Parents & Grandparents Program will open in October 2020

The Honourable Marco E. Mendicino, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), made an announcement today about the opening of the much-anticipated Parents and Grandparents (PGP) Program for 2020. This program is normally set to open in the first half of the year for eligible Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their parents and/or grandparents, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the details and the opening date of the program were postponed.

The 2020 PGP involves a three-step process: submitting an interest to sponsor form online, obtaining an invite from IRCC to submit an application for permanent residence, and ultimately submitting the application within a 60-day period. Eligible Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be able to submit their interest to sponsor form online from 12pm EDT on October 13, 2020 until 12pm EST on November 3, 2020. IRCC will be accepting a maximum of 10,000 applications for processing for the 2020 PGP intake, and this number will triple in next years PGP intake quota.

Meeting the minimum necessary income plus 30% is one of the main requirements to be eligible to sponsor one’s parents and/or grandparents. IRCC acknowledges that due to COVID-19, many Canadians have been financially impacted and therefore have introduced a temporary public policy to provide some relief to the minimum necessary income plus 30% requirement.

For more information on the 2020 Parents and Grandparents Program, please contact pinaz@prmlaw.ca or call 416-320-1751.