October 2022

IRCC has just announced the details of the 2022 Parent and Grandparent Program, and it will be of great disappointment to anyone hoping to apply who didn’t submit an interest form in 2020.

The program will run in an almost identical fashion to how applications were accepted in 2021:

• IRCC will send out 23,100 invitations to potential sponsors. They hope to accept 15,000 complete applications. (I.e., they expect 8,100 potential sponsors will either not apply or submit an incomplete application.)
• Applicants will be randomly selected from interest forms submitted in 2020.
• Selected applicants will be notified starting this week. It will take IRCC two weeks to send out all the invitations.
• Invitations will go to the same email address used to submit the interest form. Individuals who no longer have access to that email address or lost their confirmation number will be able to retrieve it or provide a new email address after all the invitations have been sent.
• The minimum necessary income for 2021 and 2020 will be the low-income cut-off for applicable family size. For 2019 it will be the low-income cut-off plus 30%. Employment Insurance and COVID-19 benefits such as CERB may be included in the income for 2020 and 2021.
• Applications must be submitted online.
• Applicants not selected are encouraged to submit a super visa application. Super visa applicants are now permitted to enter Canada for five years with the option of requesting a two-year extension.

The 2022 Immigration Levels Plan targets 25,00 new Canadians through the Parent and Grandparent Program (which includes accompanying spouses and dependent children.) 2023 will see a target of 28,500, with a further increase in 2024 to 32,000. Hopefully, in 2023 new applicants will finally be able to submit an interest form. There have long been calls for IRCC to amend the PGP to allow for a weighted lottery or a similar process that will more fairly balance the demand for the program within the levels plan. By selecting applicants who applied in 2020, IRCC has chosen bureaucratic efficiency over equitable access to the program.