the CanadaVisa Team - 20 August, 2018
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is replacing the randomized invitation process for its Parents and Grandparents Program and increasing the number of applications it will accept in 2019 to 20,000.
The announcement was made on August 20 by Canada's Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, who said the department's decision to increase the number of applications is due to the high demand in Parents and Grandparents (PGP) applications and the fact that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has reduced the backlog of applications from 2011 by 84 per cent.
Beginning in 2017, IRCC changed the program's application intake process and had potential sponsors complete an Interest to Sponsor form during scheduled openings. IRCC then randomly selected eligible sponsors to apply for the program.
For 2019, IRCC said potential sponsors will be asked to complete an Interest to Sponsor form at the beginning of the year and invitations will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis until the program reaches its cap of 20,000 complete applications.
This update follows a second round of invitations to apply to the program, which started on July 31, 2018. Potential sponsors invited to apply in this invitation round will have until October 5, 2018, to submit a complete invitation.
As part of the Government of Canada's multi-year immigration levels plan, the admission levels for the PGP increases by increments of 500 from 2018 to 2020. The admission targets for 2020 is set to 21,000.
To be eligible for sponsorship of a parent or grandparent, the potential sponsor must:
Potential sponsors who reside in the province Quebec must also meet Quebec’s immigration sponsorship requirements after IRCC approves them as a sponsor.
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