Is Canada’s Sponsorship Program Working? Families & Experts Weigh In 2025

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Families have also long complained of waiting too long to be chosen, or not being chosen at all, for Canada’s family reunification program.
The 2025 intake will only include 2020 pool candidates and not the newer eligible families.

Key Facts

IRCC will work through up to 10,000 full applications under the Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship Program in 2025.
IRCC is issuing invitations to 17,860 applicants from the 2020 interest-to-sponsor pool.

Key Background

Canada’s Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship Program (PGP) is centered on reunification of families by providing permanent residency to the grandparents or parents of permanent residents and citizens who wish to sponsor them. The sponsors should be capable of fulfilling the minimum income requirement as well as assuring that they will financially take care of them for 20 years. While the program speaks volumes about Canada’s commitment to family reunification, there are so many people who feel that it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do in actual life.

In the intake of 2025, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is giving 17,860 Invitations to Apply (ITAs) with the aim of receiving 10,000 completed sponsorship applications. The qualification, though, is solely for the individuals who had filed an interest-to-sponsor form during 2020. Thus, those families which became qualified after that will be excluded, and there will be widespread dismay among future sponsors.

Families like Maria Torres, who have been laboring to sponsor their mothers for over a decade, are losing faith in the fairness of the system. The emotional toll of being separated from aging loved ones is immense, and arguments are put forth that the current system is shrouded in mystery and unfair. No new applications of merit are being processed, so most have no idea if their chances are being delayed forever.

Experts maintain that the program needs to be restructured. Reopening the interest-to-sponsor process and being receptive to an on-time selection process would restore confidence, they argue. They also warn that procrastination is defeating the program’s own intent—to reunite families and provide emotional security. Alternatives like the Super Visa exist but do not provide the same security of permanent residency in the long term. The program is in its current state, and most families are apprehensive, nervous, and confused.