Families say they’re ‘heartbroken’ about Canada’s parents and grandparents reunification program. Here’s why.

Maria Torres has been waiting 10 years to sponsor her elderly mother to live in Canada.

Maria Torres has been waiting 10 years for a chance to sponsor her widowed mother from Colombia as a permanent resident so she can finally live in Canada with her family.

Over the next few weeks starting Monday, thousands of people in Canada are set to receive invitations for applications to sponsor their parents and grandparents under the federal government’s reunification program.

Torres, a pharmacy assistant who lives with her husband and eight-year-old daughter in Ottawa, is anxiously waiting to find out if she is among those who will be randomly chosen to apply.

Torres said she filled out an interest-to-sponsor form – the first step before anyone can be invited to apply – for the 2020 intake. The government is only sending emailed invitations to potential sponsors from that pool, with the goal of accepting 10,000 complete applications from 17,860 invitations.

“It’s like when you buy the lottery, you just hope that you win it, but if you don’t, well, buy it again and wait,” Torres said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “You’re heartbroken and you have to live with this sadness and disappointment.”

Torres said her 71-year-old mother visits for limited periods through a tourist visa.

“She’s here, she’s happy, she’s with her granddaughter, with her daughter, and then she has to go back to Colombia alone because she doesn’t have any more children,” Torres said. “And for us it’s really hard, and not just because she’s leaving, but we don’t know if we are going to be able to see her again.”

Torres was among those who expressed their concerns with the program in response to a callout to CTVNews.ca readers. Some said it could be too late for reunification if families continue to wait years just to get a chance to be part of the pool. Many said the process has been frustrating and disheartening.

Backlog

While Torres may be lucky just to be a potential sponsor, some believe the process needs to improve.

“I think people want at a minimum the opportunity to be chosen, and there’s been no opportunity for anybody who wasn’t able to put their name in the pool in 2020, and so that’s hugely unfair,” Tamara Mosher-Kuczer, founder of Lighthouse Immigration Law in Ottawa and a member of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

Harpreet Singh, a digital marketing consultant from Langley, B.C., who came to Canada from the U.K. in 2018, can relate to these frustrations as he hopes to sponsor his 59-year-old mother.

Singh, who is now a Canadian citizen, hopes to launch a petition, with the support of an MP, that would call on the federal government to open the interest-to-sponsor form to those outside the 2020 pool.

“The idea behind it is good,” Singh said about the program in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

“It’s just that it needs to be overhauled, so everybody gets a fair and equal chance.”

While critics say the process is taking an emotional toll on families, the federal government says it is dealing with the backlog from the 2020 submissions.

“Given the number of submissions remaining in the 2020 pool, IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) will continue to draw from that pool, giving those potential sponsors, who have been waiting for years, the opportunity to apply,” spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca. IRCC couldn’t immediately say how many submissions remain from that year.

Asked when the government would open submissions to people outside of the 2020 pool, Sabater said the federal government “cannot comment on policy decisions on future intakes,” noting that it would communicate any news publicly.

The federal government recommends that, for now, people consider the super visa program, which allows parents or grandparents to visit Canada for five years at a time, with the option to extend their visit for up to two years without leaving the country.

When asked about concerns that the process is unfair, Remi Lariviere, another IRCC spokesperson, wrote in a separate email to CTVNews.ca that “the government is committed to reuniting as many families as possible.”

While the demand “significantly exceeds” admissions targets, Lariviere said, the government’s top priorities include both attracting top talent and ensuring sustainable levels of immigration.

Who qualifies as a sponsor?

Sponsors must be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or person registered in the country as an Indian, according to the federal government. They must be at least 18 years old and living in Canada at the time they apply to sponsor their biological or adopted parents or grandparents. Additionally, sponsors must provide proof they have enough income to support the individuals they are sponsoring, as well as themselves and their own families, and ensure the people they’re sponsoring won’t need social assistance.

‘Part of our family is missing’

Rohan Chandna, who arrived in Saskatoon from India in 2018 as a permanent resident, said he and his wife have “well-established jobs” and can easily support his parents in Canada. But he said he didn’t apply in the 2020 pool because he didn’t meet the income requirement then. At the time, he was new to the country.

Instead, he said his parents, both in their 70s, will come to Canada this September on a super visa.

“It’s unfortunate because we are in a very good position to manage to support them here, whether it’s medically, house-wise, financially, whatever they need,” Chandna, an IT project manager who has two daughters aged 10 and four, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “Since we have come here, we are feeling that part of our family is missing.”

Chandna wept as he described how difficult it was not to have his parents around while his eldest daughter spent about three years undergoing treatment for a serious medical issue.

“We had no support at the time, like it was just me and my wife juggling work,” he said.

‘Desperately waiting’

Soodeh Farokhi, the CEO of an AI startup, said she planned to apply to sponsor her parents, both from Iran, after 2020 but wasn’t aware that the government wouldn’t accept interest-to-sponsor submissions outside of that pool. She has been “desperately waiting” ever since.

“I know that even if we are in the pool, it might take many years to bring our parents, but still the hope and that fairness means a lot to me,” Farokhi, who became a Canadian citizen in 2022, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.

Farokhi’s parents spent some time in Canada years ago on visitor visas to help care for her two children when they were born.

Now with all the instability in Iran, Farokhi said it’s unlikely she’ll be able to visit her parents in the country.

“The emotional toll on my parents not seeing their grandchildren is very high,” said Farokhi. “My mom is actually suffering from depression being far from her grandchildren.”

Farokhi said she is not asking for special treatment and just wants the chance for more families to be considered as part of the pool.

“I’m a working mom and entrepreneur,” she said. “I have a very busy life both professionally and personally and having my parents beside me means a lot.”