Manitoba stated that 81 of the 363 candidates invited had valid Express Entry IDs and job seeker validation codes.
For detailed requirements of all the streams featured in this draw, please see below.
In a further draw in late March, Manitoba invited 179 candidates through its pathway aimed at Ukrainians wishing to flee the war with Russia.
These were Manitoba’s last invitations under the special measures for Ukrainians, which expired on March 31.
Candidates needed to meet the following requirements:
Be a citizen of Ukraine;
Have a minimum of CLB 4 in each language band;
Have established connection to Manitoba (close relative, family-like, community, previous employment or studies in Manitoba);
Have a valid language test;
Score at least 60 points according to MPNP assessment criteria; and
Satisfy all other requirements of the Skilled Worker Overseas Pathway, including sufficient settlement funds.
Latest Manitoba Draw
Stream
Sub-Stream
Letters of Advice to Apply
Score of Lowest Ranked Candidate
Skilled Workers in Manitoba
Occupation-specific
276
–
Skilled Workers Overseas
Strategic Recruitment Initiative
87
691
Manitoba Ukraine Pathway Draw
Stream
Sub-Stream
Letters of Advice to Apply
Score of Lowest Ranked Candidate
Skilled Worker Overseas Pathway
Ukraine
179
60
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How Do I Qualify For The Skilled Worker in Manitoba Stream?
The Skilled Worker in Manitoba Stream (SWM) is based on the specific needs of Manitoba employers. SWM selects foreign-trained workers with the required skills and nominates them for Canada permanent residence. The stream prioritizes candidates with a strong attachment to Manitoba, with two pathways to Manitoba immigration.
a) Manitoba Work Experience Pathway
For applicants currently working in Manitoba on temporary work permits, through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program or as international graduates from any province. Candidates do not need to be working in In-Demand Occupations.
b) Employer Direct Recruitment Pathway
For applicants from overseas with job offers from approved Manitoba employers.
How Do I Qualify For The Skilled Worker Overseas Stream?
The Skilled Worker Overseas Stream (SWO) includes both a dedicated Canada Express Entry Pathway and a direct provincial pathway.
It is aimed at international skilled workers with skills and training in Manitoba’s In-Demand Occupations. Priority is given to applicants and spouses with close family connections, plus the language proficiency, training and experience to find jobs quickly.
a) Manitoba Express Entry Pathway
For international candidates eligible under another MPNP stream, who also meet Express Entry criteria and have an active Express Entry profile. Candidates need skills, training and experience in one of Manitoba’s In-Demand Occupations, and a strong family connection to the province.
b) Human Capital Pathway
For international skilled workers with skills, training and experience in one of Manitoba’s In-Demand Occupations. Candidates must demonstrate potential to find employment soon after they arrive in Manitoba.
What Are The Requirements For the International Education Stream?
The International Education Stream (IES) is dedicated to international graduates from Manitoba colleges and universities. Under IES, candidates are no longer required to work for six months in their field before applying for an MPNP nomination. It has three pathways:
1) Career Employment Pathway
Eligibility requirements include:
Completed a one-year or longer course from an eligible post-secondary Manitoba institution within three years of submission of application.
Have a full-time job offer in a Manitoba In-Demand occupation related to the completed degree
Resident of Manitoba
2) Graduate Internship Pathway
Masters and Doctoral degree holders who have completed Mitacs Accelerate or Elevate internships can apply for nomination through internships even without a job offer in the province.
3) Student Entrepreneur Pathway
Eligibility requirements include:
Completed a two-year or longer course from an eligible post-secondary Manitoba institution
Six months business operation experience in Manitoba
Resident of Manitoba since graduation.
No specific minimum personal net worth requirement
Private colleges in Manitoba say Canada’s cap on study permits will cost them all of their international students.
They say the province is being unfairly targeted in the wake of Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s cap on applications.
“It’s unfortunate that this situation got to the point where the Government of Canada felt it necessary to use a blunt instrument across the entire country,” Mark Frison, president and CEO of Assiniboine Community College, reportedly told CBC News.
“Certainly, the challenges that we see and saw in places like Ontario have been complicated and I know really required the government of Canada to intervene. But things were working very well here.”
Manitoba has yet to release the final numbers of how many international students will be allowed to attend each college and university in the province this year.
Ottawa’s limits on study permits is projected to reduce the number of study permits to Ontario by 41 per cent, to British Columbia by 18 per cent and to Alberta, Quebec and Saskatchewan by 10 per cent.
The president of Assiniboine Community College believes Manitoba is going to prioritize the distribution of its study permits to public colleges and universities.
“They’ve … given us some permits in order to keep things going so that we’re prepared in the fall,” he reportedly said. “[With] this latest announcement …there’ll be an opportunity for them to look at how they finalize those allocations.”
But some private institutions say they’re poised to lose all their international students because of the cap.
At the Heartland International English School, just under a third of all students are foreign nationals but the private language school with locations in Winnipeg and Mississauga hasn’t been allotted any attestation letters, a requirement for foreign nationals to apply for study permits there.
“The federal government’s rationale that [international students are] impacting housing and the labour force really doesn’t apply to language programs,” Gary Gervais, the school’s president, has reportedly said.
“Many of our students stay in home-stays and don’t create stress on housing and also, they’re not allowed to work. So it doesn’t create any labour issues.”
