{"id":22554,"date":"2026-08-23T10:41:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T07:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/blog\/ministerial-relief-processing-times-canada\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T10:53:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T07:23:00","slug":"ministerial-relief-processing-times-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/blog\/ministerial-relief-processing-times-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministerial relief: a 16-year median wait, on IRCC&#8217;s own decision data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For someone found inadmissible to Canada on security or organised criminality grounds, ministerial relief is the last door. IRCC&#8217;s own decision data shows what sits behind it: a <strong>median wait of 16 years<\/strong> \u2014 and in ten of 33 cases, more than twenty.<\/p>\n<p>The figures below come from IRCC&#8217;s list of ministerial decisions as at 21 April 2026.<\/p>\n<h2>The headline numbers<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Decisions in the release: <strong>33<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Positive: <strong>19<\/strong> (58%) \u2014 Negative: <strong>14<\/strong> (42%)<\/li>\n<li>Processing time: minimum <strong>5 years<\/strong>, median <strong>16 years<\/strong>, maximum <strong>22 years<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>18 of 33<\/strong> took 15 years or more<\/li>\n<li><strong>10<\/strong> took 20 years or more<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The finding that surprises people: of those ten twenty-year cases, <strong>seven were decided positively<\/strong>. Length of wait does not predict outcome. It is simply the price of admission.<\/p>\n<h2>The provision decides the timeline<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>s.34(2)<\/strong> \u2014 security. 18 cases, <strong>67%<\/strong> positive, median <strong>20 years<\/strong>, range 11\u201322.<\/li>\n<li><strong>s.42.1<\/strong> \u2014 ministerial relief. 12 cases, <strong>58%<\/strong> positive, median <strong>8 years<\/strong>, range 5\u201310.<\/li>\n<li><strong>s.37(2)(a)<\/strong> \u2014 organised criminality. 2 cases, <strong>both negative<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>s.35(2)<\/strong> \u2014 human rights violations. 1 case, negative.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The gap between s.34(2) and s.42.1 is the single most consequential fact here: a median of twenty years against eight. Which provision your file falls under shapes your timeline more than anything you control.<\/p>\n<h2>Decisions come in batches<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>2022:<\/strong> 3 decisions, all positive, median wait 9 years<\/li>\n<li><strong>2023:<\/strong> 3 decisions, 1 positive, median 11 years<\/li>\n<li><strong>2024:<\/strong> 25 decisions, 14 positive, median 17 years<\/li>\n<li><strong>2025:<\/strong> 2 decisions, 1 positive, median 6 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2024 is the year a backlog of very old files \u2014 some dating to 2002 \u2014 was cleared. Decisions arrive in clusters, not at a steady rate, which means silence in any given year says little.<\/p>\n<h2>What follows from this<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Plan on a realistic horizon.<\/strong> If your file sits under s.34(2), planning around two or three years does not match the data.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A long silence is not a refusal.<\/strong> Twenty-two-year files in this release went both ways.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The provision matters more than almost anything else<\/strong> in setting expectations.<\/li>\n<li>If your wait has become unreasonable, a mandamus application in Federal Court is worth assessing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The limits of this data<\/h2>\n<p>This is 33 decisions, not a national caseload. It cannot support a national success rate. What it does show reliably is the range of real timelines \u2014 and those sit far outside common expectations.<\/p>\n<h2>Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n<h3>How long does ministerial relief take?<\/h3>\n<p>In this data, a median of 16 years, ranging from 5 to 22. For s.34(2) the median is 20 years; for s.42.1, 8 years.<\/p>\n<h3>What proportion succeed?<\/h3>\n<p>58% of these 33 decisions were positive. It is a small sample and should not be read as a national rate.<\/p>\n<h3>Does a long wait mean a refusal is coming?<\/h3>\n<p>No. Of the ten cases that took more than twenty years, seven were decided positively.<\/p>\n<h3>Which provision moves faster?<\/h3>\n<p>s.42.1, at a median of 8 years, against s.34(2) at 20.<\/p>\n<h3>My file has been silent for years \u2014 what can I do?<\/h3>\n<p>Assess whether you meet the test for mandamus in Federal Court. That remedy compels a decision, not a favourable one.<\/p>\n<h2>In short<\/h2>\n<p>Ministerial relief is a route that exists and that succeeded in more than half of these cases \u2014 at a cost in time you should understand from the outset. If you are in this position, have the file reviewed by a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC).<\/p>\n<h2>Sources<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>IRCC list of ministerial decisions, as at 21 April 2026<\/li>\n<li>Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, ss. 34, 35, 37 and 42.1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For someone found inadmissible to Canada on security or organised criminality grounds, ministerial relief is the last door. IRCC&#8217;s own decision data shows what sits behind it: a median wait of 16 years \u2014 and in ten of 33 cases, more than twenty. The figures below come from IRCC&#8217;s list of ministerial decisions as at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-immigration-to-canada-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalvisa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}