I stay in Canada. My parents are from India and my in-laws are European. My in-laws basically pack their suitcase and turn up to visit us. Meanwhile my parents had their visa rejected twice, we spent close to $10k on legal fees and lost couple of flight tickets (can't apply for visa unless you show flight tickets but visa is not guaranteed) and my brother was never ever allowed to visit us. And it's extremely common for other skilled immigrants (even if they are citizens) in Canada as well to have their family visit visa refused.

Paradoxically, US tourist visa was the easiest for all of us.

When I hear people complain about how the "Government prioritizes immigrants over the local people", it's just mind boggling how they come to this conclusion?

I wasn't aware that tourist visas for parents in Canada can be very difficult. I was planning on applying for PR to Canada precisely because I thought it'd be easier to have parents over there (what is this thing called a Super Visa?) - does this change if you have a PR?

It doesn't change even if you are a citizen. Super Visa takes a very long time and is for longer duration. All in all its a draw of the luck, give it a shot.

Since last year getting a Canadian visa doesn't require any tickets being booked. You get them for a good ten years as well.

Source : Parents, siblings and I went to Canada for a trip. They applied in India and I applied abroad.

Sure but one of the clause is "satisfy an officer that you will leave Canada at the end of your stay" and the best way to do it is via a ticket especially if you are retired/self-employed. At the end of the day everything is a crap shoot and it depends on the visa officer's mood. The whole process of biometrics, documents, evidence, itinerary , tickets, forms took me 4 months for a two weeks visit of my parents to see me.

It's highly enraging and I agree with parent poster that birth country heavily restricts their movement even if they have the resources or are skilled.

My Vietnamese gf was just approved for a Visa to visit the US, so we figured lets also try Canada since US was no problem... and then denied to Canada for exactly that reason. Her response was priceless... 'Why would I want to live in Canada?'

At least in VN, you pay a broker a couple hundred to supply the paperwork and the deal is that if denied, the broker does the next attempt for free. We will just try again after her trip to the US. The whole point at least for Vietnamese is just to get a record of travel (and coming back) so that it makes it easier to get visas to other countries.

Freedom of movement will happen when the countries are on equal footing. India has a lot of problems to solve before that can be a reality, and it can only do so with the help of its best and brightest.

Absolutely fair point, and my comment was not a diss at the immigration system, but at that reality itself.