How can you get your family in Canada under Parent and Grandparent Program? – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada have randomly chosen 10,000 sponsors for 2017

IRCC or Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has randomly chosen around 10,000 sponsors who want to submit an application to bring their families to Canada through the Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP). The term family includes grandparents and parents.

Selected Applicants have to Submit their application under Parent and Grandparent Program in next three months

There is only 3 months in the hands of these randomly selected applicants to submit their application, along with all the required documentation.

10000 Successful applicants under Parent and Grandparent Program out of 95000 applications

As per Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, these limited numbers of sponsors represent 17000 persons as one application can itself include more than 1 sponsored person. There were around 95000 applicants who had submitted the ‘Interest to Sponsor’ at the very beginning of this year. But, only 10,000 from them have been given this opportunity.

Fake Profiles for Immigration were removed first before draw for Parent and Grandparent Program

Since 2nd February, the form was unavailable. But Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada took around more than two and half months to announce that they have made a random selection of the potential sponsors. The departmental officers were busy in removing the fake profiles from the vast pool of sponsors.

Each of the individuals who have submitted their application has been directly contacted with the news about their submission. In fact, those who were not lucky enough to be selected also receive the invitation with the option that they can indicate their interest in the program, schedule for 2018.

Lottery for Parent and Grandparent Program instead of First Come First Served basis

This is the first time when Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has worked out the Parent and Grandparent Program in this manner. Earlier, the Parent and Grandparent Program was generally operated on the basis of first-come, first-served. But, it has been found to be creating problems for both the applicants as well as the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada staffs. It was found that those who wish to bring their loved ones as permanent residents in Canada were sending huge amount as a bribe to get their applications at the top of the list. Basically, it is true that the numbers of applicants for this program are more than the available numbers of visas to be given.

Major Changes in Application forms for Parent and Grandparent Program

In 2017, both the process and package for the application has been changed drastically. But, the eligibility factors have not been changed at all. In fact, apart from this, another step has been taken by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in order to ease the problems between the demand and supply issues, which have occurred last year by simply doubling the number of applications intake, i.e. from 5000 it shot up to directly to 10,000.

The best part is that the Canadian Government has setup a completely new target this year to welcome around 20,000 grandparents and parents into the country. Around 17,000 sponsored persons are due to get sponsored in the next upcoming months. This will help them to reduce the backlog of the applications submitted last year. In fact, this new plan has been running quite successfully this year.

Processing time reduced considerably for Parent and Grandparent Program applications Processing

Serious steps have been taken by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in order to accelerate the processing time of the application under the Family Class programs, and this also includes PGP. A commitment has been given last December by the former Immigration Minister John McCallum to reduce the time taken for processing.

Deadline to submit application for Parent and Grandparent Application program- 24th July 2017

Those sponsors, who have already received an invitation to make the application this week, have only around 3 months or 90 days in hand. They need to submit and apply all the supporting documents within this period of time. In short, there is a deadline till 24^th July 2017. Along with other documents, sponsors also need to submit their records of income taxation as well as the documents related to civil status.

Sponsors to undertake to repay Provincial Social Security Assistance benefits

An undertaking has been signed by the sponsors in order to repay the provincial social assistance benefits if paid to the relatives of the sponsored individual within a certain time period, say 20 years. Generally, 20 years is given to those sponsors who dwell within the Canadian province and territory (except Quebec). For those residing in Quebec can expect 10 years time period only.

At the same time the relatives who are eligible need to promise to become self-supporting in every possible way.

• A sponsorship agreement needs to be signed by the sponsor that commits her or him to provide the required financial support to the person being sponsored.
• There is no surety that these requirements will remain the same next year.

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Raima Sen

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