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Under new regulations, new post-secondary international students at the college or undergraduate level must now submit a provincial attestation letter with a corresponding letter of acceptance from a post-secondary institution when applying for an international study permit.
Canada’s immigration minister Marc Miller slapped a cap of 606,250 study permit applications for the coming year for new international students earlier this year in an attempt to reduce the number of temporary residents in the country as Ottawa faces criticism over a lack of affordable housing.
The Globe and Mail reported that cap on study permit applications would likely mean a drop of 35 per cent study permits compared to last year but the actual drop is now expected to be much higher, closer to 40 per cent.
Many International Students Exempt From Study Permit Application Cap
Seven categories of international students, however, are exempt from the cap on study permit applications.
“As stipulated in these Instructions, certain categories of study permit applications are excluded from the conditions set out in these Instructions and the associated application cap established by these Instructions.”
Exempt from this new cap on international study permits are those international students who already have study permits and are seeking to renew them and the family member of a temporary resident who already has either a work or study permit.
Also exempt from the cap on study permits are:
members of the armed forces of a country under the Visiting Forces Act, including a person who has been designated as a civilian component of those armed forces;
officers of a foreign governments sent, under exchange agreements between Canada and one or more countries, to take up duties with a federal or provincial agency;
participants in sports activities or events, in Canada, either as an individual participant or as a member of a foreign-based team or Canadian amateur team;
employees of foreign news companies reporting on events in Canada;
people responsible for assisting congregations or groups in the achievement of their spiritual goals and whose main duties are to preach doctrine, perform functions related to gatherings of their congregations or groups or provide spiritual counselling.
Throughout Canada, colleges and universities have expressed concern over the cap on study permit applications, saying it sends the wrong signal to international students.
President and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) Larissa Bezo said in a webinar organised by The PIE and Student VIP that the cap on study permits is not the way her organizations would have chosen to proceed to address the housing issue.
The CBIE issued a statement in January expressing concern the cap on the number of international students might have serious unintended consequences.
“This hasty one-size-fits-all solution may jeopardize the benefits of international education that many communities across the country experience and rapidly unravel a strong global Canadian education brand that has taken years to build,” notes the CBIE on its website.
As of April 2, 2024, employers will need to pay candidates more to qualify for the TFWP’s High Wage Stream.
Hiring a Temporary Foreign Worker for a High-Wage or Low-Wage Position
Canada employers submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) application under the High Wage Stream or Low Wage Stream, based on the salary being offered for the position they are hiring foreign workers for.
If they offer a temporary foreign worker (TEF) a salary that is:
equal to or greater than the provincial or territorial median hourly wage, they must submit their application under the high-wage positions stream;
lower than the provincial or territorial median hourly wage, they must submit their application under the low-wage stream.
An LMIA is a document that an employer in Canada may need to hire foreign workers.
A positive LMIA will show that there is a need for a foreign worker to fill a job that Canadians cannot fill. A positive LMIA is sometimes referred to as a “confirmation letter.”
Employers must apply for an LMIA and can only apply for a work permit following the reception of the LMIA.
A worker needs the following documents to apply for a work permit:
a job offer letter
a contract
a copy of the LMIA, and
the LMIA number
Employers need an LMIA from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).
The LMIA application process depends on the type of program the hiring is being done through:
high-wage workers
low-wage workers
workers through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program
workers through the Agricultural Stream
Under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Canada let in 184,235 workers in 2023, which is a drastic increase from 2022’s 135,450 workers and 2021’s 103,160 workers.
Different industrial sectors depend on TFWs to differing degrees because of unique levels of labour shortages and specific skill requirements, according to an Economic and Social Report by Yuqian Lu and Feng Hou.
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Using linked administrative data to determine foreign workers’ distribution across industries and their proportion in the workforce between 2010 and 2020, the researchers found that between that time period, the employment of TFWs became increasingly concentrated in three sectors that mostly offer low-paying jobs: accommodation and food services; retail trade; and administrative and support, waste management and remediation services.
TFWs’ increased concentration in the three low-paying sectors can be attributed to the large expansion of individuals holding IMP work permits and study permits and the growing trend of study permit holders seeking employment in these sectors.
Saskatchewan’s allocation of study permit applications has grown to 15,054 from the originally-announced 12,000, an increase of 25.4 per cent.
Based on the historical rate of acceptance, that number of applications could result in about 7,200 study permits for international students in Saskatchewan during the upcoming school year.
“In Saskatchewan, we have been responsibly building our international student program and are committed to providing the supports international students need to succeed at our post-secondary institutions,” said Advanced Education Minister Gordon Wyant.
“We appreciate Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) increasing its allocation for Saskatchewan as international students play a key role in maintaining economic growth and are a critical component to helping meet our labour market needs.”
The Prairie province is one of the first in Canada to launch an automated attestation letter system, a new requirement of the Canadian immigration department, by using MyCreds, a national information technology platform for official academic documents which already partners with provincial education and post-secondary sectors.
Under the new regulation, new post-secondary international students at the college or undergraduate level must now submit a provincial attestation letter with a corresponding letter of acceptance from a post-secondary institution when applying for an international study permit.
The province’s Advanced Education ministry has already processed more than 1,200 provincial attestation letters from 11 different post-secondary institutions.
