Maple News reports that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will no longer accept webform submissions from individuals with expired Confirmations of Permanent Residence (COPR) who are ready to travel to Canada. This change was confirmed in the department’s most recent program delivery update and marks a shift in how the agency manages communications with expired COPR holders.
Previously, expired COPR holders were instructed to use a dedicated webform to alert the IRCC of their readiness to travel. However, as of January 5, 2021, the IRCC has modified this approach and will now proactively contact eligible individuals instead. Specifically, this outreach targets clients who were approved for permanent residence on or before March 18, 2020.
“We have streamlined our proactive outreach to clarify our message to permanent residence applicants and to make the assessment process easier for our officers,” said an IRCC spokesperson. “The response to this updated strategy has so far been positive.”
This measure aims to reduce manual processing delays and avoid duplication of outreach efforts. The IRCC’s case-specific webform still remains open for other inquiries, but it is not being used to manage the expired COPR communication process anymore. These webform requests are still processed manually and are not automatically tracked.
The shift comes after the IRCC made contact with over 9,000 clients by the end of December 2020. Of these, approximately 1,700 received authorization letters, and around 1,100 COPR holders with expired documents have now arrived in Canada and become permanent residents.
COPRs are issued to individuals who have been approved for Canadian permanent residence, allowing them to finalize their landing process. However, travel restrictions during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic caused many prospective immigrants to miss their window of opportunity. While Canada’s borders remained open to COPR holders approved before March 18, 2020, flight cancellations and lockdown measures in home countries made travel impossible for many. Since immigration rules prohibit entry with an expired COPR, affected individuals found themselves in limbo.
Maple News notes that this proactive outreach strategy by IRCC aims to give those stranded by previous restrictions a clearer path to immigration without overloading manual processing systems. It highlights the agency’s continued efforts to balance operational efficiency with fairness to applicants.
Affected individuals are advised not to initiate contact with IRCC through the webform but instead wait for an official communication, provided their COPR was issued before the March 18, 2020, deadline.