Canada’s federal government announced this week that it will no longer accept new applications this year under the Parents and Grandparents Program, which allows Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their parents or grandparents for permanent residence in Canada.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said the decision was intended to manage the immigration system more responsibly and reduce lengthy processing times. In a statement issued Wednesday, the department said demand for the program has consistently exceeded the number of available spaces.
More than 60,000 applications are currently being processed, with an average processing time of approximately 33 months. Applicants in Quebec may face waits of up to 66 months.
The program was launched in 2020, when more than 200,000 Canadian citizens and permanent residents expressed interest in sponsoring their parents or grandparents. Each year since then, a portion of those who submitted expressions of interest have been invited to file formal applications.
An immigration department official said the pause will not affect the government’s previously established target of granting permanent residence to as many as 15,000 people through the program in both 2026 and 2027.
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The immigration levels plan announced last fall proposed admitting 380,000 permanent residents annually between 2026 and 2028. It also called for the number of temporary work and study permits issued in 2026 to be reduced to nearly half the 2025 level.
As a result of these adjustments, Canada’s population growth is expected to remain largely stagnant for a second consecutive year.
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A contentious political issue
Immigration has become an increasingly contentious political issue in Canada in recent years. The federal Conservative Party has accused the Liberal government of undermining the long-standing public consensus that immigration benefits the country.
Briefing materials prepared for Immigration Minister Lena Diab in 2025 showed that the government’s own polling found public support for immigration had fallen to its lowest level in 30 years during 2023 and 2024. In a November 2024 survey, more than half of respondents said Canada was accepting too many immigrants.
In a video posted on social media in May, Diab said the government was working to “restore control and sustainability to the immigration system.”
In March, the government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney also passed a new law tightening eligibility requirements for asylum claims. The legislation retroactively invalidated thousands of asylum applications submitted after an earlier application deadline and gave Ottawa broad authority to cancel visas on a large scale.
The immigration department has faced application backlogs across several programs in recent years. As of April 30, it had more than 2.1 million applications under processing across all categories. More than 922,000 were considered backlogged, meaning their processing times had exceeded the department’s own service standards.
Publicly available data showed that fewer than half of all permanent residence applications were completed within the standard processing period. Between January and April this year, 112,900 people obtained permanent residence through various immigration programs.
The suspension of new applications under the Parents and Grandparents Program will remain in effect “until further notice.”
Canadian citizens and permanent residents may still apply for a super visa for their parents or grandparents. The visa allows them to visit Canada as temporary residents for up to five years at a time and for a total validity period of up to 10 years.
