Mark Holthe 0:05
ANNOUNCER. This episode of the Canadian immigration podcast is sponsored by the Canadian immigration Institute, one of the best sources of video content on Canadian immigration to help you navigate your way through the Canadian immigration process. Head on over to the YouTube channel, where there's tons of video content, and you can join mark yes myself in a number of live video streams, Q and A's all designed to help you navigate your way through this crazy Canadian immigration process. When you're done there, like and subscribe and then head on over to the Canadian Immigration institute.com where you can find all those awesome DIY courses that I've been talking about. Thank you, Canadian immigration Institute. You are the sponsor of this amazing little podcast. You
Speaker 1 1:05
i The Canadian immigration process can be complex and frustrating. With the Canadian Immigration Department making it virtually impossible to speak to an officer. There are few places to turn to for trusted information. The Canadian immigration podcast was created to fill this void by offering the latest on immigration law, policy and practice. Please welcome ex immigration officer and Canadian immigration lawyer Mark Holthe, as he is joined by industry leaders across Canada sharing insight to help you along your way.
Mark Holthe 1:52
Welcome back to another episode of the Canadian immigration podcast. I'm your host, Mark Holthe. I'm running solo today in this episode, 175 I am so happy to have you here with me. Today is another getting it right series. So we're talking about express entry, and more so than ever before, it is so critically essential that you take care when you're submitting these applications. Immigration, the department has been doing everything they can to find ways to refuse applications. And I don't care if they disagree with me, and they say, No, we're just applying the law. Well, the reality is, they are digging and searching for every reason in the world to refuse applications. And as counsel, as you know, representatives of people, I can tell you that it has never been more stressful when I'm trying to assist people in submitting their application. So right off the bat, understand, this is a world that is crazy. It's insane, and today, what I'm going to talk about on this getting it right series is what the future holds for Express Entry. Just recently, we had our dear minister, and let's see if we can bring Minister Diab in here. Okay, it's those of you who don't recognize her, rightfully so, she hardly ever appears, but she did make an appearance just recently in February of 2026 to announce changes to the category based draws. So what I thought today was I would bring her on, and we'll definitely have her assist me with this podcast. She'll be my wingman, but I want to go through a little presentation that I did recently for a number of settlement organizations across Alberta, who are just trying to figure out what the heck to do in the future. So we're going to zip through this really quick. We're going to focus exclusively on Express Entry, because I want you to understand what is happening with this whole world, this crazy world of immigration. So let's jump over here. First thing I want to touch on is just for those who, if you've been under a rock somewhere in the world and you don't understand what Express Entry is, this has been around guys for now over 11 years, and I was involved with the Canadian Bar Association working groups when this was first a thought, and we provided comments and analyzed the actual regulatory provisions that set this all in place. And there was a reason they created it. They created it because backlogs were had climbed in previous years to upwards of 600,000 which required then Liberal Party and let's bring minister in right now. Thanks, Minister Diab for joining us. So basically, what they did was they had this massive backlog of Federal Skilled Worker applications because CEC didn't exist yet, and they made the decision to call out hundreds of 1000s of them. And so they basically just returned them, returned the fee, and said, hey, it's going to be, like, six years for this to process. So therefore, we're just going to start fresh and express entry was kind of the master plan of how they were going to do it. So no longer, if you met the eligibility for the Federal Skilled Worker or the CEC or the Federal Skilled Trade Program, would you have a first in, first out process to get permanent residence? What happened was they decided, You know what, we're going to have people express an interest, just like the Australian and New Zealand models. If you remember, back in 2013 2014 that was really a driving ship for their permanent residence program Canada said, Hey, we're going to do this too. We want to attract the best and the brightest. So that's what they did. And they created Express Entry. They launched it January the first 2015 and now just because you're eligible for one of those economic programs did not mean you were going to get an opportunity to actually apply. So only those highest ranked, as we know, would be able to get the actual invitation to then submit a permanent resident application. So going