The government of Canada has decided to redesign the parent and grandparent sponsorship immigration program.  With long processing times and an ever increasing backlog, Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) is now consulting with stakeholders, including the public on how best to solve these issues.

On March 23, 2012, CIC Minister Jason Kenney announced that he will hold online consultations as well as multicity in-person meetings for public comment.  “Our government is fully committed to helping families reunite,” said Minister Kenney. “The feedback provided by Canadians will guide our government in creating a new program in which future applications will be processed quickly and backlogs will not develop. It will also help ensure the program can operate on an efficient and sustainable basis.”

In November of 2011 CIC announced the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification.  As Phase 1 of this plan, CIC placed a temporary freeze on the parent and grandparent sponsorship program; however, they did increase the number of sponsored parents and grandparent they will approve by sixty (60) per cent to 25,000 for the 2012 immigration year.  Also part of Phase 1 was the implementation of the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa, a visa that will allow permanent residents and Canadian citizens to sponsor their parents and/or grandparents to visit Canada for two (2) years at a time, valid for up to ten (10) years.

Family reunification is extremely important for Canada and therefore a revamp of the program is necessary.  The current pause until 2014 may help to reduce the processing and wait time as well as help clear the backlog, but unless the demand for parent and grandparent sponsorship to Canada is managed, both the processing wait times and the backlog have the potential to quickly grow again to unmanageable numbers.

Different options are being considered to address  a number of questions:

1. Should we try to ease the economic impact of parents and grandparents by, for example, requiring sponsors to be financially responsible for their parents and grandparents over the Parent and Grandparent immigration programs lifetime, applying a fee, or requiring sponsors to have a higher income?
2. Should we redefine the eligibility of family members who accompany parents and grandparents by, perhaps, focusing on parents rather than on the siblings of sponsors, or by applying a “balance of family test” in which parents and grandparents would be required to have from half to the majority of their children living permanently in Canada?
3. Should we emphasize a commitment to Canada on the part of sponsors by, for example, making it mandatory to be a Canadian citizen (and not just a permanent resident) in order to apply?
4. Should we focus on special needs or exceptional cases by, for example, requiring that the parent and grandparent be widowed or have other exceptional needs?

What is your opinion on the above questions?  Do you have any recommendations for the Canadian government on how to better improve the parent and grandparent sponsorship program?

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