Parents Sponsorship - Stop Immigration Lottery

[Rob_TO]

Hi all,

We've created a website to bring together as many people as we can, to sign a petition to end the lottery for parents sponsorship. Every immigrant should be concerned with this law, because most of us want to reunite with parents at some point in our lives, and nobody deserves to be separated.

The website: stop-immigration-lottery (dot) ca

This forum thread will be the official discussion room for the website.

Sorry to say but the website is very badly written and contains a lot of wrong and misleading information.

My spouse is thinking about sponsoring her parents at some point in the future, and both of us are perfectly fine with the lottery. It's not unfair at all and represents the only way to give equal and fair access to the program to all Canadians/PRs that meet the basic eligibility requirement.

I would even go one step further and make the lottery only open to Canadian citizens.

And comparing to the US system is irrelevant since in the US the parents wouldn't have immediate full access to all healthcare related services like they do here. Healthcare is basically the ONLY reason that the strict caps and measures are put on the parents program to begin with.

 

[canuck78]

When the system is at capacity or close to capacity shouldn't the current PRs and citizens be able to access services versus taking more people in so seniors get less services. There was no guarantee that all parents and grandparents could immigrate. If you must live with your parents there is nothing stopping you from moving temporarily or permanently to your home country.

 

[Buletruck]

Why does a child-free family pays for schools?
Why does a person with no car pays for public highways?
Why does a person who doesn't like nature pays towards maintaining parks?

• You contribute to the education of children in order for them to become a productive member of society (tax payer) later in life. It also contributes to the standard of living in the country as a whole and ensures everyone has access to basic education.
• So if you don’t have a car, you never use transportation of any kind? A bicycle, a bus, eat food, buy a toaster? Unless the guy living next door to you produces all this stuff, chances are you are using the nations infrastructure, hence the tax.
• Parks improve quality of life. You don’t like nature, great. But you might enjoy that swimming pool down the street (once they build a road to it), or the museum, or that hockey rink.

None of these items are intended for specific individuals, but society as a whole. And society as a whole isn’t interested in supporting the parents of immigrants. The 10K cap equates to potentially 200K in 10 years, of which a minimum of 60% will only contribute to the country minimally or not at all. The significant financial contribution does not cover the increased burden to social programs ( and that’s not just money, it’s time and resources). The addition of aging parents increases wait times and access to treatment in a system already showing signs of stress and with an ever Increasing aged population. I’d also hazard to guess that half of those that do successfully sponsor, don’t have their parents living in Canada on an ongoing basis. More likely as glorified tourists or who use the social support network when needed.
As an immigrant, you chose to leave your family behind. There was no promise of unifying immigrants with their parents when you decided to make your move to Canada. You want a system that brings your siblings and their children.....great. I’ll sign that one. But in my mind, the system isn’t broke. It works just fine as it is.

 

[Buletruck]

I would even go one step further and make the lottery only open to Canadian citizens.

Big +1 for that suggestion. Make the commitment or no opportunity to sponsor!

 

[mikeymyke]

How can you be fine if now you may never be able to sponsor your parents?
Because it's a chance now, you may be eligible today, and apply for 10 years, and still not be selected. Then 11 years later somebody becomes just eligible and applies in the same pool as you, and because of sheer luck gets accepted, and you are.

Actually my wife is the one who has sponsorable parents. Her parents dont care to come here as the weather is cold and they dont speak the language. Also we already have a supervisa for her parents, so theyre free to come here as often as they like.

My wife actually initially wanted me to live with her in her home country because she wished to be near her parents, but she made the choice to come here, knowing she might be separated from them for a long time, and she's fine with that.

If family refunification was really super important to her, she could've just simply returned to her country rather than selfishly immigrate here on her own and "abandon" her folks behind

 

[mikeymyke]

Also you need to know that Canada has one of the most generous parent sponsorship programs compared to other countries, and one of the few that allows grandparents to be sponsored.

US applicant's parents arent eligible for medicare and other health services for a period of time, whereas in Canada, they get health care coverage immediately. Also you need to be a US citizen to sponsor, Canada you just need be PR

In Australia, you only have two options to sponsor parents, either pay hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront to cover any expenses from using their social programs, or go through the queue, but wait 20+ years.

