Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In November 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Canada announced a new Super Visa program to facilitate reunification of immigrants in Canada with their aging parents who live outside of Canada. Limited information is available about how this new program affects the lives of immigrant families. We conducted a qualitative descriptive study to understand the experiences of older adults and their adult immigrant children with the Super Visa program. The study addresses the following research question: What are the experiences of immigrant families using the Super Visa program as an alternative process to facilitate family reunification? In total, nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted in Toronto with Chinese immigrants who had sponsored their parents, as well as parents who had come to Canada on a Super Visa. The findings revealed that the Super Visa program is helpful for family reunification because of its easier application process and higher approval rate. Participants noted that improvement to the program should include requiring fewer documents and less information from parents, making the application simpler, and providing more flexible and affordable options for private medical insurance. A Super Visa is a temporary visa, and as such, does not meet all the needs of immigrant families. However, it does appear to help facilitate family reunification, especially for families who cannot get a regular visa.