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Families looking to bring their parents or grandparents to Canada to help with children or for cultural or personal reasons were frustrated by the randomness of the lottery selection process and wanted a change, Gerami said.

But it’s important that the government is transparent about how this new system is run, she added.

“It still, to me, is going to be very difficult in terms of transparency to show who were the first 20,000 who applied,’ she said.

“People are going to say, ‘Why didn’t I get in? Are you going to publish how you selected the first 20,000?’ Because essentially it’s going to come down to seconds in a particular minute how many applicants send in an expression of interest.”

The government’s decision to increase the cap on this program comes as the result of persistently high demand. In 2017, just over 100,000 ‘interest to sponsor’ forms were filled out online, according to government data. Initially only 10,000 were invited to submit applications, but the government increased that number to 17,000 this year.

Gerami says she questions why there are caps on this program at all, considering the high level of interest and demand from individuals wishing to sponsor their family members.

“It’s still a quota system that is going to be very hard to expand and to cover all of the applicants,” she said.

“I think you’re still going to have the same issue in the sense that even if you make your best effort to get your form in and be in the first cut, you’re still trying out your luck.”

Hussen says there are caps on virtually all permanent residency immigration programs, which are determined in close consultation with provinces and territories.

He noted the cap on the parents and grandparents sponsorship program was at 5,000 when the Liberals took office in 2015, and will quadruple to 20,000 next year.

A major backlog for processing of these applications has also been reduced. In 2011, the inventory of applications had reached a peak of 167,000 applications. In June that number stood at 26,000.

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