According to the CBC, the IRCC ‘quietly’ settled the lawsuits regarding the Parents and Grandparents

The Canadian immigration programs are on the rise, and it can be difficult to keep track. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or the CBC, the Government of Canada has granted permission to at least 70 potential sponsors who want to apply to the Parents and Grandparents Program so that they would drop the two lawsuits in exchange.

The lawsuits were registered after the program’s expression of interest intake of January, which caused a lot of controversies. This settlement was supposedly conducted in secret. The CBC further reports that there might have been a non-disclosure agreement involved which would explain its absence from regular news.

The IRCC or the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada set a quota of 20,000 complete applications that could be submitted to the Parents and Grandparents Program in 2019. This means that both permanent residents and Canadian citizens who are over the age of 18 and full-grown adults will be able to sponsor their parents or grandparents if they are interested in Canadian permanent residence.

While this program had the best of intentions, it ran into some problems after the opening of the Parents and Grandparents Program on 28th January. It was supposed to attract expressions of interest from adults who wanted to become sponsors.

The IRCC set a limit for the submission at 27,000 Interest to Sponsor forms during the opinion. However, over 100,000 people gave a shot at submitting forms. While the opening closed in less than ten minutes, the incident caused widespread anger and frustration among all those who were unable to access the form or submit it in time. The “first-in, first-served” approach used by the IRCC was criticized.

Everyone accused this effort at family reunification of just being a lottery in disguise. The lawsuits found the process to be ‘arbitrary’ and ‘procedurally unfair’.