Canada immigration: Authorities to make three major changes this month
2 min read 06 Oct 2022, 05:46 PM ISTIRCC is all set to issue an Immigration Levels Plan to act as the guideline for the number of immigrants that will be allowed to come to Canada
PremiumOctober is likely to be a very busy month for Canada’s immigration sector as several crucial developments including the announcement of Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025, census data on immigration etc are expected in the coming weeks.
As per the latest updates, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is all set to announce the process for the PGP 2022 in late October and the Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025 will be announced by November 1. Also, census data on immigration from 2021 will be released by Statistics Canada, later this month.
Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025
Like every other year, IRCC is all set to issue an Immigration Levels Plan to act as the guideline for the number of immigrants that will be allowed to come to Canada, including the breakdown of immigrants from economic class, family class and humanitarian class programs over the next three years.
This year it looks like IRCC is poised to set more record-breaking targets. The target for 2022 is nearly 432,000 new permanent residents and over 451,000 by 2024. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told CIC News in June that he can foresee higher targets in the coming years, up to 500,000 new permanent residents, but he did not specify when that would happen.
Parents and Grandparents Program 2022
Last month IRCC announced that the application intake will be available in the coming weeks for the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP). Under this program, applicants can sponsor their parents or grandparents for immigration to Canada.
In past years, IRCC has decided which parents and grandparents will be eligible for a visa by lottery. However, it is yet to be announced whether IRCC will follow the same pattern this year also.
In 2021, IRCC held a lottery for the PGP that invited 30,000 Canadians to submit their applications to sponsor. Last year’s figure was higher to compensate for the lower figure in 2020. Due to the onset of the pandemic, IRCC only allowed 10,000 sponsors to apply for the PGP in 2020.
2021 Census Report
Statistics Canada collects data from all Canadians every year to better understand how Canadians live. And the new census data will show the number of immigrants that live in Canada, where they have chosen to settle, what languages they speak at home and how many people they live with. This will help shape the outlook for immigration initiatives, such as the immigration levels plan, in the future, a CIC report stated.
This data on immigration is released every 5 years and it was last released in October 2017.
Apart from this, another crucial development is that Express Entry CRS score may drop below 500 this month.
Since July 6, when the programme resumed, the minimum CRS has been steadily decreasing with each draw. The first five draws had declines of 8 or 9 points and the two most recent draws on September 14 and 28 had decreased of only 6 points in each draw. If this trend continues, the score could soon dip below 500 for an all-program draw for the first time since the draw on December 23, 2020 when the CRS score was 468.