Saskatchewan has also hit the pause button on new applications for designation under the Saskatchewan International Student program. Colleges and universities interested in becoming designated to host international students for programs longer than six months in Saskatchewan will be able to apply for designation once again starting in January 2026.
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Immigration Minister Marc Miller slapped a cap of 606,250 study permit applications for the coming year for new international students earlier this year in an attempt to reduce the number of temporary residents in the country as Ottawa faces criticism over a lack of affordable housing.
The Globe and Mail reported that cap on study permit applications would likely mean a drop of 35 per cent study permits compared to last year but the actual drop is now expected to be much higher, closer to 40 per cent.
be exempt from the cap on study permit applications.
Seven Categories Of International Students Exempt From Cap On Applications
“As stipulated in these Instructions, certain categories of study permit applications are excluded from the conditions set out in these Instructions and the associated application cap established by these Instructions.”
Exempt from this new cap on international study permits are those international students who already have study permits and are seeking to renew them and the family member of a temporary resident who already has either a work or study permit.
Also exempt from the cap on study permits are:
members of the armed forces of a country under the Visiting Forces Act, including a person who has been designated as a civilian component of those armed forces;
officers of a foreign governments sent, under exchange agreements between Canada and one or more countries, to take up duties with a federal or provincial agency;
participants in sports activities or events, in Canada, either as an individual participant or as a member of a foreign-based team or Canadian amateur team;
employees of foreign news companies reporting on events in Canada;
people responsible for assisting congregations or groups in the achievement of their spiritual goals and whose main duties are to preach doctrine, perform functions related to gatherings of their congregations or groups or provide spiritual counselling.
Throughout Canada, colleges and universities have expressed concern over the cap on study permit applications, saying it sends the wrong signal to international students.
President and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) Larissa Bezo said in a webinar organised by The PIE and Student VIP that the cap on study permits is not the way her organizations would have chosen to proceed to address the housing issue.
The CBIE issued a statement in January expressing concern the cap on the number of international students might have serious unintended consequences.
“This hasty one-size-fits-all solution may jeopardize the benefits of international education that many communities across the country experience and rapidly unravel a strong global Canadian education brand that has taken years to build,” notes the CBIE on its website.
Are you a candidate with skills and qualifications in one of Canada’s 82 jobs for occupation-specific Express Entry draws? We want to help you move to Canada. Please submit your CV here.
The federal government’s latest jobs statistics show Canada’s unemployment rose while the employment rate fell in March.
Employment underwent little change in March (-2,200), while the employment rate fell by 0.1 percentage points to reach 61.4 per cent. This was the sixth consecutive monthly decrease in Canada’s employment rate.
If considering the trend over the past year, there has been a decrease in employment rate by 0.9 percentage points, as employment growth has been outpaced by growth in the population aged 15 and over, according to the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey
Meanwhile, employment – which remained static in March – rose for the months of January (+41,000; +0.2 per cent) and February (+37,000; +0.2 per cent).
It was also reported on March 27, 2024, that Canada’s population had increased at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent as of January 1, 2024, which was the fastest annual growth rate since 1957.
Private sector as unchanged for a fourth month in a row in March, and has been steady for eight of the nine months since June 2023.
Public sector employment also had little change in March 2024, but had a faster growth rate between March 2023 and March 2024.
Youth See Falling Employment, While Men See Growth
Youth aged 15 to 24 had a fall in employment by 28,000 (-1.0 per cent) in March, continuing a trend which has seen no net employment growth among youth since December 2022.
The youth employment rate fell 0.9 percentage points to 55.0 per cent in March 2024, which was the lowest level since February 2012 (not considering 2020 and 2021, which were years marked by COVID-19).
Both male and female youth have seen a fall in employment rate over the last 12 months, with women seeing a 4.8 percentage point fall to 55.5 per cent and males seeing a 4.0 per cent percentage point fall to 54.6 per cent.
Students and non-students have both experienced a similar negative trend-line in terms of employment.
The above trend is starkly contrasted as that for core-aged men, for whom employment rose by 20,000 (+0.3 per cent) in March, after a similar increase in February (+23,000).
Their employment rate was 87.2 per cent for the third month in a row in March, but was down by a small metric – 0.6 percentage points – compared to 12 months prior.
Core-aged women’s employment was virtually unchanged, at 81.3 per cent. This is a relatively lower number than the peak of 82.0 per cent observed in both January and March 2023.
Men and women aged 55 and older had a steady employment rate at 30.1 per cent for the latter group, and 40.0 per cent for the former.
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Unemployment Rate Goes Up to 6.1 per cent
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, witnessed a relatively small rise of 0.3 percentage points to 6.1 per cent in March. The year-on-year rise in the unemployment rate is 0.1 percentage points.
The rise in the unemployment rate on a monthly basis was due to an increase of 60,000 (+4.8 per cent) people looking for work or on temporary layoff.
This took the total number of unemployed people to 1.3 million – an increase of 247,000 (23.0 per cent) compared with 12 months earlier.
Unemployed persons also had a harder time finding work compared with a year earlier, as determined by the majority of unemployed persons in February 2024 remaining unemployed in March 2024 (a higher proportion than the corresponding number from a year ago).
Numbers also showed that on a year-over-year basis, the participation rates of youth aged 15 to 24 and people aged 55 and over had fallen.
