Canada’s new TR to PR pathway has launched

Canada’s immigration department has already launched its one-time measure to grant permanent residence to 33,000 foreign workers.

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said in an interview that the program had been launched quietly, with more details to come in April, as reported by the Toronto Star on March 6, 2026.

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The program was first announced in the federal budget last November, then confirmed in the federal government’s annual immigration levels plan.

According to the government website, the one-time measure will take place over two years, and is aimed at temporary foreign workers “working in Canada in specific in-demand sectors,” with a focus on those living in rural areas.

As of the time of writing, the government has not announced specific criteria for eligibility or instructions on how to apply.

Foreign nationals planning on applying to this pathway may wish to prepare documents in advance, such as language tests and proof of education, as described in our article on documents to prepare for the launch of this pathway.

The new TR to PR pathway comes as a large number of temporary residents are facing the expiry of their status.

The majority of temporary residents in Canada have status through work permits and/or study permits, which are always issued on a temporary basis with a set expiry date.

Depending on a foreign national's situation, they may be able to apply for an extension or renewal of their work permit or study permit. If they are not eligible to apply for an extension, or their application for extension is rejected, they are required to leave Canada at the end of the authorized period of their stay.

Measures to reduce temporary resident levels

Since January of 2024, the Canadian federal government has been dead-set on a course to reduce overall temporary resident levels by reining in the issuance of study permits and work permits, with the goal of reducing temporary resident levels to less than 5% of Canada's population by the end of 2027.

The reduction in temporary resident levels, according to the government's plan, will come from a combination of the transitioning of existing temporary residents to permanent resident status, along with the departure from Canada of temporary residents whose status expires.

In January of 2024, the government put in place the first annual cap on study permit applications and made it so that graduates of post-secondary programs delivered through curriculum licensing agreements would no longer be eligible for post-graduation work permits (PGWPs).

More measures came in the summer and fall.

In September of 2024, the government imposed a moratorium on the processing of labour market impact assessments (LMIAs )under the low-wage stream of the temporary foreign worker program (TFWP) in regions with high unemployment, preventing employers and foreign workers in affected regions from initiating the process to apply for a new permit, or to renew an existing permit, through the low-wage stream of the TFWP.

Also in September of 2024, the government announced major restrictions on the issuance of post-graduation work permits (PGWPs) and spousal open work permits (SOWPs), with the intention of reducing the issuance of work permits by hundreds of thousands over the following three years.

In October of 2024, the government included targets for temporary resident admissions in its annual Immigration Levels Plan–the first time it had ever established targets for temporary residents.

Eligibility for PGWPs was limited, from November 2024 onward, to graduates from study programs linked to in-demand fields, such as healthcare and the skilled trades, with an exemption to this field of study requirement for graduates of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs.

PGWP applicants were then also required to meet minimum language proficiency requirements through official language tests.

Spousal open work permits (SOWPs) issued to spouses of international students, starting in January of 2025, were restricted to spouses of students enrolled in doctoral programs, master's programs of at least 16 months in duration, or in select professional programs such as engineering, nursing, law, medicine, and dentistry.

Also starting in January of 2025, SOWPs issued to spouses of foreign workers were limited to spouses of workers in the highest-skilled occupations (TEER 0 and 1), and to spouses of medium-skilled (TEER 2 and 3) workers working in select, in-demand occupations, in fields such as healthcare, construction, and natural resources.

The suite of measures has been effective, according to Statistics Canada's quarterly population estimates, and to numbers published by the immigration department on its temporary residents in Canada page.

In 2025, Canada saw first a flatlining of its population growth, followed by slight declines in population—the first ever declines in Canada's population since modern record keeping began in 1971, with the exception of the slight decline in Q4 of 2020, which had been driven by the COVID pandemic.

The year 2025 also marked major declines in admissions of international students and temporary foreign workers.

Relative to the year prior, international student admissions in 2025 fell by 60%: from 293,000 to 115,000.

Annual admissions of temporary foreign workers dropped by 47%: from 393,00 to 184,000.

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