Ottawa suspends sponsorship of parents and grandparents for 2025
The federal government has confirmed that no new applications will be accepted in 2025 under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), under Minister Lena Diab, presents this decision as a tool for responsible management of a system where interest far exceeds the number of available spots.
A program already under high pressure
The PGP allows Canadian citizens or permanent residents to sponsor a parent or grandparent for permanent residence. More than 60,500 applications are already being processed. The program, launched in 2020, generated over 200,000 expressions of interest from permanent residents and Canadian citizens wishing to sponsor a relative — a pool of potential applicants from which IRCC continues to draw rather than reopening registrations.
Processing times lengthening, especially in Quebec
The national wait time is currently about 33 months, and rises to 66 months for files destined for Quebec, more than five and a half years. Quebec welcomes a smaller number of sponsored individuals in this category each year, contributing to this gap.
A fixed cap, independent of the suspension
The suspension of new applications does not change the admission targets already announced by the government. IRCC plans to grant permanent residence to a maximum of 15,000 people in this category in 2026 and 2027, as part of the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, which more broadly sets an admission target of 380,000 permanent residents per year between 2026 and 2028. The message is clear: already submitted files will continue to be processed under this quota, but the door remains closed to anyone who has not yet submitted an application.
The scale of the immigration backlog
This suspension is part of a broader context of administrative delays: as of April 30, more than 2.1 million immigration applications were being processed across the system, including over 922,000 beyond the targeted service standards. Between January and April 2025, 112,900 people nonetheless obtained permanent resident status.
What options for affected families?
For those hoping to submit a new application this year, the option that remains open is the super visa. This visa allows parents and grandparents to stay in Canada for up to five consecutive years, with multiple entries valid for up to ten years, without leading to permanent residence. The super visa remains a visitor status: it does not provide access to provincial healthcare in most provinces nor the right to work, and time spent under this status does not count toward a potential path to permanent residence.
What to remember
This suspension confirms Ottawa's direction: to contain the volume of family reunification applications in an attempt to reduce an already heavy inventory. For families separated from their parents or grandparents, the super visa remains the only available avenue for now — a stopgap that does not replace permanent residence but at least allows them to be together. As rules may change, it is recommended to check the program status directly on the IRCC website before taking any steps.