Among youth, students had a faster fall in participation rate (-2.7 percentage points to 45.0 per cent) than non-students (0.9 percentage points to 86.6 per cent) over the period.
The youth unemployment rate in March 2024 was the highest it has been since September 2016, excluding 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic.
On a year-on-year basis, the unemployment rate was up for both young men (+3.3 percentage points to 13.4 per cent) and young women (+2.9 percentage points to 11.7 per cent).
For those aged 55 and older, the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.5 per cent in March. On a year-over-year basis, it was up by 0.4 percentage points to 4.9 per cent for men and unchanged at 4.1 per cent for women.
Demographically, the unemployment rate rose the most for core-aged Black Canadians (3.9 percentage points to 10.8 per cent) between March 2023 and March 2024. At the same time, it increased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.7 per cent for core-aged South Asian Canadians, 1.1 percentage points to 7.2 per cent for core-aged Chinese Canadians.
Employment Falls in Major Sectors
Employment fell by 27,000 (-2.4 per cent) in accommodation and food services, with little change in this industry compared to last March. Also, employment in wholesale and retail trade decreased by 23,000 (-0.8 per cent), and Employment in professional, scientific and technical services fell by 20,000 (-1.0 per cent).
Meanwhile, that in healthcare and social assistance went up by 40,000 (+1.5 per cent) in March, with employment in this industry having steadily gone up since May 2023 – a cumulative increase of 123,000 (+4.7 per cent) over the period.
Employment in construction also went up by 15,000 (1.0 per cent) in March, with little change from March 2023.
Employment by Province
Provincially, employment went down in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but went up in Ontario.
In Quebec – which had seen five consecutive months of little change – employment went down by 18,000 (-0.4 per cent) in March and the unemployment rate increased 0.3 percentage points to 5.0 per cent.
Nearly two-thirds of this this was among youth.
Contrastingly, employment in Ontario went up by 26,000 (+0.3 per cent) in March, which was the second increase in three months.
Employment fell by 6,000 (-1.0 per cent) in Saskatchewan in March, while the unemployment rate in Saskatchewan increased in March to 5.4 per cent (+0.4 percentage points).
While Manitoba’s unemployment rate rose 0.5 percentage points to 5.0 per cent, the unemployment rate in the province remained, with Quebec, the lowest among all Canadian provinces.
The largest year-over-year increase in the unemployment rate was found in St. Catharines-Niagara, where the unemployment rate went up by 3.6 percentage points to 7.6 per cent, which was the highest among all census metropolitan areas (CMAs).
The unemployment rates in Toronto and Windsor each went up by 1.7 percentage points to 7.5 per cent in March, sitting just below the rate in St. Catharines-Niagara.
The latest World Happiness Report places Canadians among the happiest people on Earth, ranking 15th on a list of countries.
And the happiest people in Canada are apparently the elderly.
In the report, Canadian seniors ranked as the eighth-happiest bunch of elderly folks throughout the world.
In something of an odd twist, the COVID-19 pandemic has left people feeling more inclined to help out others, perhaps a reflection that everyone was in the same boat during those troubled times.
“Post-COVID increases in benevolence, whether measured as shares of the population, or percentage increases from pre-pandemic levels, are large for all generations, but especially so for the Millennials and Generation Z, who are even more likely than their predecessors to help others in need,” notes the report.
Prepared in partnership with Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report’s editorial board, the report’s findings do, however, indicate disturbing trends for young people.
Although people in all age groups are generally unhappier now, young people seem to be bearing the brunt of this general malaise that is creeping in throughout society.
“For the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, happiness has decreased in all age groups, but especially for the young, so much so that the young are now, in 2021 – 2023, the least happy age group,” notes the report.
“This is a big change from 2006 – 2010, when the young were happier than those in the midlife groups, and about as happy as those aged 60 and over. For the young, the happiness drop was about three-quarters of a point, and greater for females than males.”
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Young women appear to be the unhappiest of all people in Canada.
“The group including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand shows a quite different pattern than elsewhere. Negative emotions are at all ages more frequent for females than males, especially for those under 30,” notes the report.
But the overall high quality of life in Canada remains among the top reasons why foreign nationals choose to immigrate here.
Immigration To Canada Set A New Record Last Year
Immigration to Canada set a new record last year with 471,550 new permanent residents settling into the country by the end of December, up 7.8 per cent from the 437,595 new permanent residents in 2022, the latest data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reveals.
Under the 2024-2026 Immigration Levels Plan, Canada is planning to welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024, another 500,000 in 2025 and then hold the line on immigration in 2026 with another 500,000 newcomers.
That’s a total of 1.485 million immigrants to Canada over those three years.
Black students at medical schools are to get more opportunities to work at community health centres in the Greater Toronto Area this year – and be paid $5,000 each.
“It gives the students a chance to work in the medical field over the summer and gain hands-on experience that they won’t be marked on at school,” Chenai Kadungure, executive director of the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario (BPAO), reportedly told The Globe and Mail.
That physicians’ association runs the Community Health Centre Education Program (CHCE) which works with the 75 community health centres across Ontario.
Through the CHCE’s nine-week education, Black students attending medical schools are placed at five publicly-funded community health centres in the Greater Toronto Area dedicated to offering healthcare to Blacks and other racialized people.
