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Immigration Minister Lena Diab has extended the pause on new applications through the Private Sponsorship for Refugees Program for another 12 months as the department works to clear its backlog.
New ministerial instructions were published in the Canada Gazette on Friday, along with a notice on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website.
The pause was to be lifted at the end of December but will now be in place for another year, until Dec. 31, 2026.
This pause applies to refugee sponsorships submitted by community organizations or groups of five or more individuals. These sponsors have to support the refugee for one year after they arrive or until they can support themselves, whichever comes first.
Applications that were submitted before the pause took effect on Nov. 29, 2024 will still be processed, according to the notice.
Gauri Sreenivasan, Canadian Council for Refugees co-executive director, called the extension a “cruel blow for refugees” in a phone interview with The Canadian Press.
“This decision basically denies Canadians the ability to exercise our own generosity. And in that way, it’s really tone deaf to who we actually are as a country,” she said.
“I mean, government’s really losing touch with who we are.”
Sreenivasan said refugee sponsors were preparing to submit new applications in 2026, when the pause was originally scheduled to end.
“The government sent a clear signal last year this was a one-year freeze, and they consulted with CCR and members about what would be the best step forward,” she said.
“The top message that we sent was you must unfreeze this program. You cannot continue a zero cap. That is our top recommendation.”
An emailed statement from Laura Blondeau, Diab’s communications director, said that demand for the private sponsorship program created long wait times and uncertainty for applicants.
“By extending the temporary pause for new applications for two of the program’s streams, we will be able to move toward more predictable processing times,” Blondeau said.
She concluded that the recently updated immigration levels plan is meant to help bring sustainability back to the system while keeping up Canada’s commitment to offering “help to the truly vulnerable.”
When the pause was announced last year, immigration officials said there were approximately 90,000 private refugee sponsorships awaiting processing.
The latest immigration levels plan shows the government plans to resettle 16,000 privately sponsored refugees annually over the next three years. That’s a reduction from last year’s levels plan, which sought to bring in 23,000 private refugees.
Internal documents obtained by The Canadian Press through the access-to-information law showed immigration department officials suggested the freeze on these applications could be in place until December 2028 to clear the backlog.
Sreenivasan said extending the freeze another 12 months — despite the department thinking the backlog won’t be cleared until 2027 — suggests a lack of long-term planning.
“They have once again indicated that this is a one-year decision. And so it undermines the both trust and credibility in the system.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2025.
— With files from Dylan Robertson.
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