Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced that significant improvements to the spousal sponsorship process have been made, making it faster and easier for Canadians and permanent residents to reunite with their spouses.

It was announced that the government has successfully met these commitments:

More than 80% of those who were in the global spousal sponsorship backlog on December 7, 2016, have now received final decisions for their applications. IRCC reduced the spousal inventory from 75,000 persons to 15,000 as of December 31, 2017.