https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ta/immigration-stats/permanent-residents.html
This site may explain why the published IRCC Estimated Processing Times did not change in October 2026 while there were more files processed. For example, there are 31,900 applicants ahead of me (Aug 2025), compared to 41,400 as of Sep 3, 2026. Yet, the estimated processing times remained unchanged (5 months).
In a previous comment, I anticipated here that IRCC may be slowing down processing of our files. According to the statistics on this page (as of end of August 2026), IRCC finalized 31,300 out of 46,000 the target for protected person under the one-time initiative for 2026 (68%). This means that for the remaining 4 months of 2026, IRCC will be processing ~14,700 protected person applications under this initiative. The remaining files (69,000 applications) under this initiative are supposed to be processed in 2027.
Also on this page, IRCC finalized 25,500 out of 49,300 PR applications (~52%) for refugees and protected persons (including the government-assisted refugees, privately sponsored, protected persons under PRRA and us, the In-Canada protected persons). This means that until the end of 2026, there is a room for ~23,700 PR but these are not limited to us. I read before that IRCC had already allocated 20,000 of these 49,300 for us, the In-Canada protected persons.
As for Humanitarian and Compassionate class, IRCC finalized 4,900 out of 6,900 PR (~71%) for 2026 as of end of Aug 2026.
As for the dependents of protected persons, there is a total of 67,600 applicants as of Oct 2026. How many of these are outside Canada? How many inside Canada? No detailed statistics. I read before that IRCC’s allocation is 20,000 per year for dependents of protected persons (outside QC). This means it will take more than 3 years to process all these applications. This is simply unfair for protected persons and their dependents.
I hope that in the new Immigration Level Plan for 2027, IRCC will introduce a one-time initiative to accelerate the reunification of protected persons with their families. This remains part of Canada’s humanitarian obligations, as it does not make sense to grant the protection status to the applicants and leave their dependents separated – and possibly in endangered zones – for a very long time (sometimes over 4 years).
In the new Immigration Level Plan, I think that IRCC may hopefully try to address the dependents of protected persons and the humanitarian and compassionate class. The estimated processing times are +10 years which renders this program completely dysfunctional.