Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) declared in 2017’s Canadian Bar Association conference, the committee might allow further rounds for the Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP). In this program, people can submit applications to sponsor their parent’s and grandparents’ immigration to Canada. The second draw was supposed to be conducted after a few times of the declaration.
IRCC started a different approach to accepting applications under the PGP program in January 2017. A dedicated form was launched for interested sponsors. An Interest to Sponsor form lets interested people fill out the form, and they are randomly selected to invite their parents and grandparents for sponsorship.
Interested people who applied between January 3 and February 2 were the first ones in the pool. IRCC randomly chose 10,000 applicants from 95,000 people who applied. They were requested to fill out the PGP sponsorship application. The people who get the invite have to submit the complete application within 90 days from the date of the invitation.
A member from IRCC informed us that from the inviting pool, just 700 applications were submitted as of June 8. From the 700 as well, 15 percent of the applications were incomplete.
“If the department does not receive the 10,000 new applications within the stipulated timeframe, additional persons will be invited to apply [from] a randomized list of Interest to Sponsor submissions,” another IRCC spokesperson said. “If we don’t receive complete applications, we will go back and draw from that existing list.”
Source: CIC news
IRCC stated earlier that the people who did not receive the invite on the first attempt could get an option to show their interest in 2018 again. But IRCC further updated that if the targets for 2017 are not met, so those people, who filled out the form between January 3 and February 2, will get the invitation in 2017 itself.
“Probably in August or September, we’ll take a tally and see how many more spaces are left in the 10,000 caps, and there’ll be another round of people invited to apply,” the IRCC representative said.
Source: CIC news
History of Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP)
Before 2017 started, the individual who wished to sponsor their parents and grandparents had to submit paper-based applications. Those were entertained only on a first-come, first-serve basis during a stipulated time frame. But in that practice, many people started paying a huge amount to the couriers to get their application first in line, and many stakeholders objected to this. To tackle the situation, IRCC initiated this randomized process and interest to sponsor form.
Furthermore, in an attempt to decrease the biasedness in the procedure, IRCC was able to clear the backlog dating back to 2011. The June 2016 ‘Lexbase’ confirmed that in 2011, the backlog for PGP applications was 165,000 in 2011, which was reduced to 29,600 as of May 9, 2017. Lexbase confirmed this info by using the compilation of Canadian immigration information.
IRCC had to put a brake on the applications in November 2011, as the backlog became that significant. In December 2011, Super Visa was launched, which allows parents and grandparents to live in Canada for up to 2 years on the initial entry and has a validity of 10 years.
The PGP again resumed in 2014 but had a limit of 5,000 entries. The Liberal government increased that cap to 10,000 in 2016 to support their agenda of family reunification. The assumed targets may have sponsored around 17,000 individuals as up to two people get sponsored in one application.
IRCC stated that their target was to onboard 20,000 individuals as permanent residents through PGP in 2017. As the cap was 10,000 applications, there were spaces remaining that would help IRCC to minimize the backlog.
“Individuals looking to bring their loved ones to Canada are likely to be extremely encouraged by this news,” says Attorney David Cohen. “While the randomized selection system may be frustrating to those who were not initially invited to submit an application, it appears these individuals will now have another chance at reuniting their families
“I congratulate IRCC on their adaptability and reaction to this frankly surprising result of 700 applications received so far. I would encourage all eligible individuals who have submitted an Interest to Sponsor form to begin preparing their applications without delay, in order to ensure they have a complete application ready if a future draw occurs.”
Source: CIC news
Eligibility prerequisites
The basic requirement is to sign an agreement where the sponsor states to support the applicant financially, and the sponsored individual promises to try and support themselves as much as they could. Furthermore, the person sponsoring should be:
permanent resident/Canadian citizen;
of 18 years+.
If the person who is sponsoring is married or has a partner, the income of both individuals may be added. The sponsor should also attain the threshold of the necessary income level for a certain duration (1 year for people living in Quebec and 3 years other than in Quebec). The sponsor will have to sign an undertaking to reimburse provincial social assistance benefits (if any) given to the sponsored individual for a certain duration (10 years for sponsors living in Quebec and 20 years other than Quebec).
At present, it is not unclear if these requirements will remain constant for future rounds of invitations.
