A ministerial directive published in the Canada Gazette confirms that Canada will not accept new permanent residency sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents until further notice.
The directive emphasizes the government’s commitment to family reunification while prioritizing processing applications submitted last year. Immigration Minister Marc Miller stated that this approach will “best support” the government’s immigration and family reunification objectives.
Other immigration streams have also experienced pauses in new sponsorships as part of efforts to address the existing backlog.
Under the current immigration levels plan, which outlines an overall decrease in immigration over the next three years, Canada aims to admit more than 24,000 individuals through the parent and grandparent sponsorship stream in 2024.
The directive further specifies that a maximum of 15,000 applications submitted in 2024 under the family reunification program will be processed.
For 2024, 35,700 randomly selected individuals were invited to submit applications under the parent and grandparent program, with the target of accepting 20,500 applications.
The 2024 annual report to Parliament on immigration, tabled by Miller, revealed that as of the end of 2023, there were over 40,000 parent and grandparent sponsorship applications in the inventory. The report also noted that the average processing time for such applications stood at 24 months.
Link to the Original story: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-permanent-residency-sponsorship-applications