Canada pauses immigration program for parents, grandparents

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The federal government is hitting pause on an immigration program that grants similar status to the foreign-born parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

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Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced its decision to pause the intake of new applications Wednesday on its website, saying interest in the program “continues to exceed the spaces available.

“To manage this pressure responsibly, IRCC will not receive new interest-to-sponsor forms or invite potential sponsors to apply until further notice,” the notice said.

Existing applications still being processed

The IRCC notice said the department would continue to process existing applications with the plan to approve up to 15,000 people for permanent residence status this year after rubber-stamping up to 10,000 such applications in 2025.

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“This approach will help reduce processing times and improve predictability for families,” the IRCC said.

The Parents and Grandparents Program was created in 2020 to allow Canadian citizens and permanent residents the chance to sponsor their loved ones in other countries to “live and work alongside them in Canada.”

Eligibility is granted to the biological or adoptive parents of Canadian citizens, permanent residents or people registered under the Indian Act. Applicants sponsoring their parents or grandparents also need to be at least 18 years old, living in Canada and have enough money to support them.

The move to pause applications for the program came amid new rules to limit the number of temporary or permanent residents allowed into the country under various streams through the Immigration Levels Plan.

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The strategy, which was a response to the housing and cost-of-living crisis as well as opposition criticism that the immigration system was broken, was designed to reduce Canada’s temporary population to less than 5% of total population by the end of next year, according to the federal government.

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To do that, they capped the number of new temporary residents — such as foreign workers and international students — at 386,000 this year and 370,000 per year in 2027 and 2028. Permanent resident admissions were also capped at 380,000 per year from 2026 to 2028, down from the 395,000 applications accepted in 2025.

Despite pausing the Parents and Grandparents Program, IRCC said family reunification is an “important pillar of Canada’s immigration system.

“Parents and grandparents continue to be able to visit their children and grandchildren in Canada through the super visa, which allows them to visit their children or grandchildren for five years at a time and provides multiple entries to Canada for up to 10 years,” the department said.

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