Each of us has submitted a parental sponsorship application to Immigration Canada after June 24, 2003 in hope of seeing our parents in Canada within a year. However, according to the ministry website, the processing of parental class applications has stopped. Since March 2004 no new applications has been reviewed.
After reading the immigration objective listed in Section 3 (d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act "to see that families are reunited in Canada." We were surprised to hear the following from Hon. Judy Sgro, MP, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. “Our immigration plan for 2005 will help Canada’s economy grow, while promoting family reunification and refugee protection,” says Minister Sgro . But according to the website of the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration the number of people that were admitted into Canada as parents or grandparents in 2003 was 19,376 . In our view number does not constitute promotion of family reunification. Furthermore, in 2004 the ministry reported only 10,233 admissions for parents and grandparents (to August 2004) and this represented nearly all of the planned admissions for the year. And, in 2005 the minister plans to only allow between 5,500 and 6,800 people on parental sponsorship visas.
To be continued