Operational Bulletin 412 – April 27, 2012

Pilot Project for the Direct Distribution of Permanent Resident Cards to existing Permanent Residents

Issue

This Operational Bulletin (OB) provides instructions for the direct distribution of Phase II Permanent Resident (PR) cards during the period of the pilot project. This direct distribution of Permanent Resident (PR) cards will take effect on April 30, 2012.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) will commence a pilot project shortly. This pilot project will mail the majority of Phase II Permanent Resident (PR) cards directly to the applicants. The authorities will evaluate the pilot project after one year.

Background

At present, clients visit the CIC offices for picking up the Phase II Permanent Resident (PR) cards. This happens in 100 percent of the cases currently. Of these, the authorities refer about 2.5 percent of the applications to CIC offices for further investigation. Generally, the authorities do this prior to issuing these applicants a Permanent Resident (PR) card.

During the pilot project, estimates suggest that the authorities will refer a maximum of five percent of the applications to the local CIC offices for investigation. The authorities state that this forecasted increase stems from the revised referral criteria prescribed. Of the remaining 95 percent of the applicants, the authorities would:

• Randomly select about 10 percent for picking up their Permanent Resident (PR) cards in-person at local offices and,
• Mail the remaining 90 percent of the Permanent Resident (PR) cards directly to the clients via the Canada Bank Note (CBN)

The authorities have decided to include urgent Permanent Resident (PR) cards in this pilot project. They will instruct officers to process these cases on a priority basis. However, they will also instruct the officers to subject these applications to the same rigour as is the case with all general applications.

The cases referred to the CIC offices by the Case Processing Centre in Sydney (CPC-S) require the application of various investigation procedures. Although the authorities have revised the referral criteria, they have left these investigation procedures unchanged.

In addition, the authorities have put in place various transition procedures. They believe that these will be able to address the existing Permanent Resident (PR) card inventories at various CIC offices throughout Canada.

The General Procedures

The Issuance of the Standards 5-Year Validity Card

As mentioned earlier, the authorities would mail about 90 percent of the straightforward Permanent Resident (PR) card applications directly to the applicants. These applications would typically have received the requisite approvals for the issuance of a five-year validity card. The Case Processing Centre system would randomly select the remaining 10 percent of the applications. Thereafter, the officers would send these applications to various local offices. The applicants would pick up these applications in-person from these offices. This selection would include a mix of both regular and urgent Permanent Resident (PR) cards.

The CIC offices would continue to acknowledge the receipt of Permanent Resident (PR) cards. They would acknowledge these in the Field Operations Support System (FOSS). Thereafter, they would contact clients for picking up the cards. This is in accordance with the existing procedures prescribed in Section 8.6 of the ENF 27 manual.

The Urgent Permanent Resident (PR) cards

The authorities have mandated that urgent applications will continue to remain a part of the pilot project. The officers at the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would continue to process these applications on a priority basis. That too, based on the existing urgent criteria.

The authorities would mail most cards directly to the applications. Some of the cards would be a part of the 10 percent of cards selected for in-person pick-ups. Clients would need to pick these cards from the local offices. The local offices would receive the urgent Permanent Resident (PR) cards. They would also bear the responsibility for distributing them to clients on a priority basis.

Referring Applications to CIC Offices

The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would refer a number of Permanent Resident (PR) card applications to local offices. Typically, the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would select up to an estimated five percent of the total number of applications. The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would select these cases for investigation procedures.

For selecting these cases, the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would use the revised referral criteria. In addition, the authorities have made no changes to the investigation procedures at present.

The Issuance of Five Year and One Year Validity Cards After a Referral to a Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) Office

At the outcome of an investigation, the officers would need to perform various activities.

