Immigrant sponsor cap raised

Ottawa is raising the annual quota for Canadians to bring their parents and grandparents to the country as permanent residents after the government significantly reduced its sponsorship backlog.

In the run-up to the 2019 federal election, the Liberal government announced it would admit 20,000 sponsored parents and grandparents next year, an increase from the 17,000 quota for 2018 and four times the 5,000 spots set by its Conservative predecessor.

The restricted spaces of the sponsorship program — and its conversion into a lottery-based system from a first-come-firstserved process — has been a thorny issue for immigrants.

The Conservative government under Stephen Harper briefly suspended the popular immigration program before capping its annual intake in order to reduce a ballooning backlog, which reached 167,000 in 2011. As of June, there were 26,000 parents and grandparents in the queue.

“We have made substantial improvements to the parents and grandparents sponsorship process and eliminated the backlog of applications,” Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said on Monday.

Hussen said instead of randomly selecting sponsorship candidates in a draw, officials will invite applicants based on the order they submit their forms indicating their interest in sponsoring family members.

Many applicants complain the lottery system is unfair because they have only about a 10 per cent chance of being picked.