By /  Abeer Al-Tal

Immigration Consultant

There are many ways to invite and bring family members to Canada. Some through temporary residence, and others  through permanent residence.

The first option is through the tourist visa which allows parents to come and stay in Canada for six months, as the tourist visa is given according to the validity of the passport, so it is preferable to renew the passport before applying for the visa.

This is considered the fastest and cheapest option to bring parents.

The second option is through a special visa known as the Super Visa which allows parents to stay in Canada for two years at a time, and when leaving even for one day it allows returning and staying for another two years, and so on.

The Super Visa is valid for 10 years and the maximum stay for each visit, as previously mentioned, is two years.

After applying for the Super Visa for the parents, it is required to purchase and submit health insurance for one year  at a minimum to cover the period the parents stay in Canada, and this is considered an additional cost on the applicant as the average health insurance for one person for one year is about 2500 Canadian dollars.

The third option is sponsoring the parents and parents' sponsorship is accepted by expressing interest and desire to bring the parents and to sponsor them.

The procedure followed in this case is to wait for the government to announce the launch of the program and accept expressions of interest to bring the parents, and then the application is submitted.

The government receives many applications for sponsoring parents, so it conducts a lottery for the accepted applications and usually the acceptance rate for this program is about 5 to 10% of the submitted applications.

This program grants permanent residence for the parents, medical coverage or health insurance, and Canadian citizenship later.

This program is considered one of the most difficult programs  to bring parents, but due to competition and the number of applications submitted, and the existence of an upper limit for applications that the Canadian government accepts.

Based on what we mentioned earlier, I advise you to be patient and choose the program suitable for you in terms of requirements, time duration, and cost.

By Abeer Al-Tal

Immigration Consultant