Kenney softened the blow of the freeze by announcing his department is introducing super visas, which should take as little as eight weeks to process, he said.
Applications received now, he said, would end up at the back of the seven to eight year waitlist anyway.
"We ask those people to be patient, to use the new super visa that we're offering them so mom and dad can come and visit the grandkids in Canada for an extended period, allow us a bit of time to get the backlog down, speeding up the wait times, and open up the redesigned program in two years time," Kenney said.
He says he expects the wait time to be closer to four years, with about 80,000 people in the queue, when the program re-opens.
NDP Immigration critic Don Davies says the move isn't fair, especially without giving notice.
"I think there's an awful lot of people in this country who came to this country under rules that permitted them to sponsor their parents, and they're not going to be able to do so," he said.
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