Parent visa program to use lottery system

Old first-come, first-served scheme scrapped

OTTAWA • Coveted spots for the parent and grandparent visa program will be awarded by lottery in 2017 now that the federal Liberals have scrapped the old first-come, first-served system that had raised concerns about people paying to be at the front of the line.

Applications for the always-over-subscribed program had been accepted only via courier or mail at a single immigration office, and since they were processed in the order received, couriers had been doing brisk business promising to be at the front of the line, in exchange for fees that could be as high as $400.

But that system has now been replaced by a random draw, the federal immigration minister announced Wednesday.

“We’re ensuring everyone can access the application process by giving them the same chance to have their name chosen,” Immigration Minister John McCallum said in a statement.

Beginning Jan. 3, Canadians will have 30 days to fill out an online form indicating their desire to sponsor a parent or grandparent. From those, immigration officials will randomly draw 10,000 individuals who will then be asked to submit the full application within 90 days.

The change comes after The Canadian Press first reported earlier this year that the previous first-come, firstserved process was seeing couriers charge more than $400 to guarantee that applications would be at the top of the pile for the spots available in 2016.

That raised concerns that the visas were going to those who could afford to pay the high fees or camp out for hours at the Mississauga, Ont., immigration office.

High demand came in part from the fact that the previous Conservative government closed the program entirely between 2011 and 2014 to reduce a massive backlog. It reopened in 2014 with an annual cap of 5,000 applications. Last year, 14,000 applications were received and the Liberals later raised the cap on the number they would accept to 10,000.

Couriers had already started taking reservations to deliver 2017 applications, with fees ranging from $60 to $200, depending on whether someone wanted to guarantee their application was delivered first.

One company, Metro Mississauga, said it had about 150 reservations already and was now in the process of refunding all fees. They were charging $132 this year, which included the cost of having someone wait in line.

Company owner Chris Colaco said while he understood why the government was making the change, he wondered why it couldn’t have been announced months ago.

In 2015, 15,489 people were admitted to Canada under the program, down from 18,150 the year before.