Canada concludes 2020 Parents & Grandparents sponsors lottery

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has finally concluded the 2020 Parents & Grandparents sponsors lottery (2020 PGP sponsors lottery) on January 5, 2021. According to sources around 10,000 applications were received in the 2020 intake of Parents & Grandparents sponsors lottery and now IRCC has begun to process these applications and select candidates to issue invitations. PGP 2020 was announced by IRCC in 2020 and sponsors were allowed to submit their applications between October 13 and November 3, 2020. The lottery, which was originally supposed to take place by the end of 2020 was delayed due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons.

To accept the applications for PGP, IRCC issued online interest to sponsor forms, candidates who wished to sponsor their parents and grandparents to obtain Canadian permanent residence had to submit their applications by November 3, 2020. After the deadline for application had passed, IRCC verified each application and rejected the duplicate ones. From the remaining applications, IRCC randomly selected potential sponsors to issue them invitations to apply for Canadian permanent residence of their parents and grandparents.

On January 5, 2021, IRCC made an announcement regarding the conclusion of PGP 2020. In the announcement, they advised the potential sponsors to keep checking their emails regularly for the rest of the week to make sure that they don’t miss any important updates on the program.

After the invitations were issued to candidates for the 2020 PGP sponsors lottery, they were required to submit their applications for the permanent residence of their parents and grandparents within 60 days. This date is mentioned on the invitation clearly but there is a chance that IRCC may extend this deadline for up to 90 days if candidates submit satisfactory evidence, mainly due to the disruptions and delays in application procedure caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Eligibility for PGP sponsorship

If you wish to sponsor your parents or grandparents to obtain Canadian permanent residence, then you may have to submit valid proofs of the minimum required income to apply for sponsorship. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the financial condition of individuals globally, that’s why IRCC has announced a temporary policy in which they have reduced the minimum income required to apply for sponsorship, for the tax year 2020.

The eligibility criteria for Canada Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship Program is:

• The candidate should be at least 18 years old
• The candidate is required to live in Canada
• The candidate must be a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident of Canada, or a person registered in Canada as an Indian under the Canadian Indian Act
• The candidate should have enough money to support the persons they wish to sponsor
  • The candidate must submit valid proof of income.
• The candidates have to sign a sponsorship undertaking agreement under which sponsors and co-signers must repay any social assistance paid to their sponsored relatives. The time duration of the undertaking is 20 years for sponsors and co-signers living in Canadian provinces other than Quebec, and 10 years for sponsors living in Quebec.

2021 PGP sponsors lottery

IRCC has announced that they will be accepting 30,000 applications for the 2021 intake of Parents & Grandparents sponsors lottery, making it 3 times greater than PGP 2020. The details on PGP 2021 are expected to be announced in the first half of the year. The lottery system will be the same as 2020 in which candidates will submit interest to sponsor forms through the IRCC website. We’ll post more information and updates on PGP 2021 as soon as they’re announced by IRCC.

For candidates who wish to invite their parents and grandparents to Canada, there’s also parents and grandparents super visa announced by IRCC through which your parents and grandparents will be allowed to enter and stay in Canada for up to 2 years at a time.