In the meantime, the federal government is working on a new intake process.
As a result, the 2020 family reunification round scheduled for Jan 1, 2020 will not occur. According to the Immigration Minister’s office, the IRCC wanted to give would-be applicants advance notice of the cancellation.
Canada’s family reunification program lets Canadian citizens and permanent residents to bring their parents and grandparents to Canada. In January, the program faced criticism after all 27,000 online applications spots were taken in 9 minutes. Over 100,000 people in total had attempted to access the online form. It appears that demand for family reunification is greater than the “supply.”
Previously, the federal government replaced the lottery reunification program with an online first-come, first-served arrangement.
That wasn’t the first time the government restructured the reunification program. In fact, the lottery system itself replaced a previous in-person system which had resulted in long lines at the processing centre.