To

The Honorable Marco E.L. Mendicino

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Re: Concerns around extraordinary delays in Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship Applications (2019)

This is open communication and a request from law-abiding, taxpaying Canadian citizens, who submitted PGP applications to sponsor their parents in 2019. We met all the financial eligibility criteria, paid all due fees and fulfilled all other IRCC requirements. After two years of waiting, our applications have not been processed and no clear update is yet provided. On the contrary, we have just received a note stating that IRCC is experiencing long delays and we should continue to be patient. It is unknown how long our wait will last. COVID-19 should no longer be an excuse when the whole world has learned to work with it.

The above situation of extraordinary delays and waiting is causing undue hardships and risk to physical, mental wellbeing to parents and the sponsoring families as:

·       the validity of medical exams and police reports submitted in time has expired-leading to financial hardships and further delays

·       lack of communication and updates from IRCC: Status update as “application received”/in-process is extremely frustrating for the families to see no action on their applications for two years or more. There are call centers, but they are not equipped with any details to provide any useful updates.

To those parents, who applied from within Canada, cannot go back to their home countries, as this would cause the need to re-collect and re-submit those documents. This presents not only financial burden, but a risk of further delays. COVID19 has left no choice to travel and meet parents during this wait period causing stress to parents as well as the families. Most importantly, this creates serious health risks, given that our parents cannot undergo regular medical tests in Canada as visitors, and cannot go back to their countries of residence for the above reason related to expired documents, due to IRCC delays.

Parents and Grandparents are particularly a sensitive age group and, each day is very important. Each day of unlimited waiting causes serious mental sufferings and risk of health problems. Each day they risk becoming sick and, as a result, potentially ineligible for Canadian permanent residency. We also know about heartbreaking cases, when parents die while waiting to be reunited with their children and grandchildren. Every day of wait is a day lesser spent with their children and grandchildren.

After two years of waiting, it is disappointing to see that parent’s sponsorship applications stand very low on the IRCC priority list. There are many of us who got this opportunity to sponsor after trying our luck several years in the failed lottery system or small cap, so our wait to see efficiency in the entire process is much longer than these 2 years.

Through this letter, our hope is that, IRCC, and our represented, elected leaders can empathize and be compassionate with hundreds of other Canadians and their families affected by these unexpected and unwarranted delays and make the process more efficient.

We jointly request IRCC to (1) prioritize and accelerate the processing of parent/grandparent sponsorship applications as this is a time-sensitive and vulnerable group and (2) provide clear and transparent communication on the status of applications submitted in 2019 and before.

Thank you for your support in advance

Families waiting to be reunited!