Today, Wednesday, December 14, 2016, The Honourable John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced changes to Parent and Grandparent Sponsorships that, in his opinion, “will improve access to the application process, given that the number of applications accepted for intake is limited”.
Between January 3 and February 2, 2017, Canadian citizens and permanent residents who want to apply as sponsors must first complete an online form on the IRCC website to let the Department know they are interested in applying to sponsor their parents or grandparents. The online form will be available for 30 days, from noon Eastern Standard Time (EST) on January 3, 2017, to noon EST on February 2, 2017.
At the end of the 30 days, IRCC will remove the duplicates, randomly choose 10,000 people and ask them to complete the full application. IRCC will let everyone who completed an online form know whether they were chosen or not. Only those who were randomly chosen will be invited to apply to the Parent and Grandparent Program. Those who were invited to apply will have 90 days to submit their complete application to IRCC. The 2017 application kit and guide will be available on IRCC’s website on January 9, 2017.
Interested sponsors who are not selected will be able to indicate their interest to apply again in 2018.
If you are an existing client of Abrams & Krochak and were planning to apply to the Parent and Grandparent Program in January 2017, please contact Mr. Peter Krochak at info@akcanada.com for further information.