August 2024 Update: When Will I Have My Refugee Hearing?

For 2022-2023, the Refugee Board reports that it finalized 80% of cases within 36-37 months (three years).1 The average wait-time as of April 2023 was 22 months.2

This is the wait time from the referral to the Refugee Board, namely when you received your “Refugee Protection Claimant Document” (“brown paper”) or submitted your Basis of Claim Form, not your arrival in Canada.

However, please note that an assessment from August 2024 suggests that it would take the Refugee Board four years to hear all the cases currently before it.3

There is almost nothing that can be done to “speed up” your hearing process. Once a about a year has elapsed, counsel may begin writing to the Refugee Board with reminders, mainly to confirm the file is still in the queue.

To prevent delays, make sure to update your contact information with counsel, review the documents submitted to the immigration authorities, make sure your evidence is legibly scanned and translated or provided to counsel for translation. You may also want to take a Ready Tour,4 to get a sense of what the hearing will be like.

  1. Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board, 2022 to 2023 Departmental Results Report, 2023, online: https://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/reports-publications/planning-performance/Pages/departmental-results-report-2223-r.aspx; Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2024 to 2025 Departmental plan, 2024, online: https://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/reports-publications/planning-performance/Pages/departmental-results-report-2223-r.aspx. ↩︎
  2. Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2024 to 2025 Departmental plan, 2024, online: https://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en/reports-publications/planning-performance/Pages/departmental-results-report-2223-r.aspx. ↩︎
  3. Nicholas Keung, “Canada’s refugee system is overwhelmed by skyrocketing claims. What can Ottawa do to reduce backlogs?”, The Toronto Star, 1 August 2024, online: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/canadas-refugee-system-is-overwhelmed-by-skyrocketing-claims-what-can-ottawa-do-to-reduce-backlogs/article_9d6c7c28-4b83-11ef-8ced-83f07793a559.html. ↩︎
  4. https://myrefugeeclaim.ca/en/ready-tours/, ↩︎

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