Canada’s Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship department (IRCC) has announced that permanent residents who submitted interest in sponsoring their parents or grandparents will begin receiving invitations from July 28.
The invitations are part of the 2025 intake for the federal Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP), which will run for several weeks.
According to IRCC, only those who submitted an interest-to-sponsor form back in 2020 will be considered.
“Our goal is to accept up to 10,000 complete applications under the federal Parents and Grandparents Program,” IRCC stated.
A total of 17,860 potential sponsors will be invited to apply. Those selected can submit their applications online using either the Permanent Residence Portal or the Representative Permanent Residence Portal.
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IRCC urged applicants to monitor their email inboxes closely, including junk and spam folders, for the official invitation. The department clarified that no new interest-to-sponsor forms will be accepted.
“IRCC will only send invitations to apply to potential sponsors from the 2020 pool of submissions and won’t be opening a new interest-to-sponsor form,” the agency noted.
For those who do not receive an invitation, there is an alternative: the super visa. This long-term, multiple-entry visa allows parents and grandparents of Canadians to stay for up to five years at a time. They may also apply to extend their stay for an additional two years while in Canada.
Although the federal government has been working to reduce the number of both temporary and permanent residents overall, IRCC affirmed that bringing families together remains a key focus.
Family reunification, according to the department, accounts for 22 per cent of all permanent resident admissions.