Overview
- On July 15 the federal immigration department announced it will stop accepting new Interest to Sponsor forms and will not issue new invitations to the Parents and Grandparents Program until further notice.
- IRCC will keep processing about 60,500 existing PGP files and plans to approve up to 15,000 people for permanent residence in 2026 and again in 2027 under the levels plan.
- The department reports average PGP processing times near 33 months with waits up to 66 months in Quebec and says the pause is intended to reduce these multi‑year delays.
- Ottawa is directing families to the super visa as a temporary option that allows stays of up to five years per entry but does not grant permanent status and requires private medical insurance and host income commitments.
- The pause formalizes a shift since 2024 toward lower admissions and tighter intake controls for family streams and could widen political and community pressure as diasporas face longer separations while IRCC works through a broader inventory of more than 2.1 million files.