A big week for Canadian immigration

It has been a busy week for Canadian immigration. In addition to two Express Entry draws and multiple Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws, Canada announced six new immigration streams that will offer international graduates, essential workers and French speakers a pathway to permanent residence.

Canada announces 6 new immigration programs

Essential workers, international student graduates and French speakers may be eligible to become permanent residents through one of six new immigration programs launching this May.

Three of the new programs will accept up to 90,000 applications for permanent residence. Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will accept:

20,000 applications from temporary workers in health care;
30,000 applications from temporary workers in other selected essential occupations;
40,000 applications from international students who graduated from a Canadian educational institution.

The other three programs are aimed at French-speaking applicants. These programs do not have an intake cap. The new policies apply to workers in 40 healthcare occupations as well as 95 other essential jobs.

The six new streams begin accepting applications on May 6, 2021 and will run until November 5, 2021.

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IELTS and CELPIP websites crash and then start working again

Two English language test providers saw their websites crash due to a sudden increase in demand. Both IELTS and CELPIP had technical difficulties on April 15, 2021, just one day after Canada announced that six new immigration programs will start accepting applications on May 9, 2021.

The urgency of applicants may be due to the fact that there exists an intake cap for three of the six immigration programs (the other three are aimed at French speakers).

Canadian immigration applicants are required to submit their language test results as part of their application. Workers need a Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) of 4 and graduates need a CLB of 5.

However, essential workers, international student graduates and other candidates who wish to benefit from the new immigration programs are now able to register for a language test. Both the IELTS and CELPIP websites are back online.

IRCC held two Express Entry draws for PNP and CEC candidates

IRCC held two Express Entry draws last week.

The first draw, held on April 14, invited 266 Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates to apply for permanent residence. Candidates needed a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 753. This may seem like a high requirement. However, PNP candidates are awarded an additional 600 CRS points. This means that candidates only needed a core CRS score of 153.

The second draw, held on April 16, invited 6,000 Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates. These candidates needed to have a CRS score of just 417. This draw was the second largest in Express Entry history.

Canada has now invited a total of 55,390 immigration candidates to apply for permanent residence so far this year. By the same time last year, Canada had invited 30,400 candidates.

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Ontario holds Tech draw

Ontario invited 528 Express Entry candidates to apply for a provincial nomination for permanent residence under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) on April 13. Candidates needed to have tech experience to receive an invitation.

Candidates were invited through the province’s Express Entry Human Capital Priorities Stream. They must have had a profile in Canada’s federal Express Entry system and have a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of between 456 and 467. They must have also had work experience in an eligible occupation.

British Columbia holds large provincial draw

British Columbia invited 452 immigration candidates in four Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws on April 13.

Invitations were issued through the Skills Immigration (SI) and Express Entry B.C. (EEBC) streams under the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP). Candidates who received an invitation were from the Skilled Worker, International Graduate and the Entry Level and Semi-Skilled sub-categories of the SI and EEBC streams.

The minimum provincial scores required for one of the draws were between 79 and 95 points. A total of 420 immigration candidates were invited through this draw. Another 21 candidates were issued invitations through another draw that specifically targeted retail and wholesale trade managers (NOC 0621) and food service managers (NOC 0631).

The remaining 11 candidates were invited through Entrepreneur Immigration streams.

Prince Edward Island invites candidates in provincial draw

Prince Edward Island invited a total of 156 immigration candidates through the Prince Edward Island Provincial Nominee Program (PEI PNP). Of the 156 invitations, 140 went to Express Entry and Labour Impact candidates. A further 16 invitations went to Business Impact candidates with a minimum score of 75.

Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) such as this one allows Canadian provinces and territories to invite immigration candidates to apply for a provincial nomination for permanent residence. These immigration candidates typically meet the province's labour market needs.

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