Canada issued invitations to FSWP applicants for the first time since 2020. CEC (Canadian Experience Class) was included as well in today’s Express Entry draw. For the first time, CEC applicants have been included in the Express Entry draw since September 2021.
A total of 1500 invitations were issued by the IRCC to apply for Canadian permanent residence status. The cut-off of the CRS score was 557.
Statement of Minister on today’s draw
Canada’s immigration minister said that he is happy to declare that the Express Entry draw has officially started again and the process of application will be normal to 6 months. Also, he said that their team worked to reduce immigration backlogs before starting the Express Entry draw again.
Canada is looking forward to welcoming skilled workers who will play an important role in addressing labor shortages in Canada.
Why is this news considered big news?
The return of all event draws is important for several reasons. From its inception in 1967 until 2020, the Federal Skilled Worker Program was the major pathway to welcome skilled immigrants to Canada. Before the pandemic, the FSWP consisted of 45% of all applicants who got an ITA through Express Entry.
The return of the all-program draw is also big news for CEC candidates. The CEC is the primary method of obtaining permanent residency for Canada’s large international student and foreign worker population. The CEC has grown in prominence in recent years as Canada has relied on this pool to achieve its immigration level goals. Before the pandemic, the CEC comprised only 9% of all 341,000 immigrants from Canada’s economic, family, and humanitarian sections combined. Last year, the CEC comprised nearly one-third of the more than 405,000 immigrants who arrived in Canada.
Two weeks ago, Canadian Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told that the IRCC was on its way to completing its goal of holding an all-program express entry draw on 6 July. He confirmed this on Twitter on Monday. IRCC had initially announced this in April. In addition, IRCC plans to process most of the applications of Express Entry within six months.
The All-Program Express Entry draw happens when the IRCC considers all candidates in the Express Entry pool and issues invitations to applications for permanent residency (ITA) based only on their Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores. Between the launch of Express Entry in 2015 and December 2020, IRCC mostly conducted all program draws. Applicants who applied through the FSTP – (Federal Skilled Trade programs), FSWP – (Federal Skilled Worker Program), and the CEC – (Canadian Experience Class), all had a chance to obtain an ITA from IRCC.
Starting from January 2021, IRCC focused on inviting only CEC candidates. The IRCC did this because most of these candidates were in Canada and less likely to face COVID-related challenges than immigration candidates overseas. However, IRCC had put on hold the CEC invitations in September 2021 to address its application backlog. Meanwhile, the IRCC continues the bi-weekly draw inviting only candidates from the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) to help provinces and territories meet their labor market needs.
Way of Express Entry work
Express Entry is a two-stage process.
In Phase One, candidates have to ensure that they fulfill the criteria for at least one of the three Express Admission Programs.
Candidates can upload their Express Entry Profile on the IRCC website if they fulfill the criteria. Applicants can get CRS points which are based on their human capital factors like age, language, education, experience of work, and skills. Almost every two-week those Express Entry applicants who score highest obtain an invitation to apply for Canadian permanent residency status.
Invited applicants can submit their application request within 60 days to IRCC. IRCC set the goal of processing almost all applications within 6 months. Canada set the goal to immigrate more than 110,000 immigrants through Express Entry every year.
