Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) in parent & grandparent sponsorship applications and what to do if the sponsor doesn't meet MNI

Canadian citizens and permanent residents can sponsor their parents and grandparents to Canada under the Family Class. The program is currently lotter-based, which means a sponsor must be selected before they can file the sponsorship application.

The requirements this type of sponsorship are fairly straightforward:

• establishing the parent (or grandparent) to child relationship between the sponsor and applicant(s); and

• the sponsor meeting the Minimum Necessary Income (MNI) for the program

The MNI required for a particular application depends on the family size. This is calculated by including: the sponsor, the sponsor’s spouse/partner, any dependent children of the sponsor, and the applicant(s). For example, the family size for a married sponsor with two children who is sponsoring both parents would be 6. The applicant parents might still have dependent children of their own (defined as any child under the age of 22 and not married/in a common-law relationship), who can be included as accompanying them to Canada. Those dependent children (the sponsor’s siblings) would add to the family size count regardless of whether they are coming to Canada or not. A sponsor’s spouse or common-law partner can be a co-sponsor if the sponsor cannot meet MNI on their own.

The current MNI requirements are as follows:

The MNI required for sponsoring parents & grandparents is 30% higher than the MNI for other relatives. The undertaking period is also much longer, at 20 years. The MNI for 2020 was reduced because of the impact on many sponsors’ incomes due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Updated figures were not released in 2022 as the program had no draws this year.

The most frequent question we get asked by sponsors is what they should do if they do not meet the MNI required when filing their expression of interest, or if there is a change in circumstances (eg. the birth of a child, lay off, etc) which affects their ability to continue meeting the MNI requirement. We always tell clients to file the application anyway. Why? Because you can always ask for humanitarian and compassionate consideration (H&C) to overcome deficiency in meeting the MNI. That request can be made to the Visa Officer directly. If the Visa Officer refuses the application on financial grounds despite the H&C request, the sponsor has a right of appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division ("IAD"), which considers the case fresh (ie. they are not bound by what the Visa Officer decided). The IAD will consider H&C factors, and has the advantage of hearing from all the parties, whereas the Visa Officer usually only considers paper-based H&C requests.

One important factor for the IAD to consider is whether the sponsor has met the MNI requirements in recent years. The basic requirement is that the sponsor must meet MNI for the 3 years that precede the filing of the sponsorship application. Therefore, any increases in income are not relevant to the basic analysis, but they do certainly factor into an H&C analysis. In cases where the Appellant meets the MNI at the time of appeal, the IAD has regularly adopted the Jugpall (IAD T98-00716) test, which imposes a lower threshold for granting relief as compared to a fulsome H&C analysis and the application of the Chirwa principles. In such cases, the IAD only requires a “mildly compelling case” to warrant granting discretionary relief:

The Appeal Division has consistently applied an approach which requires the degree of compelling circumstances to be commensurate with the legal obstacle to admissibility in order to justify granting discretionary relief. Thus, in cases where changes in the circumstances of the case by the time it gets to appeal are such that the original basis for a finding of inadmissibility has been overcome, a mildly compelling case may be sufficient to warrant granting discretionary relief. […] [A] complete surmounting of the substance of the original ground of inadmissibility weighs very heavily in the Appeal Division’s assessment of the compassionate or humanitarian circumstances of the case. (Emphasis added)

[…]

In the context of cases where Parliament’s concerns with admissibility have been met, it may not be necessary to look for overwhelming circumstances in order to grant special relief. The values of quick and fair adjudication would not be served by forcing the appellant to start the sponsorship process all over again […].

Often times, if the sponsor is meeting MNI at the time of the appeal, especially if they have done so for the three years preceding the appeal and will likely continue to meet or exceed the MNI, the matter is resolved during an informal Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) meeting.

Even if the MNI continues to be deficient, the IAD can still allow the appeal if there are sufficient H&C grounds to justify that outcome. H&C factors are vast and very case specific. The importance of identifying all H&C aspects of case, and properly presenting them to the IAD is critical to a successful appeal.

If you have questions about the parent/grandparent sponsorship program, or you need help related to an appeal, don’t hesitate to contact us.