The federal government has invited thousands of Canadians to apply to sponsor their parents and grandparents starting October 10 - but many say its recent approach leaves qualified Canadians behind and could make immigration management vulnerable to ineligible applications.

Under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP), the administration urged individuals to apply only if they had formally expressed interest in entering their names into the lottery system.

The problem for many is that the immigration department has not accepted new Interest to Sponsor (ITS) forms since 2020. There is usually an opportunity to do so every year.

For his part, Gatin Shuri, a refugee and immigration lawyer in Calgary, said it is good for those who were lucky enough to get their names in the hats, especially in 2020.

He added, "But our biggest problem definitely comes for those who may qualify now if a new application round were fully opened, but they have now fallen behind."

Harpreet Singh is one of those individuals, as the 29-year-old young man living in Langley, British Columbia, did not express interest in 2020 because his income was a bit low.

He then became financially eligible less than three months after the department stopped accepting Interest to Sponsor forms. In that month, the federal government said there would be another opportunity to register in 2021, so he wasn't very concerned.

But after years, he is still waiting for a fair chance to bring his mother from the UK to Canada.

Shuri said that out of desperation, some of his clients are submitting applications for their families on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which he says is fraught with risks and is much more costly.

The risk of ineligible applications...

From October 10 to 23, the Canadian Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) said it would invite 24,000 eligible Canadians to apply to reunite with their families, aiming to receive up to 15,000 complete applications.

And the federal government is still working to resolve the backlogged family reunification issues, calling the immigration "golden ticket" "severely unfair."

His biggest concern, raised in his petition to former Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, is that this approach may leave immigration management vulnerable to ineligible applications.

Singh also mentioned that there are people in the group who were actually not eligible in 2020 but applied anyway, and are now getting opportunities to sponsor their parents because they may be eligible now.

This is because the IRCC only evaluates individuals' income during the three years prior to consider their application, not when they entered the pool.

What are they doing to address this?

Immigration lawyer Shuri said this is a real risk, which may explain why the IRCC is accepting only up to 15,000 complete applications.

If you can issue 24,000 invitations, why not accept up to 24,000 [applications]? Shuri said, "I think the idea is not that all 24,000 people will be eligible."

And the IRCC received 200,000 expressions of interest in 2020.

Likewise, ministry spokesperson Isabelle Dubois said the IRCC is catching up with a list of 200,000 potential sponsors who expressed interest in 2020. There are still about 132,000 people in the pool.

Given the volume of Interest to Sponsor forms received in 2020 remaining, the IRCC will continue to use this application pool for 2023, Dubois said in a statement sent via email.

She also confirmed that the IRCC will only evaluate potential sponsors' income for the 2020-2022 tax years.

She stated that no potential sponsor randomly selected from the 2020 pool, who does not meet the required eligibility criteria, is eligible to sponsor parents and grandparents.