The program, which caters to the needs of those who are, homeless, temporary residents, or refugees is designed to help medical students learn to provide care to racialized communities.
The Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education reports that Black patients tend to be more satisfied with healthcare received by Black physicians.
“We want Black medical students to know that there are other avenues to providing medical care and making an impact outside of the popular career paths like being a surgeon or working in a hospital,” Kadungure has reportedly said.
Last year, Ontario nominated a record number of healthcare workers through its Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP) but is still seeing a growing number of family medicine residencies going begging for want of applicants.
In the first match-up this year of medical school graduates with residency placements, 108 spots remained unfilled out of 560 in Ontario, reports the Canadian Residency Matching Service (CaRMS).
That’s up from 103 unfilled spots during the comparable matchup last year.
The growing paucity of family physicians comes in the wake of the OINP nominating a record number of internationally-educated healthcare workers for immigration to Canada last year, more than 2,000 of them.
Last year, roughly 12 per cent of all OINP nominations were made to healthcare workers.
Those included:
pharmacists;
general practitioners and family physicians;
registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses;
dentists, and;
nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates.
“Demand for the OINP continues to be strong with the OINP issuing its largest number of nominations in its history in 2023,” noted the OINP website.
“In 2023, the province’s nomination allocation from the federal government was 16,500 nominations. The OINP met its full 2023 nomination allocation in December.”
Even though 2.3 million Ontarians lack access to a family doctor, many medical school graduates are taking a pass on the opportunity to practice family medicine in the province.
“What this tells us is that medical students are not applying to family medicine,” Dr. David Barber, chair of Ontario Medical Association’s section on family practice, reportedly told CBC News.
Ontario In Negotiations For New Physician Services Agreement
“It’s because during medical school the students work with family doctors and train under family doctors. They see how stressful it is, how underfunded it is and how unhappy that the family doctors are.”
The claimed underfunding of healthcare services in Ontario is currently being addressed in negotiations for a new physician services agreement since the current contract that covers how physicians are paid n Ontario is set to expire at the end of March.
In a statement, Health Minister Sylvia Jones noted the province has expanded medical school spots and boosted the number of interdisciplinary primary care teams by 78.
Last year, Ottawa lifted some of the restrictions faced by internationally-educated physicians when it comes to moving to Canada and living and working here.
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Under the Temporary Public Policy to Facilitate the Issuance of Permanent Resident Visas for Physicians Providing Publicly-Funded Medical Services in Canada, which Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) put in place on Apr. 25 last year, the exemptions impact the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) and the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSW) and how points are earned through the Express Entry’s Comprehensive Ranking System for Canadian work experience and arranged employment.
“These measures will enable more foreign national physicians to qualify for federal economic permanent residence programs managed by Express Entry and to qualify for more points in the Express Entry system, increasing their chances of receiving an invitation to apply for permanent residence,” the IRCC noted on its website.
Many physicians working in Canada are self-employed and so their work experience has until now not been recognized as eligible under the CEC. Physicians coming to Canada also often do not receive job offers for a full year, making those job offers until now ineligible under the FSW.
The temporary policy put into effect late last year attempted to remove these restrictions for internationally-trained physicians coming to work in Canada.
“With these exemptions, qualifying physicians … have a greater likelihood of meeting the eligibility requirements of the FSW and CEC and entering the Express Entry pool,” noted then-Immigration Minister Sean Fraser in amendments to his ministerial instructions.
“Additionally, with relevant and complementary changes to the Express Entry ministerial instructions, foreign national physicians … have an increased chance of receiving an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence.”
Ottawa’s move to encourage more international physicians to immigrate to Canada came in the wake of a report by the Royal Bank of Canada stating the physician shortage in Canada was already at a crisis level and is only going to get worse unless the country could attract more internationally-trained physicians through federal and provincial immigration programs.
“Canada is estimated to be short nearly 44,000 physicians, including over 30,000 family doctors and general practitioners, before the end of the decade,” reported RBC in its Proof Point: Canada Needs More Doctors—And Fast report.
“Though 2,400 family physician positions were advertised on government websites by the end of 2021, just 1,496 family doctors exited residency training that year.”
In Canada, family physicians, National Occupational Classification 2021 (NOC) code 31102, earn a median annual income of $233,726 but that varies wildly based on the where in the country the physician is practicing and how many years of experience he or she has, the federal job-hunting and career-planning Jobbank website reveals.
Prospects For Family Physicians Very Good Throughout Canada
Jobbank describes the prospects for physicians and specialists as “very good”, its highest ranking, throughout the country through to the end of 2031.
“For general practitioners and family physicians, over the period 2022 – 2031, new job openings (arising from expansion demand and replacement demand) are expected to total 48,900 , while 29,400 new job seekers (arising from school leavers, immigration and mobility) are expected to be available to fill them,” notes the job-hunting and career-planning website.
In addition to the CEC and FSW, physicians can immigrate to Canada through the Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP) if they meet particular regional labour market needs and intend to settle in that province or territory. Provinces can recruit candidates from the Express Entry pool or they can nominate individuals under their non-Express Entry paper-based streams.
Across the country, there are PNP streams specifically aimed at helping physicians immigrate to Canada, including:
the Saskatchewan Health Professionals stream;
Nova Scotia’s Physician stream and Labour Market Priorities for Physician stream, and;
British Columbia’s Health Authority stream.
