Parents left in limbo

New candidates locked out of Canada's family reunification program

- NICHOLAS KEUNG

Ayon De has not been able to sponsor his widowed mother, Shikha De, to stay permanently with his family in Canada.

Ayon De chose Canada over the U.S. because he thought his parents could join him faster under Ottawa’s family reunification program.

However, after having been here for almost six years, the native of India hasn’t even been able to get into the queue to sponsor his parents to Canada. It’s already too late for his father, who died of cancer in September.

Now, the Toronto project manager is unsure when the federal government will ever reopen the parent and grandparent sponsorship program, so his widowed mother can stay with him and his only sibling in Canada permanently.

For a fourth year in a row, the Immigration Department has closed the program to new candidates and kept drawing from the same old pool of Canadians who had expressed interest to sponsor their parents and grandparents, and put their names in the system, back in 2020.

“The family reunification program was one of the major factors for me to immigrate to Canada from the United States,” said De, who was in the U.S. on a work permit before moving here in 2018, though he couldn’t apply yet as a sponsor. “I was very happy there but Canada had an easier and clearer pathway for parents and grandparents.

“My biggest concern is that right now, we can’t even get into the pool.”

Canada has a lottery system that rations a limited number of sponsorship spots for parents and grandparents.