Parent and Grandparent sponsorship program opened for a brief period of time on January 28, 2019

Canadian citizens and permanent residents interested in sponsoring their parents and grandparents were able to express their interest to sponsor during a very short window of time on January 28, 2019.

The Interest to Sponsor form was available only minutes on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website. It appears that more than 100,000 individuals attempted to access the interest to sponsor form, which made the announced 2019 submission cap to be reached shortly after the reopening of the program.

In the event that, following the elimination of duplicate submissions, validation of applications to sponsor, and completeness check, the 2019 cap of 20,000 compete application is not reached, we may see another round of expressions of interest to sponsor later this year.