But before a physician can practice in Canada, he or she needs to have his or her qualifications recognized.
The national organization that sets standards for physicians, including immigrating physicians, is the Ottawa-based Medical Council of Canada (MCC). It does not confer or issue licences to physicians. That responsibility belongs to the provincial and territorial medical regulatory authorities.
Instead, the MCC’s role is to grant a qualification in medicine known as the Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC) to medical graduates who:
have passed the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part I and Part 2, or an acceptable clinical assessment deemed comparable to the MCCQE Part II, and;
have satisfactorily completed at least 12 months of acceptable postgraduate training or an acceptable equivalent.
With a LMCC document in hand, physicians intending to practice in Canada then have to enroll in the Canadian Medical Register to meet the Canadian Standard, a set of academic qualifications that makes an applicant eligible for full licensing in every Canadian province and territory.
Family physicians applying for the first time to become licensed to practise medicine in a Canadian jurisdiction may achieve full licensure only if they meet the following:
have a medical degree from a medical school that, at the time the candidate completed the program, was listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools;
are a Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada;
have satisfactorily completed a discipline-appropriate postgraduate training program in allopathic medicine and an evaluation by a recognized authority, and;
have achieved certification from the College of Family Physicians of Canada or the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada or the Collège des médecins du Québec.
That is for full licensure to practice anywhere in Canada. Many foreign-trained doctors start their practices with a provisional license.
In Canada, a foreign-trained physician’s credentials may meet the licensure requirements of one province but not another.
MCC Offers Doctors A Credential Verification Service
The MCC offers a credential verification service through a website, PhysiciansApply.ca. This is a comprehensive website where medical students and graduates can create an account.
PhysiciansApply.ca provides a wide range of features and services to help medical students and graduates through the process of becoming practicing physicians in Canada.
Some of those features and services include:
applying for exams including the MCCQE1 and MCCQE2;
medical registration;
sharing credentials with medical regulatory authorities and other organizations, and;
providing an orientation to the communication and cultural challenges facing physicians new to Canada.
As an International Medical Graduate, the first step for a physician intending to practice in Canada is to see if their medical college will be readily acceptable to the licensing body, the medical college, in each province.
It is the physician’s responsibility to check whether his or her medical school is listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools, something that can be done by visiting WDOMS.org.
Once a physician finds his or her college in that online directory, the next step is to check the “Sponsor Note” tab and see if it states “Canada Note”. This means medical degrees obtained from this medical school are acceptable to the provincial and territorial medical regulatory authorities in Canada and therefore acceptable to all medical organizations in Canada.
A challenge for many internationally-educated physicians immigrating to Canada is the paucity of residency spots, a bottleneck in the country’s current healthcare system.
“Investment will be needed to expand the capacity of hospital and university networks, to add educators and assessors, and to increase residency spaces in the Canadian medical system,” notes RBC.
“More residency spaces are also needed to align with the increase in medical school student quotas. And streamlining credential recognition for internationally-trained physicians and international medical graduates will be crucial.”
Canada has extended the travel deadline to July 31 for Ukrainians who applied under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization For Emergency Travel (CUAET) measure and were approved before Feb. 4 this year.
“These people will have until July 31, 2024 to arrive in Canada and apply for an inland study permit and an open work permit free of charge once approved,” notes Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on its website.
Settlement services will remain available to all Ukrainian temporary residents and their dependants in Canada until March 31 next year.
But the one-time financial assistance and the emergency temporary accommodations supports will no longer be available to any CUAET holders who arrived in Canada after March 31 this year.
Those Ukrainians who applied and were approved for a CUAET visa before Feb. 4 this year but who did not apply for a work permit at the time of their application will still be able to come to Canada but they will not be able to apply for a work or study permit while in Canada after March 31 this year.
Canada has also created a permanent residence pathway for qualifying Ukrainian nationals with two categories of family members who are eligible to apply for permanent residence under it.
The first category is open to family members of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in Canada who meet the following conditions:
be a Ukrainian national;
be a family member of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident including their spouse or common-law partner, child (regardless of age), grandchild, parent, grandparent, or, sibling (or half-sibling);
be in Canada when they submit their applications and are granted permanent residence;
have valid temporary resident status in Canada or have applied to restore it if it has been expired for less than 90 days;
hold a passport or travel document or provide supporting identity documents if the applicant doesn’t hold one;
provide a signed statutory declaration form from the family member in Canada explaining the applicant’s relationship to them and;
be admissible to Canada.
The Canadian citizen or permanent resident must:
currently live in Canada;
be at least 18 years of age or older, and;
not have been granted permanent residence themselves under this policy.
The second category is open to spouses or common-law partners of Ukrainian nationals who have family in Canada when the spouse or common-law partner is:
unable to leave Ukraine, missing, has passed away, or have been presumed to have passed away;
be the family member of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident including their child (regardless of age), grandchild, parent, grandparent, or sibling (or half-sibling).
The qualifying spouse or common-law partner under this category must:
be in Canada when submitting the application and when granted permanent residence;
not have remarried or be in a common-law relationship with another person since leaving Ukraine;
have valid temporary resident status in Canada or have applied to restore it if it has been expired for less than 90 days;
hold a passport or travel document or provide supporting identity documents if the applicant doesn’t hold one;
provide a signed statutory declaration form from the spouse or partner’s family member in Canada explaining their relationship, and;
be admissible to Canada.
