Canada has just held a new Express Entry draw, inviting 341 candidates with provincial nominations.
This is the seventh draw targeting Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) recipients from the federal Express Entry system since special coronavirus measures went into place on March 18. Canada has been alternating between holding Express Entry draws targeting PNP and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates.
PNP candidates in the Express Entry pool are awarded an additional 600 points on top of their original human capital score. This is why the minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score requirement was 743 to receive Invitations to Apply (ITA) in this draw. Without the additional points from the provincial nomination, invited candidates would have had a human capital score of 143.
PNPs have been active over the past few weeks, with invitation rounds taking place in most Canadian provinces.
Combined, the provinces have issued more than 2000 invitations to apply for a provincial nomination for permanent residence since the start of May.
June is shaping up to be another busy month for PNPs, with some notable developments expected from various provinces. In recent days, Ontario, Manitoba and B.C have already held PNP draws.
Unlike PNP draw, those targeting CEC candidates typically have a much lower CRS cutoff. The last CEC-only draw invited candidates with CRS scores of only 440, the lowest requirement for these candidates since January 2019.
A tie-break rule was applied in this draw. All candidates with a CRS score of at least 743 who submitted their profile before April 14, 2020, at 13:25:51 UTC, received an ITA in this round.
Draws dates have also become more unpredictable. Earlier in the year, all-program draws that covered Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP), and CEC candidates, happened every two weeks. Now that Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is holding targeted draws, they may happen days or hours apart.
So far immigration targets are on course to exceed last year’s levels. Even with travel restrictions in place, there have still been more ITAs issued this year than at the same time in 2019. As of today, June 10, a total of 42,441 principal applicants have been invited to apply for permanent residence in 2020.
Canadian immigration is managed by the federal government. Express Entry is the government’s system for managing immigration applications for three economic-class programs: Federal Skilled Worker, Federal Skilled Trades, and Canadian Experience Class.
The people who are eligible for one of these programs submit their profile into the Express Entry pool, where they are given a CRS score based on their human capital factors such as age, work experience, education, and language ability in English or French.
The highest-ranked candidates are then invited to apply for permanent residence through regular Express Entry draws.