]

Post
Marc Miller DPLADö<ÄA>*X.com
@MarcMillerVM
Completely false. The budget proposes to give Permanent Residency to Protected Person.
That's people who have already been given protection in Canada by a tribunal and are just waiting for their permanent residency. Confusing asylum claims with protected persons is a dirty trick.

Michelle Rempel Garner # @michellere...• 1d
The Liberals allowed hundreds of thousands of backdoor economic migrants to make asylum claims after illegally crossing the border.
Instead of fixing the system they broke, the Libs are letting them jump the queue en masse to get PR over people who played by the rules.

Marc miller gave perfect reply to haters or manipulating people and we have some in this group tooo

One thing I'd add to this great response:

> jump the queue en masse to get PR over people who played by the rules.

By and large, protected persons - who have already been reviewed and approved - did in fact play by the rules. Because these people faced great danger, the rules are deliberately flexible to ensure that they get protection while their claims are under review. They thus aren't jumping the queue either - these folks are already here and here to stay; it's just a kind of weird technicality that they aren't immediately recognized as PR or PR-equivalent and have to go through another process to obtain that (albeit a technicality with very real and painful consequences).

 

[canuck78]

One thing I'd add to this great response:

> jump the queue en masse to get PR over people who played by the rules.

By and large, protected persons - who have already been reviewed and approved - did in fact play by the rules. Because these people faced great danger, the rules are deliberately flexible to ensure that they get protection while their claims are under review. They thus aren't jumping the queue either - these folks are already here and here to stay; it's just a kind of weird technicality that they aren't immediately recognized as PR or PR-equivalent and have to go through another process to obtain that (albeit a technicality with very real and painful consequences).

The issue is that this doesn’t account for dependents. Those who are already in Canada won’t change pressure on housing/schooling/healthcare, won’t lead to additional spending, etc. but once you add the dependents of around 250k protected people over 2 years it has a significant impact.

 

[canuck78]

So the consultant said,


emphasis mine.

(Again emphasis mine.) But you did miss quoting part from the link,

> Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is pleased to release details on the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan (Levels Plan). The Levels Plan includes temporary resident targets and ranges for new arrivals of international students and temporary foreign workers, along with permanent resident targets and ranges under the immigration categories of Economic, Family, Refugees and Protected Persons, and Humanitarian & Compassionate and Other.

The one-time adjustment is part of the plan, just not part of the temporary resident -> permanent resident targets. Instead they have separate targets. I think the consultant may just be confused by the semantics here (that being separate from the temp -> perm targets meant that it's not part of the Levels Plan overall).

But if you scroll down to the Permanent Residents chart about halfway down, you see the numbers are indeed given as part of the plan. The fact that it's one-time simply means it currently isn't planned to be included as part of the future post-2028 Levels Plan (which makes sense, as the hope would be that the insane current backlog would have been already fully addressed by then).

If not part of the table not really part of the levels plan. This was a sneaky way to say you reduced PR targets but ant the same time adding a few one times programs. The 115k should have been included in the 2026 and 2027 targets for PR for protected people. The issue becomes that dependents levels haven’t changed and neither has the number of asylum seekers, refugees, etc. So the backlogs will be pushed into other categories and in a few years we will be back in the same position.

 

[abff08f4813c]

If not part of the table not really part of the levels plan.

The 115k should have been included in the 2026 and 2027 targets for PR for protected people.

Hmm. I feel like that's mostly a matter of semantics.

I'll accept this for the sake of argument, though I feel it's not that important. Instead, I feel you got the important bit covered here,

Those who are already in Canada won’t change pressure on housing/schooling/healthcare, won’t lead to additional spending, etc

Hence why it wasn't entirely unreasonable to leave them out of the table and levels plan.

This was a sneaky way to say you reduced PR targets but ant the same time adding a few one times programs.

Perhaps sneakiness is in the eye of the beholder. But considering that the same web page with the levels plan and table with the target numbers also included the mention of the one time program, and also that it had to be included in the budget (so those who follow these things would have seen it)... my personal take is that if they're trying to be sneaky about this, they're doing not that great a job of it...

The issue becomes that dependents levels haven’t changed and neither has the number of asylum seekers, refugees, etc. So the backlogs will be pushed into other categories and in a few years we will be back in the same position.

The issue is that this doesn’t account for dependents.

once you add the dependents of around 250k protected people over 2 years it has a significant impact.

As I previously wrote, I fully agree with this. The current plan as released doesn't seem to account for these dependents at all, but you're almost certainly right about them find other categories to slot into - and the effect of this on the backlog for those categories.

I wouldn't be taken by surprise if at some point it becomes so bad that a court rules that the gov't has to prioritize getting these dependents in here - but I bet the gov't would indeed be taken by surprise, which isn't ideal. The better way would be if there was a plan from the start to handle deal with this... somehow...