Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser today announced various measures to accelerate immigration to the country.
Canada will restart Express Entry draws and will restart invitations for candidates to apply for permanent residence starting in early July. Express Entry program is a points-based system through which skilled workers in Canada and abroad are invited to apply for permanent residency if they meet certain thresholds in work experience, education and language skills.
Canada paused Express Entry draws – the system which selects qualifying applications from a pool of interested skilled workers – due to COVID-19-related restrictions and delays. The federal government says invitations to apply will resume in early July, and the vast majority of new applications will be processed within the 6-month service standard.
In addition, Fraser also announced a new temporary policy that will extend work permits for recent international graduates. Those graduates with a post-graduation work permit expiring between January and December 2022 will qualify for an additional open work permit of up to 18 months. The process will start in the summer of this year. The government says that they are exploring a simplified, expeditious process for this, and details will be made available soon.
Other policy changes announced today include:
- Applicants will no longer be required to remain in Canada while their application is being processed.
- Applicants who apply for an open work permit while waiting for their permanent residence application to be finalized will be able to get work permits valid until the end of 2024 to ensure that all permanent residence applications will be finalized before applicants will need to apply to extend their temporary status again.
- Immediate family members who are outside Canada and who were included in a principal applicant’s permanent residence application will be eligible for their own open work permit.
According to the news release, Canada welcomed over 113,000 new permanent residents in the first quarter of 2022.
The federal government last February announced a plan to bring in approximately 450,000 immigrants per year for the next 3 years.
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