Canada Immigration 2016: Year of opportunities

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It was almost a year ago when Canada adopted a new immigration policy, changing the selection criteria of new skilled immigrants.

Whereas there used to be a large variety of programmes for each applicant, but now with the express entry program there is only one system through which anybody would have to apply, and where a minimum number of points had to be collected in order to be invited for application.

The Express Entry system did not become the only opportunity, and provincial programmes came forward with their various routes, aligned or not with the federal system.

In the meantime, sponsorship of spouse remained an option for vested immigrants. Emirates 2015 looks back at 2015 and sheds a light on what the early months of 2016 has to offer.

The Express Entry system

Since January this year the federal government of Canada operates the Express Entry system, an application bank where potential candidates are ranked according to points awarded for personal and professional qualifications.

It soon became clear that the number of points which was the main concern for applicants, will be set as a benchmark. If the applicant did not meet this benchmark, he would not be considered for the draw and could only wait until the benchmark would decrease or the applicant will increase his/her accumulated points.

It is important to mention that the benchmark has been reduced through 2015 draws. Although the benchmark went down, it has recently been on a steady decrease, which means that applicants with lower points may also be noticed next year. For example “The CRS point requirement has decreased for each of the last four Express Entry draws since October 23, from 489 to 484, then to 472, and the latest cut-off point of 461,” wrote the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).

Simultaneously, the number of applicants invited to apply is increasing, with a high number of applicants expected to be accepted next year. “The number of invitations issued per round is expected to increase as the pre-Express Entry inventory of applications is finalized,” said a CIC policy analyse.

In the latest draw 1,451 invitations were sent, while the total number of invitations so far stands at 29,560 over 22 draws.

The provincial programmes

Every province and territory with the exception of Nunavut runs its own immigration programme, called the Provincial Nominee Programme (PNP).

While it is possible to apply through a PNP alone, many of the provinces aligned there programmes with the federal system this year, requiring the applicant to apply through the Express Entry system, while showing interest in that particular programme.

According to the CIC there has been a rush of PNP invitations issued some months after the Express Entry system was launched, as many PNP’s were launched shortly after that.

Some programmes were so popular that the intake period had to be shortened, as the application threshold had been reached before the deadline. This was the case in Alberta and British Columbia.

In other provinces the large number of applicants led to several intake periods; Saskatchewan re-opened its Skilled Worker programme 4 times with the threshold reached within days each time, and Nova Scotia re-opened its programme as well.

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