Ukrainian Organizations Lobbied Canada To Extend Program
Those applying under this measure who intend to live in Quebec will have their applications referred to the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration du Québec (MIFI) and must obtain a Certificat de Sélection du Québec (CSQ) from the province of Quebec before the IRCC will grant them permanent residence or a permanent resident visa
Ukrainian organizations in Canada had been lobbying the federal government to extend CUAET, a move Immigration Minister Marc Miller reportedly said earlier this year was “not something that is actively being considered.”
Miller did not, though, categorically rule out that possibility.
“The operational flexibility needs to be there for what happens in Ukraine,” he reportedly said.
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According to surveys, roughly 90 per cent of Ukrainians who came to Canada under the temporary measure launched in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 now want to stay here permanently
A Canadian non-profit organization representing Ukrainians, Pathfinders for Ukraine lobbied the IRCC to open the door to permanent residency for Ukrainians with a permanent pathway.
“We know that employers have been hesitant to hire, train, and promote Ukrainians, knowing their work permit is set to expire in a year,” Randall Baran-Chong, the organizations’ executive director and founder, has reportedly said.
“These war-displaced Ukrainians are de-facto refugees but the program is a temporary measure that doesn’t afford them the benefits and protections of refugee status.”
Almost a quarter of a million Ukrainians are already here after having come under CUAET. Between March 17, 2022 and Feb. 27 this year, Canadian immigration officials received 1,189,320 applications under the CUAET temporary residence program.
But while 960,091 of those applications were approved during that period, only 248,726 Ukrainians, or 25.9 per cent of the total, actually made the move to Canada.
“We’re seeing definitely more arrivals week over week, because people are trying to come, people are coming before the end of it,” Ihor Michalchyshyn, CEO and executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, reportedly told the National Post ahead of the March 31 deadline.
Many Ukrainians have reportedly applied for CUAET as something of an insurance policy should they need it to flee the Ukraine.
A trilingual hotline has been put in place to help them access the legal services they need for the coming three years once they are in Canada.
Pro Bono Ontario’s Ukrainian Refugee Legal Relief Initiative helps displaced Ukrainians access legal information and advice, including the toll-free hotline that is accessible nationally and abroad.
The hotline provides Ukrainians in Canada with access to Canadian lawyers so they can ask immigration-related questions on such things as sponsorship, refugee claims and work permits or be referred to provincial pro bono organizations or community groups across Canada.
“Our government is grateful to be able to count on organizations, such as Pro Bono Ontario, that improve access to justice, a fundamental Canadian value and an integral part of a fair and effective justice system,” said Justice Minister Arif Virani.
“This investment shows how our government continues to stand with Ukraine, and that we will continue to support Ukrainians forced to flee their homes because of Russia’s illegal invasion.”
With CUAET no longer taking applications from overseas, Ukrainians wishing to come to Canada from abroad can apply for a visa or a work or study permit through the IRCC’s existing temporary resident programs but are now subject to fees and standard requirements.
Newfoundland and Labrador wants clarity on Canada’s cap on study permits in the wake of what provincial Immigration Minister Gerry Byrne is calling mixed signals from the federal government.
“We’ve got to get clarity from Ottawa. That’s the bottom line,” Byrne reportedly told CBC News.
“The ambiguity around this right now … I can’t tell you if this is fit to eat. I cannot tell you if we’re going to stay the same, we’re going to shrink, we’re going to grow a little bit.”
When Immigration Minister Marc Miller first announced the cap on study permit applications, Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial government figured it was sitting pretty, with its allocation of study permits likely to result in more international students in the coming school year.
“They have changed their mind and they have continued to change their mind and I think they may change their mind again,” he reportedly said.
“So what was a significant story about potential for growth is really about kind of staying still, treading water for Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Newfoundland’s immigration minister isn’t the only provincial politician in Atlantic Canada to be worried about the upcoming school year and the number of international students who will be allowed to come to the region’s colleges and universities.
On March 27, the Council of Atlantic Premiers (CAP) fired off a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to press him about issues facing the region. International student enrollment was one of them.
“The allocations identified for the Atlantic Provinces diverge significantly from the initial announced cap and ‘weighted by population’ commitment by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC),” wrote Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey, the council’s chair.
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“This unbalanced approach creates particular challenges for our region, especially considering the lower numbers of international students compared to other jurisdictions.”
In that letter to the prime minister, the Atlantic Canadian premiers question the 60-per cent approval rate of study permits assumed by the IRCC, noting there are significant differences among the provinces in study permit application approval rates.
“Additionally, under current federal policy, international students are able to transfer to another jurisdiction after they obtain a study permit,” wrote Furey.
“This policy impacts Atlantic provinces and institutions as applicants can use Atlantic provinces as pathways to move elsewhere in the country. Addressing this policy loophole would be impactful and enhance predictability and sustainability within our post-secondary environment.”
Francophone Student Enrolment Likely To Be Hardest Hit By Study Permit Application Caps
Among the groups likely to be hardest hit by the study application caps are francophone students from other countries, notes the Newfoundland premier.