forward here, let's advance the slide. How does it actually work? So like you guys know, once you're eligible for one of the programs, that's the starting point. Most of you are Canadian Experience Class because you're here. We have millions of people here. And when you're going through the process and you are applying through Express Entry, the most of you it is the Canadian Experience Class that you go through, although with this massive resurgence of French thanks to the liberal party's new mandate, anyone who speaks French is also in through the Federal Skilled Worker Program, but it's pretty darn hard. Up until more recent times, it's pretty hard to be able to qualify from outside of Canada to immigrate. So basically, only those who are in Canada really have a significant shot, unless you speak French. So you put your profile in, they have a round of invitations. You get your invitation to apply, and then if your score is high enough, you have 60 days to submit your electronic application for permanent residence, and then they try to process it in about six months. Right now it's about seven months processing. So let's jump into these category based draws, because this is really the future for a lot of people whose comprehensive ranking system scores are just not as high. So when we look at the category based draws on February the 18th, 2026 Minister Diab came on and announced the recent changes. One of the significant things they did with the category based draws was to increase the Work Experience duration from six months to qualify to 12 months of continuous eligible work experience within the past three years. Or you can no French at an NCLC seven. That's basically the provisions. So if you are within one of the categories, as of prior to February, we had French healthcare, stem trade, agriculture, which really was just butchers and education occupations, which they launched then in 2026 subject to the physicians, because they did create the carve out for physicians with Canadian work experience. December 8 of 2025 they they brought back the transport occupation, which used to be on there till all the truck drivers apparently took over, and they didn't like that, so they removed the transport now they put the transport back in without truck drivers and physicians senior managers, which they promised back in November when I was speaking at the our national Canadian immigration lawyer Association Conference, myself and one of the head policy officials with Express Entry on his slide deck, he had physicians, senior managers and researchers all on his list of things that they were going to change for category based draws and as of February the 18th, well, for The most part, except physicians, a little bit earlier, they are now on the list, so skilled military recruits were also added on, and there you have it. So those are the ultimate changes. So those of you who don't quite rank high enough for the regular Canadian Experience Class draws, have a shot. Let's dive in. And let's just take a little bit about a look at the point breakdown, Minister, if you're watching this, this is for you right from the very beginning. I do not understand what the rational is for punishing spouses. I don't get it if you're married or in a common law relationship and your spouse doesn't have the same level of human capital you have. My wife made a massive decision to stay home and raise our kids and support me while I went through law school, she is every bit as valuable to this country as I am, but you guys don't see it that way. In fact, anyone that is actually married and is bringing a spouse, well, you punish them. So what does that say about our country's belief in the value of families and raising children? My goodness, if you encouraged more families to actually have children, well then our population wouldn't be struggling in this socialist country we live in, where individuals are wondering what their future retirements are going to be like, because we don't have enough people paying into our Canada Pension. So with that being said, Liberal Party immigration, refugees and citizenship Canada, the one thing I wish you would do more than anything else is freaking strip away this differentiation for people with a spouse and people without a spouse. So you can look here the point values are skewed. So 40 of the points normally attributed to a single applicant are split off and given to the spouse. And so if the spouse is English or French or their education or they don't have as much Canadian work experience, then clear 40 point difference, and that's why we get all those problems with accompanying spouses and listing them as non accompanying when they're here, and allegations of misrepresentation and that whole nightmare. But the big thing to remember is that because of fraud and because of all the stupid people out there who are trying to scam the city. System on March, the 25th of 2025
Mark Holthe 10:03
