‘Supervisa’ is Part of Family Reunification Announcement

Ottawa also boosts number of parents, grandparents admitted

By Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News

The federal government says it will repair Canada’s broken family reunification system by boosting the number of parents and grandparents accepted into Canada, imposing a moratorium on new applications, and introducing a new “supervisa” for extended visits.

The plan announced Friday by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney calls for the admission of 25,000 parents and grandparents in 2012 – 10,000 more than 2011 targets and the highest level in nearly two decades.

The government also will impose a two-year moratorium on new applications and plans to introduce a 10-year multiple-entry super-visa that would allow parents and grandparents to visit their loved ones in Canada for up to two years at a time.

The supervisa would cost $150 and will be available next month.

The initiatives are part of the government’s four-pronged approach to speeding up family reunification, which could now take as many as eight years.

It’s also meant to eliminate within five years a backlog in applications that has topped 165,000.

“The challenge we’re facing is a problem with math,” Kenney said in Mississauga, Ont., where he unveiled Phase 1 of the government’s plan for faster family reunification.

“When the number of applications exceed the number admitted in the program, we end up with growing backlogs and longer waiting times.”

Kenney said the government receives about 40,000 applications from parents and grandparents who wish to be reunited with loved ones every year.

At the current rate, he argued, waiting times will exceed 10 years and the backlog will grow to 300,000 by the end of the decade.

Increasing the number of admissions alone – even doubling them – he said, won’t fix the problem, which is why the government also will spend the next two years consulting with stakeholders on a “redesign” of the parents and grandparents program to ensure it’s “sustainable in the long term.”

To prevent a “flood” of applications in the interim as people seek to get in before any “criteria change,” Kenney said the government will take a “temporary pause” on new applications.

“I understand that some people might be concerned about this but I would point out to them that if they send their application into our office today, they’re simply getting in the back of a seven-or eightyear-long waiting time. They’re no further ahead,” he said.

By the time Phase 2 of the plan takes effect, Kenney said he hopes to have waiting times for permanent residency down to just one or two years.

According to the Citizenship and Immigration Department, the supervisa will be open to would-be visitors as well as to individuals already in the queue for permanent residency who have demonstrated they have financial support while in Canada and have medical clearance and private health insurance.

It will be available as of Dec. 1, and it’s anticipated that visas will be issued within eight weeks of receiving an application.

Currently, visas are good only for six months.