James Metcalfe – Pace Immigration: In brief there will be a cap of 5000 new application to be approved in 2014. Applications will be served on a fist come first served basis. Once the cap is reached applications will be returned.

The big changes in my estimation will be who qualifies to sponsor a parent. Applicants will have to have an income which exceeds by 30% the Low Income Cut Off or LICO for the family size of the applicant and the dependents being sponsored. For example if a couple has two children and are sponsoring a mother and father the family size is 6 persons. If the LICO for a family of 6 is $60,000 per year. The sponsors will have to make a combined income of $78,000 per year to qualify to sponsor a set of parents. In addition the family will have to show their Canada Revenue Agency Notices of assessment for three years. The other change is that sponsors will have to accept responsibility for 20 years not the current 10 years.

What will this mean for families? Far fewer mothers and fathers will be coming to Canada as Permanent Residents than in the past. Fewer siblings will be coming as well as the age of dependency has been lowered to 18 years. On the other hand the new Super Visa will allow parents to come to Canada for expended visas, but unlike Permanent Residents they are not eligible for provincial health insurance. If you plan on sponsoring parents start collecting documents and information now and be prepared to file your applications as soon as the opening date if made public.