The secretary of Sean Fraser has announced that $1.5 million funds will be allocated by the Canadian Government for the primary purpose to assist immigrants in securing and working in the health care department of Canada.
The primary objective of the allocation of funds to this sector is to encourage the copartnership and spread of information in the healthcare sector and to assist international healthcare graduates in faster processing of their applications.
An online platform dedicated to the international health care professionals, named National Newcomer Navigation Network which has been launched by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in 2019. The objective of starting this initiative was to target health care professionals who look forward to working in Canadian provinces.
The CHEO is a medium through which professionals working in the health and social service sector can gain accurate knowledge regarding the services offered by them. The National Newcomer Navigation Network works to help international health care professionals in securing a desirable jobs in their respective fields in Canada.
Apart from offering assistance to professionals in securing a job and working in Canada, it also looks for an efficient way through which funds could be utilized in a way so that N4 can be designed as a platform to provide all the relevant information regarding the educational qualification required as eligibility, and credentials required for immigrating to any Canadian province and Quebec.
Immigrants still constitute a major part of communities living in Canada which means that their inclusion is necessary to tackle the struggle of labor shortage, the country is facing. Additionally, it will help by a major contribution of more experienced, diverse newcomers to the Canadian labor market.
IRCC’s settlement program provides an adequate amount of funds to invest in projects that could lead to future programming. The IRCC has allocated a total of $1,02 billion funds for settlement services this year, which is 11% more than the funds allocated in the previous year.
The country is facing a huge shortage of professionals in the health sector as the statistical data reveals that it is looking forward to filling ten lakh job vacancies, out of which, 1,54,500 are from the healthcare sector.
Express entry programs specialized for healthcare professionals
Healthcare professionals can generally apply for any of the 2 Express Entry streams, FSWP, and CEC. The Express Entry system is a virtual setup of the Canadian Government to execute all the procedures related to the above-mentioned streams. The applicants are evaluated through a CRS scoring method, under which factors like the study program, age of the applicant, and level of language proficiency are taken into consideration to mark a candidate.
The draws of Express Entry are regularly held twice in 7 days to grant the status of Canadian permanent residence to the top scorers. Although the draws of both CEC and FSWP were temporarily stopped during the pandemic but will be resumed from the early days of July.
PNP for health care professionals
Almost all the Canadian provinces have been assigned the responsibility to nominate eligible candidates to grant provincial nomination, although the final decision of either selection or disapproval of candidates still lies in the hands of the IRCC. Various provinces conduct specific PNP draws for healthcare professionals whereas others might conduct draws with general eligibility criteria still targeting professionals in this sector.
Several provinces conduct more than one PNP draw to target and invite professionals working in the health care sector. Applicants who qualify in getting the invitation for provincial nomination get their score increased by an addition of 600 bonus points to the total score.
Below is the list of all available PNP draws of different Canadian provinces to target the professionals working in the health care sector
- The province of British Columbia conducts Skills Immigration and Express Entry to target professionals working in the healthcare sector.
- The province of Ontario conducts Human Capital Priorities Stream to target the entry of healthcare professionals in their province.
- The province of Nova Scotia invites healthcare professionals through special draws like Nova Scotia’s Labor Market Priorities Stream.
- The province of New Brunswick conducts special draws like Internationally Educated Nurses to invite potential nurses with French or English as primary languages.
- The province of Saskatchewan conducts draws like the International Health Worker EOI pool which specifically targets potential and interested healthcare workers.
The province of Quebec
The province of Quebec does not coherently work with the provincial immigration programs conducted by other provinces, instead, it conducts its own separate PNP draws with different eligibility criteria.
The province targets healthcare professionals mainly through two programs- Quebec Experience Program and Regular Skilled Worker Program, and both of the programs demand candidates who are proficient in the French language, as it is the official language of Quebec.
Caregiver pilot programs
Another stream that targets the grant of Canadian permanent residency to caregivers are- Home Support Worker Pilot and Home Child Care Provider Pilot, under both the programs a candidate, must meet the eligibility criteria and must possess a valid work experience in occupations listed in NOC codes 4411 and 4412.
Both the immigration programs mentioned above grant an open work permit to the potential and qualifying candidates so that they engage themselves in work opportunities on a temporary basis.
Below are the mentioned eligibility requirements a candidate must need to qualify, for in order to get a status of Canadian Permanent Residency-
- To qualify for the eligibility criteria of Canadian Permanent residence, the candidate must possess a valid work experience of 2 years out of 3 years before the submission of the application.
- Also, the eligibility criteria demand for candidates has at least a minimum score of CLB 5.
- The candidate must have completed their post-graduate study program.
- Apart from all the above requirements, a candidate must qualify for all the admissibility checks.
