News
IRCC announces update to Parents and Grandparents Program 2023 – Canada Immigration News


Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has just announced an update to the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). IRCC will accept up to 15,000 complete applications for sponsorship under the PGP this year.
On October 10, IRCC will begin sending invitations to apply to 24,200 interested potential sponsors, aiming to receive up to the 15,000 complete applications.
Due to the number of forms remaining in the pool of submissions from 2020, invitations to apply will be sent to randomly selected potential sponsors from that pool instead of opening a new interest to sponsor form.
If you submitted an interest to sponsor form in 2020, but did not receive an invitation to apply in 2021 or 2022, you are encouraged to check the email account you provided in 2020 when you submitted your interest to sponsor form.
If you are invited to apply as part of the 2023 intake, IRCC will continue to use the Permanent Residence Portal or the Representative Permanent Residence Portal, which allow applications to be submitted electronically.
Sponsor your parents and grandparents for Canadian immigration
Immigration Levels Plan
In 2022, IRCC invited 23,100 potential sponsors to apply to sponsor their parents and grandparents with the goal of receiving 15,000 complete applications.
Every year, IRCC releases its Immigration Levels Plan, which it uses to guide its operations and set out its goals for welcoming newcomers to Canada.
In 2023, Canada’s newcomer target is 465,000 new permanent residents. Canada’s goal is to welcome 28,500 parents and grandparents in 2023.
By 2025, Canada’s newcomer target is 500,000, and 36,000 parents and grandparents.
The Super Visa
The Super Visa is a popular option for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who want to bring their foreign parents and grandparents to Canada.
It is a temporary visa that allows parents and grandparents to visit their family for up to five consecutive years without having to renew their visitor status. Super Visa holders can enter Canada multiple times for up to 10 years. Those who already have a Super Visa may be able to apply for an extension that allows them to stay in Canada for up to seven years as a visitor.
There is no lottery for the Super Visa and it is offered all year, so it is a great option for those looking for more certainty when sponsoring their parent or grandparent.
In order to be eligible for the Super Visa, an applicant must:
- Be a parent or grandparent of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident
- Not be inadmissible to Canada on the basis of criminality or health
- Prove that they can meet the income requirements identified by the Low-Income Cut Off (LICO)
- Provide a signed letter from their child or grandchild inviting them to Canada, and includes a promise of financial support for the length of the visit and the list and number of people in the household of this person
- Provide proof of medical insurance coverage for at least one year with a Canadian insurance comp
Get a Free Super Visa Telephone Consultation with the Cohen Immigration Law Firm
News
'ET Canada' cancelled by Corus Entertainment, blames 'challenging' advertising market – CTV News
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Entertainment Tonight Canada to end after 18 seasons
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Canadian media company Corus Entertainment has announced it is ending flagship entertainment program Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada after 18 seasons.
“The costs of producing a daily entertainment newsmagazine show in a challenging advertising environment have led to this decision,” read a statement posted on the company’s website on Wednesday.
“We recognize the impact this decision has on the dedicated team who have worked on the show and we thank them for their meaningful contributions over the years.”
The show’s final episode will air on Oct. 6, with reruns airing in the same time slot on Global TV until Oct. 31, a Corus spokesperson told CBC News.
The cancellation won’t impact Corus’s obligation to produce Canadian content under the rules set out by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the spokesperson said.
ET Canada’s website and social media platforms will also be shut down. The spokesperson declined to comment on how many people had been laid off as a result, but said the program’s hosts were impacted.
The network said it has no plans for another entertainment news show.
An hour-long, magazine-style show that focused on entertainment, celebrity, film and TV news, ET Canada began airing in 2005 on Global TV, which is owned by Corus Entertainment.
The program has been hosted by Canadian media personality Cheryl Hickey since its launch, with regular appearances by entertainment reporters, including Sangita Patel — a co-host since 2022 — plus Carlos Bustamante, Keshia Chanté and Morgan Hoffman.
The cancellation leaves ETalk, CTV’s weeknight show, as Canada’s lone major entertainment news program.
Andrea Grau, founder and CEO of entertainment publicity firm Touchwood PR, said ET Canada offered a Canadian perspective that made it stand out in the U.S.-dominated entertainment landscape.
“There was this great Entertainment Tonight brand that was going on in the U.S. — we all watched. And the idea of a Canadian arm of it was very special because it could give a different slant,” she said.
ET Canada’s demise comes during a major shift in the industry, she said, as publicists struggle to find entertainment outlets that can shine a spotlight on emerging Canadian artists and projects.
“Even though we share a language with the U.S. and we share pop culture, we are still Canadian and we have a different perspective,” Grau said, noting that ET Canada’s hosts were a mainstay on the U.S. press circuit.
“You see those relationships that have been built over the years of having Sangita [Patel] standing on a red carpet interviewing someone, or Cheryl Hickey interviewing someone. They’re recognizable to [celebrities] after all of these years, too,” she said. “They’ve created such a strong brand.”





