Express Entry candidates who received a provincial nomination were invited in the new Express Entry round of invitations.

Canada invited 557 Express Entry candidates to apply for permanent residence on July 22, 2020.

Canada has now invited 54,357 immigration candidates so far this year.

Only candidates who had received a nomination from a Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) were invited in the latest draw, which is why the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut off was 687. This is the lowest CRS requirement for a PNP-specific draw so far in 2020.

All these candidates had previously received provincial nominations and were awarded an additional 600 points toward their overall score. This means candidates who received an Invitation to Apply (ITA) in this round would have needed a CRS score of at least 87 for their human capital without the provincial nomination.

This is the 9^th PNP-specific draw since Canada closed its borders back in March in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus. Since then, the rounds of invitation held through the Express Entry system have followed a pattern where draws will alternate between targeting candidates with provincial nominations, and those from the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). The first all-program draw since the start of the pandemic was held earlier this month.

Express Entry draws targeting CEC candidates generally have a much lower CRS cut off. In fact, CEC draws CRS cut-offs have been steadily declining since March, with the most recent CEC draw seeing the lowest CRS cut off of the year so far.

The most recent draws from the Express Entry pool saw Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) make use of the tie-break procedure that is used to rank candidates who have the same CRS score.

A tie-break rule was applied in this draw and the date and time used was November 11, 2019 at 8:51:21 UTC. This means that all candidates with a CRS score above 687 as well as those candidates with scores of 687 who submitted their profile before this date and time, received an ITA in this invitation round.

Despite the fact that IRCC has moved away from its usual all-program draw schedule, which takes place every two weeks on Wednesdays, Canada remains on pace to achieve its Express Entry target of 85,800 ITAs in 2020, with 54,357 ITAs issued so far this year, compared with 45,400 at this time in 2019.

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.

Express Entry candidates with scores below CRS cut-offs have a variety of potential options to improve their score, the most valuable of which is a provincial nomination.

Most Canadian provinces and two territories have “enhanced” PNP streams that are linked to the Express Entry system.

As indicated above, provincial nominations result in substantial points increases and effectively guarantee an invitation to apply for permanent residence in Canada.

Since the start of the year, several of Canada’s Express Entry-aligned provincial nomination streams have issued invitations, including streams in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia.

Who is invited?

Here is a hypothetical scenario of some people who may have been invited in the latest invitation round.

Deepak and Sara married and are 34 and 31 respectively. They each hold a bachelor’s degree, and each wrote the IELTS and scored an 8 in listening and a 7 in reading, speaking and writing. Sara has been working as a computer programmer for the past three years while Deepak has been working in finance for four years. Neither Deepak nor Sara has ever worked or studied in Canada. They entered the Express Entry pool in April 2020 with Sara as the principal applicant and a CRS score of 421. On May 13, Sara was issued a notification of interest from Ontario’s Human Capital Priorities Stream and was then able to apply for a provincial nomination through the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP). Sara’s CRS score increased to 1021 and she received an Invitation to Apply for permanent residence during the July 22 Express Entry draw.