• If the disposition is positive and the CIC staff recommend the issuance of a card with a five-year validity
• The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would:
• Process the application accordingly and,
• Approve the issuance of a five-year card
• The Canada Bank Note (CBN) would:
• Issue a Permanent Resident (PR) card with a five-year validity and,
• Mail it directly to the client
• If the disposition is negative (i.e. the authorities report a client under Section 44) and the CIC staff recommend the issuance of a one-year validity card
• The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would:
• Process the application accordingly and,
• Approve the issuance of a one-year card
• The Canada Bank Note (CBN) would:
• Issue a Permanent Resident (PR) card with a one-year validity and,
• Mail it directly to the client
• If the client does not show up and a period of 180 days have lapsed
• The local office will return the file to the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S)
• The authorities would:
• Not issue a Permanent Resident (PR) card and,
• Deem the application as having been abandoned

The Disposition of Undeliverable Cards

The authorities would issue a new Permanent Resident (PR) card. Thereafter, they would set the Case Processing Centre system to invalidate the existing or old cards. This would take effect after 60 days from the date of issuance of the new card. This is nothing other than a fraud deterrence measure. It aims at ensuring that only one Permanent Resident (PR) card is valid at any given point in time.

Canada Post will return all undeliverable cards to the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S). The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) will receive all undeliverable cards. Thereafter, they will verify the Case Processing Centre system or the Field Operations Support System (FOSS). They will do this to validate if officers have entered a new address since the authorities mailed the card to the client.

In case, the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) finds that no new address is available:

• The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would:
• Update the Field Operations Support System (FOSS)
• Store the undelivered cards in the secure cabinet for 180 days
• Cancel the invalidating process, when Canada Post returns the undeliverable cards within 60 days and,
• Ensure that the previous card is still valid until the original expiry date
• After this, the clients have 180 days for claiming their Permanent Resident (PR) cards, in accordance with the processes followed by the local office
• Once the 180-day period lapses, if the client has not provided a new address, the authorities would:
• Deem the application as having been abandoned and,
• Destroy the card
• The expiry date of an existing Permanent Resident (PR) card replaces the 180-day period that clients have for claiming an undelivered card
• This means that an existing Permanent Resident (PR) card could expire before the 180-day period lapses
• In this scenario, the 60-days invalidation period does not apply as the old card is no longer valid

In case, the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) finds that a new address is available:

•  The Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) would:
• Update the address in the Field Operations Support System (FOSS) and,
• Mail the card to the applicant at the new address provided
• The Field Operations Support System (FOSS) update would trigger the start of the 60-day invalidation period of the previous card
• The officers would instruct the applicant to destroy the old card, once the applicant receives the new one

The Call Centre

Some clients might contact the Call Centre for enquiring about their Permanent Resident (PR) card. In this scenario, the agent would inform the clients that:

• The authorities would mail the majority of the Permanent Resident (PR) cards directly to the clients
• Some Permanent Resident (PR) cards would require that the applicant visit the office for an in-person pick up as the authorities have identified these cards via a random selection process
• The random selection process for in-person pick up enables the CIC to gather information for improving the processing of Permanent Resident (PR) card applications
• In case the authorities select the applicant’s card for an in-person pick up, the authorities would notify the applicants of:
• The date of the pick-up
• The time of the pick-up
• The location of the pick-up and,
• The documents the applicants would need to bring with them when they come for the pick-up
• The authorities would process the requests filed by some clients, who place calls for rescheduling a pick-up, in accordance with the existing procedures
• The authorities have updated Webcart for assisting Call Centre agents to answer questions from the public, concerning the direct delivery of Permanent Resident (PR) cards
• This is the process in place as of April 30, 2012

The Program Integrity (PID)

The authorities would monitor the direct mailing of Phase II Permanent Resident (PR) cards. They will undertake a validation exercise to ensure program integrity. They will also refine the referral criteria as needed.

The Process for Collecting Data for the QA Assessment

In some situations, the authorities might identify certain irregularities in an application. These irregularities could include issues like:

• Residence issues or,
• Questionable identity documents

This might typically occur at the time when the applicant picks up the Permanent Resident (PR) card.

In such instances, the person reviewing these cases would need to refer them to an officer for further examination. These officers would collect data concerning these irregularities. Thereafter, these officers would send this data to the Case Processing Centre, Sydney (CPC-S) for analysis.

The authorities plan to issue specific instructions on the collection of data. However, they would issue these instructions under a separate Operational Bulletin (OB).

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)