Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is a federal government department you will be interacting with both before and after you arrive in Canada.

1. Brief introduction of IRCC
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is a federal
government department you will be interacting with both before and
after you arrive in Canada.
Clients interaction with IRCC before and after arrival Your exposure before you
arrive will be through online immigration applications or the many visa offices
outside Canada. After you arrive you may have further involvement through one of
more than 500 IRCC-supported service provider organizations for settlement services,
and interact with IRCC bylater extending your permanent resident card, and
eventually going through the process to become a Canadian citizen.

2. IRCC in-land offices IRCC has an operations support centre in Canada’s capital city
of Ottawa, and immigration case processing centres in Ottawa, Edmonton,
Mississauga and Sydney. It also has offices in Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta; two
in Vancouver and one in Surrey, British Columbia; one in Winnipeg for Manitoba and
Nunavut; Fredericton, New Brunswick; St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador;
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Hamilton, Kitchener,
London, Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Mississauga, two in Toronto, and Windsor in Ontario;
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; two in Montreal, Quebec; and Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan.
It also has temporary offices across Canada for citizenship tests, interviews and
ceremonies and immigration interviews.
IRCC help center Your first point of contact for questions is the IRCC Call Centre at
1-888-242-2100. Wait times can be long and both immigrant settlement agency staff
and Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants complain the answers to questions
are not consistent. One call centre employee can give you one answer, and another
could tell you something different. However, the IRCC website has comprehensive
information.
Front counter IRCC staff do not provide general information or updates on specific
files. IRCC was formerly known as Citizenship and Immigration Canada and its
website at www.cic.gc.ca is thorough and contains most of the information you will
need, including application forms and application guides. There is an online help
centre at www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/index-featured-can.asp
The objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act The Immigration and
Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and its accompanying Regulations are the sources
relied upon for immigration and refugee applications, decisions, and appeals. IRPA
has 10 objectives, described in the Act, including: to permit Canada to pursue the
maximum social, cultural and economic benefits of immigration; strengthen the
Canadian social and cultural fabric; support a prosperous economy with the benefits
shared across all regions of Canada; reunite families; promote the integration of
permanent residents; facilitate the entry of visitors, students and temporary workers;
protect the public health and safety of Canadian society; promote international justice
and security; and work with the provinces to secure better recognition of foreign
credentials of permanent residents and more rapid integration into society.

3. Recent PR programs of IRCC Recent IRCC programs designed to share the benefits
of immigration across Canada include the Atlantic Immigration Pilot and the Rural
and Northern Immigration Pilot. The Greater Toronto Area continues to attract one-
third of all immigrants to Canada, with Vancouver and Montreal also receiving large
shares.
IRCC’s immigration plan IRCC is estimating between 310,000 and 360,000
immigrants will arrive in 2020, with a target of 340,000. The largest numbers will be
in the various economic streams, with the remainder in family class, refugees and
protected persons or humanitarian and compassionate categories. An increasing
number of spaces will be devoted to provincial nominees. The immigration target
continues to rise each year to counteract an ageing population and shrinking labour
force.
IRCC says, in its Departmental Plan, that it “continues to manage permanent resident
selection, attracting the best and the brightest to Canada, through its Express Entry
application management system and its collaboration with provinces and territories
that nominate permanent resident candidates.”
One of its goals is to eliminate the backlog of privately sponsored refugee applications
and reduce processing times to an average of 12 months for most applications.
IRCC’s current priorities are to grow immigration; streamline economic immigration
program requirements; improve settlement outcomes; improve client experience;
provide international leadership on refugee and migration issues; introduce a more
inclusive citizenship study guide; and work with Canada Border Services Agency,
Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the provinces to address increases in irregular
migration to Canada.
In addition to a target of 340,000 immigrants in 2020, the number of temporary
residents arriving will be in the millions. In 2016-17 there were almost four million
visas and electronic travel authorizations issued to visitors, international students and
temporary workers.
Another IRCC goal is to focus on improvements to program delivery through the
more than 500 service provider organizations it funds across Canada. It especially
wants to see improvements in language training, employment services and support to
vulnerable newcomers, including visible minority women.

4. It also wants to work with the service provider organizations to ensure that services
pertaining to culture, history, sports and recreation are available. Cross-cultural
activities and one-on-one exchanges will be encouraged to build language skills. It
will continue to work with the more than 60 Local Immigration Partnerships across
the country to encourage welcoming communities for newcomers.
IRCC’s budget for 2019-20 is almost $2.4 billion and approximately $1.4 billion is
allocated to settlement support services. It has a total workforce of more than 7,000.
A little more than 1,000 people work in the area of visitors, international students and
temporary workers; almost 3,000 work in immigrant and refugee selection and
integration; approximately 1,600 work in citizenship and passports; and almost 1.600
in internal services. The thousands of people across Canada working for service
provider organizations are employees of non-profit organizations, not IRCC.
Source:- https://www.myconsultant.ca/EN/Brief-introduction-of-IRCC-