Canada launched six new temporary permanent residence pathways on May 6, 2021, targeting essential workers and international graduates already in the country, as reported by CIC News. The streams accept applications until November 5, 2021, or until the program reaches 90,000 new permanent residents, whichever comes first.
These pathways represent a departure from Canada's traditional points-based Express Entry system. Rather than ranking candidates against each other, the new streams operate on a first-come, first-served basis for applicants who meet baseline eligibility requirements. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada designed the initiative to retain workers who helped Canada through the COVID-19 pandemic and to address labor shortages in healthcare, retail, and other frontline sectors.
The six streams divide into three categories for essential workers and three for international graduates. Essential worker applicants must have at least one year of Canadian work experience in healthcare, frontline roles, or other essential occupations within the three years before applying. They must hold valid temporary resident status, demonstrate language ability at Canadian Language Benchmark 4 in English or French, and intend to live outside Quebec. International graduate applicants need a credential from a designated Canadian post-secondary institution completed within the past four years, no work experience requirement, and language scores at CLB 5. Both groups must be in Canada when they apply and when IRCC grants permanent residence.
"This is a new and innovative approach to permanent residence," the CIC News report states.
The 90,000-applicant cap breaks down unevenly across streams. The three essential worker categories share a combined limit of 30,000 spots, while the three graduate streams share 60,000. Within the essential worker allocation, 20,000 spaces go to healthcare workers, leaving 10,000 for other frontline and essential occupations. French-speaking applicants in any stream face no numerical cap, reflecting Canada's ongoing effort to grow Francophone communities outside Quebec.