the government stripped away the bonus points for job offers, which is absolutely ridiculous. Now, if they would have just enforced they would have done their job at the beginning, we wouldn't be in this situation. But as always, knee jerk when there's a problem and it's bad publicity and it's always public shaming in the media that drives immigration policy in this country. Well, as of March the 25th 2025 there are no more 50 points for tier 00, or lower, and no more 200 points for Tier double zero. So that part, in part, is why they created number nine, their senior managers with Canadian work experience. So it was kind of a carve out. But what's the difference? They just get their employers to say that they worked in a skilled position, give them another fake letter, and off they go. This one, they actually had to go through the process of paying $1,000 getting an LMIA showing there's no Canadians or permanent residence. So sorry. It's just it just so not well thought out, Minister, not well thought out. But this is the world we're in. I don't make the rules. I just figure out how to advise you to navigate them all right. Next, let's talk about those booster strategies. So you guys are in a situation where you're trying to figure out, what am I going to do? My work permits expiring. I'm running out of time. I don't have options. My employer can't get a new work permit for me because my wage is $35 an hour in Alberta, and the prevailing the median, or the high low wage cutoff, is $36 an hour. And basically because of that, I'm low wage, and the unemployment rates in Calgary are six point whatever percent. And so therefore I am unable. My employer can't even apply for an LMIA if they want to. So this is the world people are in. They're stuck. They're trying to figure out what to do. So let's take this dude right here. Okay, let's take Johnny. So 28 years old, all right, so he's still in the max category for age single. He's got a master's in physics in Canada. He knows English at his CLB nine, which is he's getting those skill transferability points. Remember, there's about 100 extra ones up for grabs. And if you got a CLB nine in English, you got a good shot at claiming about 50 of them or more. So no French. He doesn't speak any French. He has no foreign work experience, which is a lot of people now, it's kind of it's kind of interesting to be 28 years old, complete your program in Canada, but and not have foreign work experience, but sometimes that happens. So he's been working for one year in Canada. So we meet CEC. He has no LMIA and no nomination, which the LMIA doesn't help him. Anyways, he doesn't have any relatives in Canada, so he's not getting any extra 15 points for, say, a sibling, and his scores 49 what are his chances? Zippo, zilch, zero, unless he somehow fits within a category based draw potentially. So what happens if he decides, Okay, when my work permit runs out, I'm going home and I'm going to gain a year of foreign work experience? Well, if he was to do that, he'll be 29 still hasn't hit the max where he's losing points for age. He goes home and works one year. His score jumps from 49 to 527, and in our current world of CEC, remember, you just have to demonstrate that you have one year of skilled Canadian work experience within the previous three so Johnny can go home for almost two years. He can't claim two years of foreign work experience, but he could go home for almost two years and still be eligible for CEC when he's back. So in sum, what are his chances if he was to go home and work for a year under the current realm of low score, I think was 508, just recently, Johnny would be a slam dunk. All right, what happens if he went home and stayed there for three years? Now, I didn't adjust, actually, for his age. So I could have adjusted for that. So three years would put him at what's that? 31 maybe 2930 31 so he'd maybe be 10 points less. So I have here 528, points on my screen. Those of you who are listening on the podcast, you can slide over to the YouTube channel and watch it there. But ultimately, what we have here is he goes from 49 to about 518 which, once again, the difference is only between five for it's only one point, I should say difference effectively for him, having one year foreign work experience versus three. So even one year is sufficient. Now if you already have that one year, the strategy doesn't work for you. It only works if you have no foreign work experience. So consider that. Consider returning home. Strategy two, which everybody and their dog is talking about old Sally here. She's a rock star. Sally's 35 in fairness, Sally could be like 50 years old. It wouldn't matter, zero age points. So she's married three years of foreign work experience. Because she's old 35 two years of Canadian work experience. English had a CLB eight, no French master's degree. Spouse has also got a master's degree. And so in this case, the spouse has two years of Canadian work experience as well. CELPIP eight, the same thing. And so they're not losing any points, because her spouse is equal to her in terms of human capital. But for Sally, her CRS scores 459, what are her chances? Zero, once again, unless there's a category that maybe she fits in and has a low CRS score, but highly unlikely, basically zero for Sally, well, what happens if Sally speaks French at an NCLC level seven, boom, her score jumps to 546, which gives her approximately 100% chance, although I put 99% chance on the slide of getting