Parents and Grandparents Program 2022 and Express Entry CRS score prospects

What is expected by the end of this year?

Parents and Grandparents Program 2022

Applicants will soon be able to sponsor their parents or grandparents for immigration to Canada under the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) 2022. Sponsors must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who is over 18 years old and whose income is over the minimum necessary for sponsorship. They also need to state that they are willing to support their parents or grandparents for 20 years (10 years for Quebec) by signing an undertaking.

Due to the pandemic, the IRCC invited only 40,000 Canadians to submit their application under PGP over the past two years. It is expected that the PGP 2022 process will be revealed when the application intake is announced available.

Express Entry CRS score may drop below 500

After IRCC resumed all-program Express Entry draws in July 2022, the minimum CRS has been steadily decreasing with each draw. The CRS score in the July 6 draw – the first draw after 18-month hiatus – was 557 while the most recent score on September 28 was 504. However, the score still remains high compared to the pre-pandemic figures when the CRS score was as low as between 450 and 500 points.

With the CRS score decreasing, the number of invitations has also been increasing. In the first several draws the ITAs number jumped by 250 each draw, but the most recent three draws saw an increase of 500 each time. All-program draws in 2020 before the pandemic invited between 3,400- 4,500 candidates each time.