Ontario held a new draw on 3 March, inviting French-speaking Express Entry candidates to apply for a provincial appointment.
The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) has invited 126 candidates through the FSSW (French-speaking skilled worker) stream. Invited applicants require a profile in the Express Entry System with a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score between 455 and 467.
The province was drawn from the Express Entry pool of candidates who generated profiles between 3 March 2020 and 3 March 2021.
The invited applicants now have 45 calendar days to submit their application for a provincial appointment from Ontario.
This draw was slightly smaller than the previous draw by the FSSW on 13 January, when the province issued 146 invitations. The new draw makes the total number of candidates invited to 271 in 2021.
The first move after receiving an invitation is to confirm your eligibility since receiving an invitation does not assure that you will be nominated.
Generally speaking, to be nominated, you need to meet the qualifying criteria of the Canadian Experience Class or the Federal Skilled Worker Program. The essential eligibility criteria will depend on which programme the OINP assesses against you.
A minimum Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) of 7 in French and 6 in English is also required. Among other eligibility requirements, the OINP would also want you to show that you have sufficient funds to cover settlement costs in Ontario.
What’s the point of having a PNP?
Provincial Nominee Programs (NPPs) encourage Canadian provinces to invite immigration candidates who are likely to compete well with their regional labour markets. A recent study indicated that PNPs could be somewhat responsible for improving new immigrants’ labour market performance.
Express Entry applicants who win a provincial nomination are virtually assured of receiving an Invitation to Apply for Permanent Residence in Canada in a subsequent federal draw. Candidates who are nominated by a province receive an automatic award of 600 CRS points. It is more than enough to get an ITA in a PNP-only Express Entry draw or an all-program Express Entry draw.
What is Canada Express Entry, and how does it work?
The Express Entry system in Canada is an application management system for three Federal High Skilled programmes: the Canadian Experience Class, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the Federal Skilled Trades Program. It is not an immigration programme.
Foreign nationals eligible to immigrate to Canada should submit their profile to the Express Entry system to be considered for permanent residence in Canada. Their profiles are graded out of a possible 1,200 points using the Comprehensive Ranking System. The majority of candidates score in the 300-500 range.
Human capital variables such as age, professional job experience, schooling, and language capacity in English or French, among others, are used to assign points. Self-employment does not qualify as “professional” experience.
The highest scoring applicants are invited to apply for permanent residence via Express Entry draws.
On 13 February, Canada invited every single applicant in the pool qualified for the Canadian Experience Class in the previous Express Entry draw.