At the moment, no details are available regarding the process that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will utilize for the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) in 2023.
A highly sought-after invitation, as of IRCC’s last PGP lottery in October 2022, this program is said to have approximately 155,000 potential sponsors remaining in the pool of candidates who submitted an expression of interest back in the Fall of 2020.
Summary of the PGP since 2020
In the last three years, IRCC has utilized a lottery system to randomly select which interested sponsors would receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA) through the PGP.
All ITAs for the PGP since 2020 have been given out to applicants who originally expressed interest to sponsor their parent(s) or grandparent(s) through this program between October and November of 2020.
In 2020, IRCC accepted up to 10,000 completed PGP applications from the total candidate pool. In 2021, the Canadian immigration department accepted up to 30,000 completed applicants and this year (2022), that number was 15,000.
Once again, IRCC has indicated that more than 150,000 interested PGP sponsors remain from the group that submitted an expression of interest back in Fall 2020. Although there has yet to be any hint as to whether Canada will continue to draw from this candidate pool in 2023, the 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan may provide some insight into how the PGP will work next year.
Possible PGP 2023 revelations from the latest Immigration Levels Plan
Although there is currently no way to determine exactly how many ITAs will be sent out or how many completed applications Canada will accept through the PGP in 2023, the latest Immigration Levels Plan for 2023-2025 indicates that the country is aiming to welcome over 28,000 parents and grandparents in each of the next three years.
The exact targets for parents and grandparents under family immigration are as follows:
2023: 28,500
2024: 34,000
2025: 36,000
Alternatives to the PGP: Super Visa
As mentioned above, the PGP is a highly competitive program that many Canadian citizens and permanent residents look toward as a pathway to bring their parents and grandparents to Canada. Unfortunately, this means that many Canadians are frustratingly unsuccessful at bringing their loved ones to Canada through this immigration pathway.
Conversely, however, Canadians are not left without another option. This option is called the Super Visa. IRCC’s Super Visa program has a separate set of eligibility criteria from the PGP.
This program provides Canadians with an alternative to the PGP that includes the following benefits:
1) Unlike the PGP, which is open for roughly two weeks per year, the Super Visa is available year-round
2) Allows parents and grandparents sponsored by Canadian citizens or PRs to visit their family in Canada for up to five years at a time without a visa renewal
3) Allows for different Visa extension opportunities that enable sponsored individuals to remain in Canada for up to seven years and grants multi-entry to Canada for up to 10 years. Details on the different Visa extension options are available here.
4) The Super Visa program enables sponsored parents and grandparents to travel freely between Canada and their home country of residence. This means that if the individual’s home country requires a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) for entry to Canada, they would not need to worry about re-applying for a TRV in this case.
5) Acceptance into the Super Visa program includes a letter that authorizes a sponsored person’s entry into Canada for up to two years (for those living in countries that do not require TRVs for entry into Canada)
