Canada has paused accepting new applications for parent and grandparent permanent residency sponsorships until further notice, as per a directive from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller.

The directive, published in the Canada Gazette, affirms the government’s commitment to family reunification but prioritizes processing last year’s applications to address existing backlogs. Minister Miller stated this approach would “best support” immigration and family reunification objectives.

Other sponsorship streams have also been paused to expedite processing of pending applications.

According to the government’s immigration levels plan, which projects an overall decrease in immigration over the next three years, the target is to admit over 24,000 individuals through the parent and grandparent stream in 2024.

This year, a maximum of 15,000 applications under the family reunification program will be processed. Of the 35,700 individuals invited to apply through the parent and grandparent program in 2024, the goal is to approve 20,500 applications.

The 2024 annual immigration report to Parliament revealed more than 40,000 parent and grandparent sponsorship applications were pending at the end of 2023, with an average processing time of 24 months.