CIMM - Parents and Grandparents Program

Key Messages

• Family reunification remains a top priority for our Government. The sponsorship of parents and grandparents continues to be in high demand and although the Government increased the admission levels for parents and grandparents, the interest from children and grandchildren in Canada to reunite with their parents and grandparents living overseas continues to grow.
• As committed in December, the Department will open the intake of new applications as early as possible this year and we will communicate the details to the public before April 2020.
• My Department’s focus is always on clients when developing and executing services and we continuously seek clients’ views to improve. For example, my Department consulted with disability stakeholders with expertise in accessibility on how to best ensure that future intake processes are easily accessible and do not create barriers for people with disabilities. I am happy to report that these considerations and feedback will be incorporated into the 2020 Parents and Grandparents Program intake process.
• And we are already looking beyond 2020 and focusing efforts on reviewing the overall program to identify options for long terms reforms that would meet the needs of our clients while advancing our Government’s family reunification priorities.
• The super visa for parents and grandparents continues to be another option for our clients to be together as it is a much faster avenue for parents and grandparents to visit their children or grandchildren in Canada for extended periods of time. And we also listened and learned from the feedback from our clients and will continue to make adjustments to further meet their needs.

Supplementary Messages

• The goal of implementing annual caps is to manage inventories and processing times.

Media Reports of “Side Settlements”

• In February 2019, 49 individuals filed an Application for Leave and for Judicial Review at the Federal Court. Notices of discontinuance on behalf of all of the 49 individuals were filed at the Federal Court in April 2019. It would be inappropriate for IRCC to make any further comment on the litigation.

Variances between backlog reduction between 2011-2015 and 2015-2019

• In order to address the backlog in parents and grandparents applications and reduce processing times, the Department introduced a 2-year moratorium on intake in 2012 and 2013.
• As the parents and grandparents backlog and processing times were being reduced, the number of accepted applicants were increased to 5,000 in 2014 and 2015, 10,000 in 2016 and 2017, 17,000 in 2018, and 20,000 in 2019 in order to ensure sufficient inventory existed to support target admissions under the Parents and Grandparents Program.

Supporting Facts And Figures

Processing Times:

• In order to address high processing times in the Parents and Grandparents Program and growing inventories, annual intake caps are implemented in order to manage these inventories.
• The annual cap of complete applications was set at 17,000 for 2018 and was increased to 20,000 for 2019.
• As a result, processing times have been significantly shortened. Processing times were 19 months by the end of 2019. This is a significant decrease from processing times that were almost 6 years in 2015.

Inventory:

• The inventory has been reduced from a peak of 167,000 people in 2011, to just over 28,600 people in February 2019.
• Due to departmental efforts over the past seven years, the inventory has been reduced to a level that is sufficient to support target admissions in the 2019-2021 Multi-Year Levels Plan.

Background

Previous Intakes, 2017-2019:

• In 2017 and 2018, the Department used a random selection model for the intake of applications under the Parents and Grandparents Program.
• In 2018, a randomized selection intake process was used. After the removal of duplicates, the Department received over 93,000 interest to sponsor forms.
• In an effort to ensure 17,000 complete applications were received, the Department sent 23,500 invitations to potential sponsors inviting them to submit a complete application to sponsor their parents and grandparents. The Department received sufficient applications to meet the 17,000 application cap.
• In 2019, the Department moved to a first-in intake system which opened on January 28, 2019 at noon, EST.
• Over 100,000 people accessed the online interest to sponsor form and a maximum of 27,000 interest to sponsor forms were accepted on a first-in basis.
• However, instead of randomly selecting potential sponsors to apply, as was done in 2017 and 2018, the Department invited potential sponsors to submit a complete application based on the order their interest to sponsor form was received.
• In 2019, the Department received sufficient applications to meet the 20,000 application cap.