News
Canada just had its lowest number of births in 17 years. What’s behind it?
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The number of babies born in Canada dropped to a 17-year-low last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a declining fertility rate, data shows.
A Statistics Canada report released Tuesday showed there were 351,679 births registered across the country in 2022, which was a five per cent decrease from the previous year. This was Canada’s sharpest drop recorded since 2005.
Before 2022, the lowest number of births recorded was in 2005, with 345,044 babies born nationwide.
While the number of births in all provinces and territories declined last year, Nova Scotia was the notable outlier with a 12.8 per cent increase in live births.
The biggest decrease was in Nunavut, with the number of births dropping 11.8 per cent compared with 2021.
Canada, like many other developed countries, has been seeing declining birth trends over the past several years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has affected many people’s plans to have kids, said Kate Choi, an associate professor of sociology at Western University.
“Although the fertility decline was indeed part of a larger trend of fertility decreases that have been occurring in Canada, the magnitude of the decrease is larger than what we would have anticipated in the absence of COVID-19,” she told Global News in an interview.

The high cost of living has magnified the size of the drop in births, Choi said.
“It’s very expensive to have children and right now, when everything is expensive, it’s very hard for young adults to be able to have the type of lifestyle that allows them to have children, which is contributing to delayed and forgone fertility,” she added.
It’s a concerning trend for Canada, according to Choi, who said decreasing birth rates have the potential to exacerbate population aging issues.
Canada is considered a low-fertility country and its fertility rate has been declining over the past decade.
The latest Statistics Canada data from 2021 reported a fertility rate of 1.44 children per woman that year — marking a slight increase following a steady decline since 2009.
The fertility rate is an estimate of the average number of live births a female can be expected to have in her lifetime, according to StatCan.
As some couples delay their plans to have kids for a variety of reasons, egg freezing and other fertility treatments are on the rise in Canada.

Lifestyle changes and work decisions are contributing factors, with a shift toward smaller families, said Mark Rosenberg, an expert in geography and professor emeritus at Queen’s University.
“I think mainly the factors we should focus on are first and foremost women’s decisions around the labour force and delaying birth until they’re in their 30s,” he told Global News in an interview.
There is also an increasing number of younger people living in single-person households, Rosenberg added.
Despite the drop in births, Canada’s population has been growing at a “record-setting pace,” surpassing the milestone of 40 million people earlier this year, due to a focus on increasing immigration.
Meanwhile, the StatCan report Tuesday also showed a rise in the proportion of babies who were born with a low birth weight — less than 2,500 grams.
Seven per cent of all babies had a low birth weight in 2022 compared with 6.6 per cent the year before.
Babies with a low birth weight are at an increased risk of complications, such as inhibited growth and development and even death, according to StatCan.
“When we see higher rates of low birth weight babies or higher rates of babies that are born who are overweight, those are issues that we should be concerned about because they reflect on people’s health,” Rosenberg said.
— with files from Global News’ Katherine Ward





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