BlogPrediction: The Parents and Grandparents program won’t re-open any time soon! The numbers and history tell the story.
Among Canada’s varied immigration options, the Parents and Grandparents (PGP) category has been a cornerstone of Canada’s family re-unification program for decades. However the PGP has had its ups and downs over the past couple of decades. The program has been suspended, re-opened, levels have gone up and gone down, it has occasionally transitioned to a lottery system and in October 2020 it evolved into a re-vamped lottery system where sponsors registered an expression of interest (EOI) and then were drawn and offered an invitation to apply (ITA). From that initial EOI program in 2020, there have been no further openings to the program while IRCC continues to make annual draws from the backlog of 165,000+ registered sponsors in the pool. There is little likelihood that the program will re-open any time soon nor in any way similar to what the program has resembled in the past 20+ years. Let’s review the numbers to understand why.
