The Canadian Experience Class (CEC) contributed to 85 percent of the total accepted immigration applications this year.
The latest IRCC data suggested how the federal department is prioritizing different applications under its economic immigration programs.
The statistics showed how many permanent residence applications were accepted by the IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada) submitted under the Express Entry system.
Express Entry is a fast-track immigration pathway to Canada, which helps economic class skilled candidates to apply for permanent residency in the country. Candidates who meet all the eligibility requirements can submit their online profile for the Express Entry program on the IRCC’s website. Once the profile is submitted, candidates receive a CRS (Comprehensive Ranking System) score. This score is calculated based on multiple human capital factors, such as age, language skills, work experience, and educational qualifications. IRCC holds Express Entry draws every two weeks, and then the applicants with the highest scores are issued an invitation. Candidates invited through this draw are required to submit a complete application within 60 days after receiving an invitation to apply (ITA). If IRCC accepts the application, the candidate will be issued a Confirmation of Permanent Residence (COPR), which authorizes the candidate to officially land in Canada as a permanent resident. A COPR holder already residing in Canada as a temporary resident can convert their legal status to permanent residence through the landing process. Furthermore, it helps a COPR holder landing in Canada from abroad to become a permanent resident.
During this pandemic, Express Entry has significantly changed its policies. This year, the federal department is aiming to help 401,000 new permanent residents land in the country. At the beginning of this year, the department emphasized more on the transition of more temporary residents to the permanent residence so as to achieve the immigration target. Due to this, the department only issued invitations to candidates only through the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) under the Express Entry system. This is a major shift in the department’s policy, as, before the pandemic, Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) candidates contributed to around 45 percent of successful
Express Entry applications. These temporary changes in the policies are implemented considering the two major reasons as below:
- IRCC stated that almost 90% of total CEC applicants are already residing in Canada, which will help them to proceed with their permanent residence landings this year without any COVID-specific disruptions.
- IRCC is still inviting applications through Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), which will help provinces to address their workforce requirements.
Another major change noted in the shift of policy is that IRCC is no more inviting the highest-ranking candidates in the Express Entry system, but the department is issuing invitations to the highest-scoring CEC and PNP applicants. As a result, the overall CRS cut-off scores have reduced, as the department has shifted all of its focus on inviting more CEC candidates to achieve its immigration target in 2021. The Express Entry draw held on 13th February has been the most significant draw of 2021, as IRCC issued invitations to 27,332 CEC candidates to apply for permanent residence, with a cut-off score of only 75 points. To give you more insight into this draw, this was around six times larger compared to the previous record. Furthermore, the cut-off score for this draw was almost 400 points lower compared to that of the usual draws held before the pandemic.
The IRCC data reflects that this year, CEC is contributing to almost 85 percent of all the accepted Express Entry applications. The federal department of IRCC sent out COPRs to 108,860 CEC candidates between the months of January and October. Moreover, the department sent out 12,514 COPRs to candidates who applied through PNPs, which is around 10 percent of the total number of COPRs issued under the Express Entry system in 2021.
During this year, the most negative impact has been faced by the FSWP candidates, as only 6,975 COPRs were issued to applicants under this program, which is 5 percent of all COPRs sent out to the Express Entry candidates in 2021. This number is almost 9 times lesser compared to the usual numbers.
The first half of this year was comparatively slow for the IRCC, as the department had only 7,000 to 10,000 approved applications every month till May. However, this number almost doubled up in the month of June, and IRCC has not slacked off since then. In the second half of the year, IRCC has maintained high processing of applications, mostly benefitting the CEC applicants. Moreover, IRCC has also increased the processing of PNP applications, but it is still less compared to the numbers in January. The statistics further reflected that IRCC had reallocated all its resources in processing as many CEC applications as it can in order to achieve its 2021 immigration goal of 401,000 permanent residents.
Also, in the months of September and October, IRCC has made a little improvement in the count of processed FSWP applications, as there were 600 finalized FSWP applications for each month.
IRCC suggests that as of now, they have a total permanent and temporary residence applications backlog of 1.8 million, out of which only Express Entry contributed 100,000 applications till 27th October. Supposing IRCC continues to process the applications at its current pace, the department will be able to process all 48,000 CEC applications by January next year. The department indicated that prior to resuming its ITAs to FSWP and CEC applications, they are aiming to reduce their Express Entry backlog by more than half. During this year, IRCC arranged 27 CEC draws, but these draws have been at a halt since 14th September. On the other hand, the department did not hold any draws for FSWP candidates since 23rd December 2020. The data showed that until 25th October 2021, there were around 165,000 FSWP applications in the Express Entry pool, accounting for around 85 percent of total Express Entry applications.
It can be concluded that the shift in the policies has somewhat worked favorably for the IRCC, as they are proceeding well towards the achievement of their immigration target set for 2021. Until October, the department has landed around 314,000 permanent residents this year, and over the recent months, the IRCC has been landing more than 45,000 candidates every month. Currently, the department is in the process of planning the new strategy for Express Entry for next year, as well as; they are determining the 2022 immigration levels for the country. We’ll be hearing a few other major announcements over the coming months, including the issuance of mandate letters to all federal ministers. Furthermore, by 10th February, the immigration minister, Sean Fraser, will disclose Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025. The mandate letter to the immigration minister and the levels plan will throw more light on the IRCC’s policy priorities for 2022 and the following years.
