Re-opening of Northwest Territories Nominee Program postponed

The government of the Northwest Territories has announced that it will not be re-opening the Northwest Territory Nominee Program (NTNP) on January 16, 2025, as had been planned.

Prior to this announcement, the NTNP had been set to open on January 16 and had planned to accept 100 applications for territorial nomination for Canadian permanent residence in the first intake period.

The territory said that it's committed to re-opening the NTNP, and that it intends to announce the revised re-opening date "as soon as possible."

Foreign nationals seeking Canadian permanent residence through the NTNP will have to wait until the program re-opens prior to submitting applications for territorial nomination.

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The territory attributed this postponement to the Canadian federal government having cut the allocation to the NTNP. Last year, the NTNP had been allocated 300 nominations for permanent residence by the federal government. On January 15, the territory received notification from the federal government that its allocation for 2025 had been reduced to 150 nominations.

The territorial government has decided to postpone re-opening the NTNP so it can re-assess its plans for the program for 2025, taking into account the decreased allocation of nomination from the federal government.

The federal government's reduction of allocations to the NTNP align with its overall reduction of allocations to permanent resident landings targets for the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) in 2025.

In the most recent Immigration Levels Plan, announced on October 24, 2025, the federal government set a target of 55,000 landings for the PNP program, a 50% reduction from the target of 110,000 landings allocated to the PNP in 2024.

The federal government cut the PNP program significantly more than it cut overall immigration levels, which it reduced by only 20%.

At the same time, the federal government increased the landings allocation for the federal economic immigration programs managed through Express Entry, up to 124,680 for 2025, compared to 110,770 for 2024. The federal government intends to allocate the bulk of these federal economic permanent resident admissions to the "In-Canada Focus" and "Federal Economic Priorities" categories.

The "Federal Economic Priorities" category includes French-speaking immigrants, and immigrants with occupations in healthcare and in the trades.

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