In the UK, parents can only be sponsored if they can prove they require constant care from the applicant, so basically, healthy parents need not apply

 

[scylla]

I would even go one step further and make the lottery only open to Canadian citizens.

This is how the US works (if we are comparing systems). The US has no cap but you must be a citizen to sponsor.

It's additionally not that straight forward to bring over dependents with parents in the US (results in minor children sometimes being separated from their parents).

 

[steaky]

Why does a child-free family pays for schools?
Why does a person with no car pays for public highways?
Why does a person who doesn't like nature pays towards maintaining parks?

I would use 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa instead - why does a person who doesn't like old homes pays toward maintaining the grey mansion?

 

[4parents]

Sorry to say but the website is very badly written and contains a lot of wrong and misleading information.

I would love to hear constructive comments that will help the intended purposes. Feel free to write better wording here or in private messages, I will update the website

I would even go one step further and make the lottery only open to Canadian citizens.

I did a lot of research into that, and spoke to ministers about this specific suggestion. The short answer: this will never happen. The long answer: there was a Supreme Court of Canada "1985 Singh case", which is often quoted in legal issues dealing with immigration. Because of this and other precedents, if that was to happen, a lot of work needs to be put into changing the law, and nobody has a good enough reason to do that.

 

[4parents]

society as a whole isn’t interested in supporting the parents of immigrants.

Considering Canadian economy and population growth are largely based around bringing skilled people into the country, society is the immigrants. Think about it.

Here is the psychology you are describing, it's sort of messed up if you ask me:
- Do you want your family to be with you?
- Yes, of course
- That will mean your neighbours can also bring their family.
- Wait, what? No way, in this case I'd rather be without my family

Luckily we live in a civilized world, and I think we should all understand that the society dictates what becomes the law. That's why we vote, that's why we have petitions. If majority of immigrants chooses not to take care of families - that will be low priority for the government and nothing will change. I propose we start caring and find a new solution.

As an immigrant, you chose to leave your family behind.

I don't know a single person who truly "left their family behind". Each family finds their own resolution that works for them at the end, but people I know still care about their parents irrespective of legal status and time spent apart.

 

[Rob_TO]

I would love to hear constructive comments that will help the intended purposes. Feel free to write better wording here or in private messages, I will update the website
.

Ok great then here is my suggestion to fix the website - abandon the idea of stopping the lottery completely. The lottery is a fair system that controls the intake process and gives equal access no matter your location in Canada. The old system was broken and hopefully we never go back to it. We should be thankful there is a parents program at all, as believe me the vast majority of Canadians would not care less and many would actually applaud if the entire parents program was simply cancelled forever.

So assuming the lottery is here to stay, then instead focus on ways to make it better and fairer. So ideas like:
- reducing ineligible entries, by doing more checks at lottery stage or charging non-refundable fees to enter
- giving preference or extra chances in lottery to those that qualified and applied previously but were not selected
- giving preference to those with younger parents who may actually contribute to Canada's workforce
- etc etc

 

[DollyM]

I don't know a single person who truly "left their family behind". Each family finds their own resolution that works for them at the end, but people I know still care about their parents irrespective of legal status and time spent apart.

I would like to introduce you to my partner, my ex-husband and me. I left my parents and 9 siblings (and their spouses & children) behind when I emigrated to Australia in 2006. My now ex-husband left his parents and 5 siblings behind when we emigrated. My fiance left his widowed mother and 3 siblings in the UK when he emigrated to Australia in 1985.

Does that mean we don't care about our parents? As adults our lives are ours to live and if that means leaving our families then that's what adults do. If you cannot live without your parents nearby then I would suggest one of three options: 1) Move back to your home country, 2) move to a third country that will allow you to bring your parents or 3) learn to live with long holidays together and Skype/email/snail mail.


Canada's health care and pension systems are already struggling. If every immigrant was allowed to bring their parents what do you think that would do to the provincial health budgets? Elderly people are a drain on the health system and unfortunately do not contribute to the costs they incur. Canada, as with most countries is looking to attract younger, more skilled immigrants who will contribute to the economy of the country, not be a burden to the already overstretched public welfare systems.

