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This may be a historic opportunity for skilled assignees to obtain Permanent Residence in Canada if they would normally have low CRS scores.
Express Entry is an online system that IRCC uses to manage applications for permanent residence from skilled workers. The government selects the highest-ranking candidates from the pool and invites them to apply for permanent residence.
Low threshold…for the time being
The government regularly publishes the points threshold.
Currently, that threshold is going down. As at the time of writing, people with the score 437 and above were invited to apply. For at least half a year before this pandemic, the threshold fluctuated between 467 and 472. It is never possible to tell how long a trend will continue because it all is based on too many variables, including political factors and factors beyond anybody’s control, such as this pandemic.
Language
Lack of fluency in the English or French language can be obstacles to obtaining good enough scores for entry, but with the lowering of the threshold this may not be the same barrier to entry as it was.
Foreign workers must obtain language test results (for English language tests, it must be only IELTS General Training or CELPIP General) and their educational credential assessment (ECA) reports – they should get them as soon as possible. If they have already done them – even better; they should work an immigration professional to get profiles created as soon as possible.
Why are we here?
The threshold is decreasing largely because IRCC conducts draws only for people with either provincial nomination certificates or at least one-year experience working in Canada. As soon as IRCC starts to include candidates in the pool who are located outside of Canada and have no experience working in Canada, the threshold will start going up because many of them will push it up naturally being young, well-educated (and some of them educated in the English language as is the case with universities in a number of countries and with a few years of work experience in their countries of citizenship or other countries outside of Canada. It is unknown when IRCC will start including them in the draws again, but it will eventually happen, maybe within a few weeks.
Nothing can be guaranteed because important factors are simply unknown at this time, but now is the best time for foreign nationals – who hold work permits and have at least one year experience working in Canada – to get their profiles created. For ones who have not yet taken their language tests and did not obtain their ECA reports it may already be too late, but as they have an intent to apply anyway, they should do it now in hope that they may still hop on this train in time.
