08/20/2018
Canada improves sponsorship program for parents and grandparents
Ron Liberman of Best Place Immigration Inc. commented positively on the Trudeau government's effective reinstatement of the prior sponsorship program for parents and grandparents.
"These are welcome changes" Mr Liberman said. "The concept of a 'lottery' system for grandparents and parents left many permanent residents and citizens of Canada in the situation where they were uncertain if their parents or grandparents would be able to immigrate, even though they had the funds to support them in Canada. In some instances, parents or grandparents might be widowed and have no other family to support them in their home country or elsewhere in the world. Regardless, these deserving parents or grandparents were effectively subject to the spin of a roulette wheel to decide if they would be allowed to live with their children in Canada.
Additionally, the much-vaunted 'Supervisa" system introduced by the former Minister of Immigration, Jason Kelly, was subject to the vagaries of interpretation by Canada Border Services Agency. Although initially hailed as a system whereby parents would be admitted for up to 2 years at a time for a 10 year period, CBSA took it upon themselves to interpret this as meanings that parents and grandparents would be admitted for up to 2 years on their initial entry, but subsequent entries were limited to the usual time limit of 6 months. The situation was further complicated by some visa posts overseas failing to encode the visas they issued as being in the parent and grandparent category, with the result that, despite having done the additional work required to support a Supervisa application, children in Canada found their parents were only being admitted for 6 months on the initial entry".
Best Place Immigration lauds IRCC's decision to revert to the previous system, whereby applicants who are diligent and supply a complete perfected application when the program opens up can have their application accepted.
Sponsors will still have to qualify by demonstrating enough income, but up to 20,500 applications will be accepted next year in this category, followed by 21,000 the following year. If this trend continues, the backlog of 95,000 parents and grandparents wanting to immigrate and be with their children in Canada will likely be eliminated within 4 or 5 years.