permanent redness. You see this? So step one, go home. Get some Canadian get some foreign work experience, if you don't have it. Strategy two. Strategy one was that. Strategy two is learn French, and then Strategy three, well, it comes down to the category based draws. So here we've got Gustavo. He's 37 he's married. He's got a master's in social work that he got in Canada. He knows English, CLB nine, but no French. Three years of foreign work experience because he's 37 he's already got those years of work experience. He's worked one year in Canada in a skilled position. So he has eligibility under the Canadian Experience Class, and once again, he does not qualify for any category, so he's got three years foreign so going home and working isn't going to help him. He has at least from the standpoint of getting more CRS scores through the skill transferability section, but he has one year of Canadian work experience, which allows him to qualify through CEC so and his spouse has got a Master's, two years Canadian work experience, cell PIP eight, so basically she's just a little bit under but they're not losing any points for a spouse, his score is 496, so he's doing really well, but his chances are still less than 10% and probably that's generous, he and so what does he do? Well, you return home, or in Canada, if possible, accumulate 12 months of relevant work experience to qualify for a category. So he's got a master's in social work. So let's see he goes back home. Let's say he can't get a job here in social work. So he goes back home, works for a year as a social worker, which is on the list, the health the health services list, and after he gets that one year, his score goes from 496 to 496 and you're like, wait a minute, what? How is that beneficial to go home? Well, it's a category based draw. And when it comes to health, 496 is enough to get an ita under that category based draw. So those are three quick and quick and dirty booster strategies that everybody should be considering. So if you're freaking out, you don't want to go home, you're like, I'm losing all of my hopes and dreams. Understand that these are a potential reality for you. Okay, when we look at the immigration levels plans for Express Entry, we know that, and this is kind of tiny for those that are watching, but back in, let's see it was close this here, back in 2025 they had projected 395,000 total immigrants that they were going to bring in. And the total economic immigrants were 232,150 and then for 2026 this year, they were going to go down to 380 2027 they're going to go down to 365,000 total immigrants for the levels plants. Well, flash forward to this year, they did hold true to the 380 but instead of dropping down in 2027 to 365 they've readjusted it to just keep it at 380 so it's not substantially lower than where they were, but they were headed for 500,000 they were headed for 500,000 before what an election politics. And like I said, immigration has never been more driven by public shaming in the media than anything else. So now in 2026 in actuality, when you look at the dark and dreary time of 2025 when the sky was falling, they had projected for 2026 229,000 total economic immigrants. Well, in fact, the figure was 2000 or 229,750 but in reality, this year, it actually went up for 2026 to 239,800 and in 2027 they plan to increase it another 5000 or so to 244,700 so for those of you watching this podcast, all you care about is economic so who cares about the overall numbers? What are they doing with the economics? And you can see when we went basically right now, if we look at 2025 the PNPs were the thing that took the hit. I don't want to get into a lot of drama, but essentially, there was a little bit of a hissy fit between both the Federal Minister of Immigration Mark Miller and some of the provinces and the premiers who minister Miller said, Take more refugees. And they said, we've got more more people than we can ever handle in our social network, you know? And this has been the complaint of Daniel Smith and Alberta and some of the other premiers that, look, we are doing our fair share. There's a lot of these special measures that you've instituted. We have a lot of Ukrainian nationals. We have a lot from Iran, from Hong Kong, from different locations that we're already trying to settle in massive numbers. In fact, you know, Daniel Smith was saying that there's over 500,000
Mark Holthe 20:03
just in recent years that have come, which is basically half the population of Calgary, our largest city. And so anyways, this is the TIFF that they had. So Mark Miller, because, you know, he's somewhat of a bully at the time, he basically said, Well, fine. So then for 2025 they reduced the number from over 90,000 for PNP is down to 55,000 and so where are we? For 2026 they have actually moved it back up. And I think it was actually 105,000 for 2024 so we're back up to 91,500 but still it's very selective. And who gets them? The provinces themselves are still really hurting. And in fact, some of the provinces are basically saying, well, there isn't enough to even really worry about, you know, fully staffing our operations, because we have way more people than we can ever, you know, fit within