OTTAWA — A new first-come-first-served online application for immigrants seeking to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada is being condemned as "profoundly discriminatory" after the program opened and closed in less than 10 minutes on Monday.
All 27,000 openings for the family-reunification program in 2019 were spoken for within minutes of the application form's going live online Monday, sparking outcry from disappointed would-be applicants.
The interest to sponsor form for the 2019 Parent and Grandparent Program is now closed. If you successfully submitted the form, you should receive an email within 24 hours confirming we received it. Find out what happens next: https://t.co/4jRG4gnZBp
— IRCC (@CitImmCanada) January 28, 2019
Matthew Genest, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, says an initial analysis shows no technical problems with the system.
He says anti-bot features were also used to ensure all applications were legitimate and not from automated computer programs grabbing spots faster than humans could.
Genest says with over 100,000 people competing for 27,000 spots, there was simply more demand than there were spaces.
But immigration lawyer Clifford McCarten is among many now raising concern about the fairness of access to the program, as only those with reliable Internet access, quick typing skills and good understanding of English or French would have had any hope of success.
Another one that doesn’t get the point! I had 4 computers available on the twitter page to catch the link for the application! When I finally did I applied from one of them in less than 2 minutes and the session was closed I never had 4 sessions open! What are you talking about?!
— 𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀 𝐉𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇 (@Patricia_J) January 28, 2019
It should not be based on whoever clicks in first or not. It should be an all around year process that once you meet the criteria then you can apply! That way it saves all this mess that has created the last few years. This is my opinion.
— 𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀 𝐉𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇 (@Patricia_J) January 28, 2019