OTTAWA – The federal government has announced that it will not accept any new applications this year from individuals wishing to sponsor their parents and grandparents for permanent residency in Canada under a program designed to encourage family reunification. This decision was communicated by the Immigration Department as a means to manage the immigration system more effectively and to reduce the current wait times for processing applications.
In a statement released online, the department highlighted that demand for the sponsorship program continues to outstrip the number of available spaces. Currently, there are 60,500 applications in progress, with processing times reaching approximately 33 months, and up to 66 months in Quebec.
The parent and grandparent sponsorship program was initiated in 2020, following a significant expression of interest from more than 200,000 permanent residents and citizens who wished to sponsor family members. Each year, thousands of sponsors are selected from this group to submit formal applications for residency.
An official from the Immigration Department emphasized that the temporary pause on new applications will not impact the commitment to approve up to 15,000 individuals for permanent residency as outlined in the government’s immigration levels plan for 2026 and 2027.
This immigration levels plan, released in the fall of last year, aims to admit 380,000 permanent residents annually between 2026 and 2028. However, it also entails a sharp reduction in temporary work and student visas, cutting the number issued in 2026 to nearly half compared to 2025.
As a consequence of these adjustments, population growth in Canada is projected to remain stagnant for the second consecutive year. The topic of immigration has become increasingly contentious in Canada, with the federal Conservative Party criticizing the current system and accusing the Liberal government of undermining longstanding public consensus about the positive impact of immigration on the nation.
Internal briefing materials prepared for Immigration Minister Lena Diab in 2025 indicated that government polling revealed a decline in public support for immigration, with levels dropping to the lowest seen in three decades in 2023 and 2024. In November 2024, over half of Canadians surveyed reported that they believed too many immigrants were entering the country.
In a May social media video, Minister Diab stated that the government is "working to restore control and sustainability to our immigration system." In addition, Prime Minister Mark Carney's government enacted a law in March that tightens eligibility for asylum claims, retroactively cancelling thousands of claims made outside of a newly established deadline and granting the government authority to mass-cancel visas.
The Immigration Department has faced ongoing backlogs across several programs, grappling to manage applications from hundreds of thousands of people. As of April 30, there were over 2.1 million applications under review, of which more than 922,000 were classified as backlogs, meaning they exceeded the department’s own processing standards. Less than half of the applications for permanent residency have been processed within the established service parameters according to publicly accessible data from the government.
From January to April of this year, a total of 112,900 individuals became permanent residents through varying pathways. The government has stated that the pause on accepting new applications for parent and grandparent sponsorships will remain in effect "until further notice." However, Canadian citizens and permanent residents still have the option to apply for a “super visa,” allowing their parents and grandparents to visit for five years at a time, renewable for up to ten years total on a temporary basis.