the PNP. And so that's kind of the lay of the land. So our overall numbers for the Federal high skill for 2026 are 109,000 and next year, 2027 they're projecting to go up just marginally to 111,000 and then kind of hold at that figure for federal high skilled which is basically your Express Entry, right? So that is what the future holds. Although overall the numbers look like they really dropped. Economic has held strong because they realize this is the these are the drivers that are going to be coming, working, paying taxes and helping to feed into our taxation system to cover our social services that we need all across the country, which makes sense. Okay, let's take a quick look at the score distribution. So as of yesterday, essentially, well, actually, it was February the 15th, but I printed this off yesterday. You can see that the the people in the distribution still is fairly high, above 500 now it has come down because we've had so many large draws for CEC, but 501 to 600 there's still just about 16,559 people. And then between 451, and 500 you can see that's the massive group, 73,000 609 I wish they would separate out the 501 to 600 Minister Diab, please separate out 501 to 600 there's no reason not to do it. You've already done it for 451, to 500 so seek so people can see exactly where they're at. I don't know why they don't do that. And just for your note, just for your interest, the total it is issued in 2025 are about 113 998 but 114,000 essentially. All right, let's take a quick look, just so that you can kind of see where these rounds have really shaken down. So the lowest scores, that's really what we're caring about. Okay, so just February the 17th. Just recently, CEC dipped to its lowest, its lowest score of 508 in what I'd call the more recent era education. The last draw we had for education was back in September at 462 the trades were way back. Well, actually we didn't have a trade draw on September the 18th, and the score was 505 how in the heck can can trades be at 505? How? Because we had cooks on the list, so cooks were considered a trade. Cooks are gone now, and I suspect that trades are now going to take a big dip, because the vast majority of those over 500 people are really trades. People who came got, you know, they could even have a Master's, but they're working as a cook, so they're the individuals that are really pushing that number up. Okay, let's take a look at STEM. So if we take a look at STEM, the last draw we had was way back in April 11, 2024 so even though it's technically on the list and and the you know, the lowest score was 491, we'll have to see what they're going to do, because there's no t in STEM, there's no tech there's cybersecurity specialists, and that's basically it for anything tech related. So it's more sem science, engineering and math. But unless you have a draw, then what's the point? And I'm pretty sure, yeah, we have insurance adjusters and brokers on this list too, which is absolutely ridiculous. I don't know if that was once again, Mark Miller, again, Mark Miller had a friend who was in it and thought, hey, I'm going to put that on the category to give a bone for my friend before I'm turfed as the sacrificial lamb for making all those initial cuts in immigration. But whatever it happened, I think it's crazy. So now we have for health care, which a lot of people are looking at carefully. It's actually 467 that's why, when we went back to Gustavo at his 490 some, he would actually qualify, because social workers are on the list. So healthcare 467 is the lowest score. And that just happened February 20. Just literally, it was the most recent round of invitations, and they did a big old 4000 splash. Now interestingly, physicians often were not being there, were not qualified, like there were too old. Maybe their education wasn't considered to be well, I don't even know, to tell you the truth, why more of them weren't qualified. But the reality is, mostly they lost all these points because of age, because usually by the time you get through med school, you're going to run out of you know, you're going to be a little bit older. And so when they're trying to compete against other people in the health care. Or pool, they weren't scoring high enough, and so physicians weren't even getting itas under health care, because the scores were so high. But 467, you can see it's slowly gone down. The first health care back in June, 4 of last year, was 504, which is super high, and progressively it's worked its way down, down, down to 467, which has been the lowest so far that it's that's happened. And why is it low? Because, once again, they did a big old splash of 4000 invitations. Okay, now, if we, if we take a look at the physicians, this is the one that is the right the great anomaly right now. So physicians with Canadian work experience, remember these individuals, the lowest score was 169 I don't know how that happens. I'll be honest. I'd love to see someone who says, Oh, I know the person that had 169 and got that ita somehow like obviously, they lost all their age points. They must not be able to speak English very well, so they must lose a ton of language points well, or somehow their education didn't match