End of 2021 bring on 2022

End of 2021 bring on 2022

So today is a new year and we have left a very volatile year for everything and mostly because of the ongoing uncertainty because of Covid-19 and all the variants mutating from the original strain.

In the past year travelling to and from Canada for any type of Immigration has been difficult. Canada has had a record year in immigration with access of over 400,000 new immigrants invited to come to Canada under one of the multiple and diverse programs offered by Immigration Canada and the Federal Government.

Canada has seen an election in this year and we still retained our current Liberal Party who has been extremely open to the importance of immigration to Canada’s long-term growth. Although much of the immigration were from individuals currently in Canada the CEC class and PNP programs and people from all walks of life that have been helping provide crucial services to Canada’s recovery with the Tr to Pr programs and even people here on Visitor Visa’s having the opportunity to work while they were here and many of them qualifying for some of the many programs offered through Immigration.

One of the big questions within the Immigration Industry is when will the bring back the foreign workers programs through Express Entry? Everyone figured this would happen in January 2022 but with the new omicron Variant surfacing this is unlikely to happen.

If Canada plans on reaching its immigration goals in 2022 there will need to be some other aggressive programs offered. The CEC class draws were stopped in November for some reason. Likely because the CEC market is drying up. If you don’t have the students or foreign workers here to get the very important experience to apply for immigration, they need to find a new route.

Will Immigration Canada loosen some of the tight requirements to qualify for program in the coming year? It may come down as a directive from the Federal government to be more relaxed by lowering some of the requirements that are currently used or increasing the points in areas of individual programs.

Dealing with so many people through Express Entry one of the issues are at the forefront. If you apply as a individual unless you have a job prospect or PNP nomination you will likely never meet the points required to get an ITA (invitation to apply) from Immigration Canada. Most individual scores are in the mid 300’s with a few in the high 300’s but not many. Many of the joint applications as well even with high education or high levels of experience their points still only reach the low 400’s which likely will certainly be a real issue once the FSW draws start again. I can imagine the FSW draws will be in the very high 400’s for most of the year when they start. 465 and up.

There are a few bright hopes though. Some of the PNP immigration programs have started to lower requirements. Not be a lot but language skills seem to be the first change. Instead of clb5 they have lowered some to clb4. Great right. Not necessarily. Lower clb = lower points so really don’t help that much.

There is talk about a new municipal immigration program coming and some of the provinces have added new in demand occupations to the list.

One of the issues I see is they have all these low skilled positions that are in dyer need of filling but immigration program unless they are done with an LMIA really don’t cater to those positions, and on top of that LMIA for low skilled workers are almost impossible to get a positive lmia for.

ESDC figures there are Canadian and Permanent Residents here to fill them all. Well, we know now for sure this is not the case. As of when I write this there are some 675,000 jobs in Canada that cannot be filled and most are lower skilled jobs that will initially be filled with new immigrants or students.

So, this year will be a very interesting to see what new exciting programs that will come for individuals like yourself to find your way to Canada.

Happy New Year

Gerard Haggett

RCIC