“The negative impact on our francophone post-secondary institutions, which tend to be more reliant on international students to maintain enrollment, will likely be even greater,” he wrote.
After Miller announced the cap of only 606,250 study permit applications in the coming year for new international students, The Globe and Mail reported this would likely mean a drop of 35 per cent study permits compared to last year.
The actual drop is now expected to be much higher, closer to 40 per cent.
The original estimated drop in study permits was based on the number of applications which are to be accepted and the historical approval rate of 60 per cent for those applications.
But Ottawa has since clarified that the figure for the study permit applications included students who are exempt from the cap and so the actual number of new study permits for those international students subject to the cap is expected to be only 292,000, or 18.9 per cent less than the 360,000 previously expected.
Among the provinces which have already been told how many study permit applications will be allotted for international students in their provinces, some are decidedly unhappy.
Alberta, which has about 11.5 per cent of the country’s population, is only getting 6.8 per cent of study permit applications.
“This is significantly lower than the allocation Alberta anticipated,” Mackenzie Blyth, press secretary to Alberta Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney, reportedly told The Globe and Mail.
British Columbia has been allotted 83,000 study permit applications although its population is only about 15 per cent more than Alberta’s.
And Nova Scotia has seen a reduction to the number of its study permit applications.
In early February, the Canada Gazette reported that certain categories of international students would be exempt from the cap on study permit applications.
Seven Categories Of International Students Exempt From Cap On Applications
“As stipulated in these Instructions, certain categories of study permit applications are excluded from the conditions set out in these Instructions and the associated application cap established by these Instructions.”
Exempt from this new cap on international study permits are those international students who already have study permits and are seeking to renew them and the family member of a temporary resident who already has either a work or study permit.
Also exempt from the cap on study permits are:
members of the armed forces of a country under the Visiting Forces Act, including a person who has been designated as a civilian component of those armed forces;
officers of a foreign governments sent, under exchange agreements between Canada and one or more countries, to take up duties with a federal or provincial agency;
participants in sports activities or events, in Canada, either as an individual participant or as a member of a foreign-based team or Canadian amateur team;
employees of foreign news companies reporting on events in Canada;
people responsible for assisting congregations or groups in the achievement of their spiritual goals and whose main duties are to preach doctrine, perform functions related to gatherings of their congregations or groups or provide spiritual counselling.
Throughout Canada, colleges and universities have expressed concern over the cap on study permit applications, saying it sends the wrong signal to international students.
President and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) Larissa Bezo said in a webinar organised by The PIE and Student VIP that the cap on study permits is not the way her organizations would have chosen to proceed to address the housing issue.
The CBIE issued a statement in January expressing concern the cap on the number of international students might have serious unintended consequences.
“This hasty one-size-fits-all solution may jeopardize the benefits of international education that many communities across the country experience and rapidly unravel a strong global Canadian education brand that has taken years to build,” notes the CBIE on its website.
Haitian Montrealers have asked for a special immigration program to help people from Haiti to escape the violence there in an open letter to both the Quebec and Canadian governments.
“They’re trying to not just survive,” Haitian Montrealer Manuel Mathieu stresses. “They’re trying not to die.”
“I think there should be a program specially for Haiti in the particular context that we’re in right now,” Manuel points out, “because this is a situation that’s never been seen.”
This letter, which has also been signed by young Haitians in Quebec, proposes that something be done for Haitian asylum seekers in Quebec.
“Really making sure that measures for asylum seekers are put in place,” Marina argues.
“It’s a matter of survival,” she further says. “Certain people cannot go back because they have nowhere to go back to.”
Thousands of Haitians are seeking refuge in Quebec, among whom are hundreds whose application for refugee status has already been denied, as per community groups.
They are in limbo and have not been removed yet because of an Administrative Stay on Removals.
According to Frantz Andre, who is in charge of the advocacy group Comité d’Actions des Personnes Sans Statut, Ottawa should grant asylum seekers in Canada PR for humanitarian reasons.
Moreover, he argues for an expedited family reunification process for Haitians, owing to the dire and rapidly escalating situation in their country.
“It’s taking so much time,” says André. “Two of the families are people that were administratively accepted, they got killed by the gangs.”
Canada launched a family-based humanitarian program for Colombians, Haitians, and Venezuelans in 2023, under which it promised to take 11,000 people with family in Canada and:
were nationals of Colombia, Haiti or Venezuela, and
lived in South or Central America, Mexico or the Caribbean at the time of application, and
whose family member in Canada was:
a Canadian citizen or permanent resident
their spouse, common-law partner, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, or sibling
willing to support their application
The official website for the program says that it may have reached its capacity as of December 30, 2023, and is assessing the ones that have been submitted already.
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“Providing safe, legal pathways for displaced people to start new lives in Canada not only delivers on that commitment, but also strengthens our country through the profound contributions newcomers make in their communities, including growing our economy and filling labour market gaps,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said.
Those immigrating through this program were promised “pre-arrival services,” which include an assessment of employment skills and a referral to a settlement service provider organization.
“The new humanitarian pathway provides an alternative to irregular migration northbound through Central America for some of those who are displaced due to political, social and economic instability,” the news release said.
Further, it elaborated on the fact that Ottawa “will continue to monitor the progress of the pathway and adjust as required toward these goals.”