up perfectly, but they had the work experience. I don't know, how do you work as a physician and, well, maybe I don't know, how do you work as a physician in Canada and not have your education, you know, comparable to a physician locally to be able to practice? I don't know. But anyways, 169 Well, I don't know necessarily if I want them to be my doctor. I don't know if they really, yeah, I don't think I'd want them to be my family physician. Anyways, that's the scores there. But here's the thing, okay, are you ready for the French language draws? You're probably wondering, okay, what are the French? What's the French? Look at this with French. The low score, the all time low was way back in February of 2024 where it went down as low as 336, there's over 70 points for French language people when they're fluent, over 70 both points for second language, as well as the bonus points for the 50 points for speaking at an NCLC level, seven, seven. So these individuals, you can see all time low was 336, and then French more recently in our modern era, the low on December the 17th was still 399, below 400 which means that in the low three hundreds individuals, that's really what their their human capital is, without the French. So pretty crazy you guys. This is the world. So we've had 48,000 if you count these up for 2025 not this year, but but for 2025 48,000 invitations were issued. So what percentage of the overall totals were French? The French language proficiency alone, 42% 42% of all invitations issued within the the Express Entry System outside of Quebec, people looking to live outside of Quebec, 42% were French language proficiency only. Okay, so, but that's not the whole story. Understand that these are just people who happen to be drawn on these draws. How many of the Canadian Experience Class draws ultimately were infused with French. So I'm thinking people that spoke French were probably more in the range of 60 plus. And I think there has been some news media reports that actually had the figures. I'm just going straight off of what the website says, so you can see how dominating French is, which then creates this question economic integrity versus the linguistic priorities. So is express entry. And that's the question. Is Express Entry the right tool to meet Canada's Francophone goals? Well, there's lots of other avenues we have, the Francophone, rural Francophone programs we have,
Mark Holthe 28:33
they can literally carve out a separate program for French alone and not punish the other English speaking economic immigrants, because that's basically what's happening. So Express Entry, its focus is high human capital for strong economic outcomes. That's the actual explanation. You know, in 2026 the focus is on CEC and Provincial Nominee programs to basically transition temporary residents to permanent residents and express entry, immigrants show top results in earnings and employment. But when you look and you kind of balance that against the Francophone folks, the whole goal of the French policy, or at least the Francophone policy, is to restore restore the Francophone minority populations across the country. And they do have a legal mandate within IRPA and the Official Languages Act to do that, but it's just the volume and the rate at which they're doing it. So the current rounds of invitations heavily prioritizes French speakers, so the tension is lower CRS for French, the economic goals versus the demographic or language priorities of the federal government, and just the straining of the express entry model by non economic policy layers. And I should say it's more political layers than anything else. So that's kind of the dilemma that we're facing. So I just wanted to share that with you today. And Minister Diab, thanks for joining me, although you were quite silent. But you know, Minister, you've pretty much been silent well for the past stretch of your mandate. Anyways, so. So this is Mark Holthe, Canadian immigration lawyer. I'm signing off on episode 175 of the Canadian immigration podcast. I want to thank all of you for tuning in and for sharing the podcast, and we're going to try to ramp it up a little bit more. My practice has never been busier. In fact, last year was 40% busier than my best year ever. So I spent a lot of time working in the business and not as much on the business. So hopefully this year, I've got a new lawyer. I'm excited that's going to be joining us in April, and I'm hoping that that will create more margin for me to do more videos, to be more active and social, and basically to just do what I do. So thanks so much for joining. We'll see you guys in the next episode.
Speaker 1 30:43
Thank you for listening to the Canadian immigration podcast. Your trusted source for information on Canadian immigration law, policy and practice. If you would like to book a legal consultation, please visit www.holthelaw.com you can also find lots more helpful information on our Canadian immigration Institute YouTube channel, where you can join mark on one of his many Canadian immigration live Q and A's, see you soon, and all the best as you navigate this crazy world we call Canadian immigration. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
