This week was a busy one for Canadian immigration. The country announced 6 new streams for immigration, held two Express Entry draws and multiple Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws. The new streams will help international graduates, French speakers, and essential workers to come and settle in Maple country.
New immigration streams in Canada
French speakers, essential workers, and international students have new opportunities to get permanent residence (PR) in Canada. The announced streams are expected to launch in May.
Up to 90,000 applicants are expected to be accepted under 3 of the new streams. Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has mentioned numbers of the 3 planned streams.
They will accept:
- Twenty thousand applicants in the health care sector (temporary workers).
- Thirty thousand applicants in selected essential occupations (temporary workers).
- Forty thousand applicants who completed their graduation from an institution in Canada.
The rest of the 3 streams are focused on Francophone applicants and do not have any intake cap. All the new streams are applicable for 40 healthcare occupations’ workers and 95 essential professions.
The new streams will start from 6th May and have the last date as 5th November.
IELTS and CELPIP websites crash
IELTS and CELPIP’s websites crashed on 15th April due to a sudden increase in traffic after the announcement of new streams on 14th.
The urgency can be accounted for limited slot availability because only 3 streams are open for all, and the rest 3 are focused on Francophone applicants.
The applicants are needed to submit their test results for language proficiency while applying. For workers, the Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) is set to 4, and for students, it’s 5.
The websites are back online, and everyone can apply for the language test.
Two draws for CEC and PNP candidates.
IRCC conducted two draws for Express Entry in the last week.
The first one was conducted on 14th April, and it was for PNP candidates. They required a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of at least 753 to get the invite. The CRS score might seem a bit high, but PNP candidates get additional 600 points, so they only needed a 153 score in reality.
The second one was done on 16th April, and it was for CEC candidates. They needed a 417 score to get the invite. Around 6000 candidates received the invitation that day. That was the second-largest draw conduction since the initiation of Express Entry.
The country has a tally of 55,390 invites for PR. If we compare it to last year, at this time, the total stood at 30,400.
Tech Draw in Ontario
Ontario has Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP). The province conducted a tech draw on 13th April and sent 528 invites for the nomination as it was a tech drawing, so the focus was only on tech professionals.
Express Entry Human Capital Priorities Stream was used to invite the candidates. Further, there is a small list of requirements to become eligible for the invite. The candidates need to have a profile on the federal portal of Express Entry and should have a score of 456-467. They also should have some experience in their field of expertise.
Provincial Draw in British Columbia
The province conducted four PNP draws on 13th April. They sent 452 invites to immigration applicants.
Skills Immigration (SI) and Express Entry B.C. (EEBC) under British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) were used to send out the invites. The candidates were from the International Graduate, Skilled Worker, and the Entry level and Semi-skilled subcategories of the EEBC and SI plans.
One draw had 79 and 95 points as a minimum provincial score requirement, and 420 invites were sent through this. Retail and wholesale trade managers (NOC 0621) and food service managers (NOC 0631) were specifically selected for another one, and 21 invites were sent. The rest of the 11 candidates were from Entrepreneur Immigration streams.
Prince Edward Island also conducted a provincial draw.
The province has Prince Edward Island Provincial Nominee Program (PEI PNP). In the draw, they sent out 156 invites to immigration applicants. 140 of the invites were for Labour Impact and Express Entry pool. The rest of the 16 invites were sent to Business Impact applicants.
The Canadian provinces and territories have rights to Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). That lets provinces invite potential permanent residents to apply for nomination. Most of them meet the province’s labour market requirements.