 

[4parents]

So assuming the lottery is here to stay, then instead focus on ways to make it better and fairer. So ideas like:

Thank you, I think this is a great start. If we can come up with something sensible, possibly someone may take a note in the govt and improve the process.

- reducing ineligible entries, by doing more checks at lottery stage or charging non-refundable fees to enter

I think this year is much better than the first. They gather quite a lot of information to minimize duplicate submissions, but there will still be ineligible people applying. So, possibly:
1. Sponsor does electronic submission of only their part of the application (pretty much just ID and income), and number of people he/she wishes to sponsor
2. Eligible sponsors are selected and lottery conducted only among these applicants
3. Selected applicants are invited to apply

This way there will be no duplicates to clean, all selected applicants are real and eligible.

- giving preference or extra chances in lottery to those that qualified and applied previously but were not selected

You are addressing my biggest issue with the existing lottery.
While it is a fair system within a single year of applications, it is not fair on a multi-year basis.
The biggest question, what is the formula to use. What is a fair way of weighing someone who was unsuccessful for 5 years vs someone applying for the first time?

With the current lottery system the "half-life" of applicants is about 7-10 years. That means, if 100k eligible people want to sponsor today, in 7-10 years 50k people from this original pool will still not be selected. Take another 7-10 years and 25k are still waiting from people who are technically eligible today.

Prior to 2011 there were approximately 25000 new applicants a year, but only about 15000 were processed, that's why the backlog was growing.
Right now they accept 10000, and process about 20000, thus working on reducing the official backlog, eventually minimizing it.
The way it is designed, though, is that the unofficial backlog (people not selected by the lottery) can still grow to any amount.

- giving preference to those with younger parents who may actually contribute to Canada's workforce

There is a contrary argument, that elder parents require more care, thus should be processed first - some of these cases actually fall under humanitarian immigration and are processed as such.
Regardless, this is discrimination by age and won't go.

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Another point to discuss is the income cut-off level.
Stricter - reduces the backlog, but makes harder for, say, single moms to sponsor their parents.
But it is already a privilege, people with low income can't sponsor, so how far do we go.
Should the income be increased until the backlog is stable / not growing?

 

[Rob_TO]

While it is a fair system within a single year of applications, it is not fair on a multi-year basis.
The biggest question, what is the formula to use. What is a fair way of weighing someone who was unsuccessful for 5 years vs someone applying for the first time?

Could simply be a case of giving an extra lottery entry for each year one has applied but not been selected.

Right now they accept 10000, and process about 20000, thus working on reducing the official backlog, eventually minimizing it.
The way it is designed, though, is that the unofficial backlog (people not selected by the lottery) can still grow to any amount.

Right now they accept 10K apps per year which represents 17K people.

They will eventually start issuing 20K PRs per year (So will be processing around 12K apps per year) which means after backlog is eliminated it should be a relatively quick FIFO process for parents going forward, for those lucky to be selected.
Amount of PRs they issue for PGP program can vary in any year based on IRCC's target immigration levels, in which case they can adjust the cap accordingly. i.e. if a study shows a more severe impact to healthcare services from PGP program, they can suddenly limit the PGP PRs issued per year to 10K, and drop the cap for lottery invitations in any given year to just 5K. This will make sure no huge backlog starts up again.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/balancing-demand-parents-grandparents-program.html

There is a contrary argument, that elder parents require more care, thus should be processed first - some of these cases actually fall under humanitarian immigration and are processed as such.
Regardless, this is discrimination by age and won't go.

There are numerous areas of so-called "discrimination" in immigration processing.
They already discriminate by refusing immigration to those with expensive disabilities or medical conditions.
They currently discriminate by age on economic PR apps when those who are younger get more points and more older people can't qualify
They also discriminate against ones income level by denying parents immigration to those that are poor

So they could split the PGP program into a few categories. Say offer 5K as usual, but then offer 5K as a hybrid economic/family reunification program to give points to parents of a younger age. Of course this would be very complex to manage so realistically will never happen.

 

[nayr69sg]

I would even go one step further and make the lottery only open to Canadian citizens.

.

I second that.