By Victor Ing,
Special to The Post

On July 15, 2026, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced a pause on new applications for the Parents and Grandparents Sponsorship (PGP) program. The writing has been on the wall for some time for those who have been following the developments surrounding the PGP program since it was brought back in 2020 under a lottery format. However, it is still a devastating blow to Canadian citizens and permanent residents hoping to bring their families to Canada permanently. In this blog, we’ll breakdown the key reasons behind the pause and review what is likely to happen with the program in the future (For additional context, see our April 2026 blog, in which we predicted that significant changes to the PGP were likely).

Why Pause the PGP Program Now?

To put it simply, the PGP program is being shut down because the government already has a large inventory of these applications to process, and they only plan to approve around 15,000 people annually (people, not applications) under this program for the next several years according to its Immigration Levels Plan. This represents about 4% of total immigration admission targets.

In the July 15, 2026, announcement, IRCC explained this issue, as follows:

‘Interest in the PGP Program continues to exceed the spaces available under the levels plan. To manage this pressure responsibly, IRCC will not receive new interest to sponsor forms or invite potential sponsors to apply until further notice.’

While this is undoubtedly true, in our experience interest in the PGP program will always exceed what the government is willing to allocate to this immigration category.

Just how big is the demand to sponsor?

In a 2023 report, IRCC provided a glimpse as to the scope of the demand for the PGP program. The 善arents and Grandparents Program: Intake Report 2020 to 2022’ revealed that over 200,000 Canadian citizens and permanent residents expressed an interest in sponsoring their parents or grandparents in a three-week period from October 13 to November 3, 2020. Following that initial intake period, from 2020 until 2022 IRCC received a total of 50,825 applications, representing 92,640 family members (an average of 1.8 people per application). That痴 it! In the years 2020, 2021, and 2022, IRCC approved 92,640 family members for permanent residency.

Meanwhile, according to a July 16, 2026, CBC report, IRCC currently has a backlog of 60,500 PGP applications. Since each PGP application on average includes roughly 1.8 people, over 100,000 individuals are waiting for a decision right now. At a processing cap of 15,000  PGP applicants per year under the current Immigration Levels Plan, it will take over six years just to clear the existing inventory! It is no wonder that current processing times have ballooned to 33 months and 66 months for candidates destined for Quebec.

In short, the government cannot manage its existing PGP application inventory and simply cannot accept new ones, especially since the pool of potential new sponsors grows exponentially each year as new permanent residents arrive and settle in Canada. In these circumstances, it is clear that a pause ‘until further notice’ means an indefinite, if not permanent, pause.

What will happen to the PGP program now?

Unfortunately, it doesn稚 appear that the PGP program will be returning for many years. It took the government three weeks in 2020 to garner more expressions of interest to sponsor than it has been able to process in almost six years. In today痴 immigration parlance, a return to a 壮ustainable・ immigration system means cutting programs and not replacing them with anything new. The latest PGP announcement aligns with a broader government shift toward reducing overall immigration numbers. It follows similar recent closures, including the cancellation of the Caregiver program in late 2025,  the pausing of the Self-Employed business category in early 2024 and the cancellation of the SUV program on December 31, 2025.

Sadly, these policy changes appear to reflect changing public sentiment. According to the CBC, internal government polling from 2024 revealed that half of surveyed Canadians felt immigration levels were too high. This is a stark contrast to attitudes in previous years under previous regimes.

In 2016, back when annual immigration targets were 300,000 per year, then-Immigration Minister John McCallum publicly applauded the contributions of parents and grandparents, noting that even they though don稚 work, their contributions in childcare indirectly benefit the economy by allowing their own children to work. The remark stood out to me when I heard it live at the Vancouver Board of Trade event, and it is hard to reconcile with today’s environment 10 years later. Parents and grandparents continue to contribute to Canada, and their children’s desire to sponsor them for permanent residency hasn’t waned, but there is no willingness nor room to allow them to immigrate under today’s immigration realities. With the PGP program indefinitely shut down, parents and grandparents will have to pivot to the Super Visa program for extended temporary stays in Canada or attempt more creative economic immigration strategies to permanently settle in Canada.

Victor Ing is a lawyer of Sas & Ing Immigration Law Centre. He provides a full range of immigration services. For more information go to canadian-visa-lawyer.com or email victor@sasanding.com.