CIP 182 - EE Reforms - Episode 3
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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
In episode one, we showed you how the current express entry system works. In episode two, we showed you what the government's [00:02:00] own research says about who succeeds and why they are changing a system that is demonstrably working. Today, we put it all together into a practical strategic map. What is changing, what is not changing, when each thing is expected to happen, and what you should be doing about it right now before the deep dive begin in episodes four and five.
All right, Alicia, what do you think about this topic? Yeah. These are conversations that I am having with clients every week, and people are asking me, "All right, I know express entry is changing. Do I do another study permit program? Do I try to get my third or fourth year of Canadian work experience instead?
What's gonna happen? Do I take a bachelor's program if I go back to school, or do I only do a master's program because are only one of those sets of points gonna count or maybe no education points at all in Canada?" They're also asking about, "Okay, what's 1.3 [00:03:00] times the median? What does that mean? How do I figure it out?"
And for couples, they're making really difficult decisions right now about when are they gonna implement the spousal changes. Do I have to have my spouse go outside of Canada so that I can apply as a principal applicant with spouse unaccompanied, because I don't know if I'm gonna get that ITA in time before there might be a change.
So the answer of- to all these questions is something we're going to dive into here. There are still some unknowns, but it's so helpful to understand which reforms are coming and when they're coming. Yeah. And like you said, this is really for people trying to figure out, okay, do I need to act now? Will these reforms or changes, will they impact on my ability to qualify in the future when I'm a decent candidate right way?
So we're gonna address that as we go through this presentation, but I think for our viewers and for those who are listening to the podcast, this one is really all about this two-track [00:04:00] timeline, and it's a strategic framework for our entire series. There's two kinds of change. Two completely different responses are needed.
So let's dive in first, Alicia, just talk about these different tracks that have very different speeds. Mm-hmm. So ministerial instructions, and this is something that has just ballooned, right? We have the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We've got the Immigration Refugee Protection Regulations, but grafted on top of that is the ability for the Minister of Immigration to make all sorts of key changes with ministerial instruction.
And these ministerial instructions, we saw a ton of them during the pandemic. They were coming fast and furious pretty much every week. But right now what we're h- honing in on are the ministerial instructions respecting ex- or about express entry specifically. And these ones are ones that can change very quickly.
It doesn't require the same sort of publication and consultation period that [00:05:00] regulatory amendments in the act or the regulations do. So these ministerial instructions, what is really important to understand is they could come any day, and this will really change the landscape Yeah. And like we've talked about before, this imminent nature of these changes makes it really hard for people to plan and predict what they're doing.
Ultimately, you're gonna get as many points as you possibly can. You're gonna submit your application into the profile, into your profile into the pool, and then you're gonna see what's gonna happen, and we've talked about that before. That's kind of been the strategy that people have employed. I'll get into the pool and then see where things go.
But now you have to take a more strategic approach, especially for those who are wondering, should I learn French or should I not learn French? And we'll talk about this a little bit later, that the reality is there's no case right now where learning French is gonna harm you. But for other people who are maybe struggling a little bit because their spouse doesn't have the same level of human capital that they do, [00:06:00] and so as the spousal points, which are still very much in existence, can strip away up to 40 points for a principal applicant, the regulatory changes and even within these ministerial instructions, if they enact these shortly, you could go from a situation where you're contemplating, does my spouse have to go home so that I list him or her as a, as non-accompanying, or do I just ride it out for a little bit here and then these goofy points will go away, and then I'll be able to compete equally against individual applicants?
What do you think, Alicia? Do you think this is gonna, at least the removal of the spousal points, do you think that it's gonna have a big impact on people? I think the removal of spousal points will have an impact on anybody who is a couple, who's in a common law relationship or is legally married to somebody other than a Canadian citizen or PR who is currently disadvantaged.
And those spousal points are tricky because some people are not as disadvantaged as others depending on [00:07:00] how strong their spouse's education and language are already. But if those spousal points go away, it will help a large segment of people whose spouses have a little bit lower education or maybe not as strong English.
And so the implementation of when that happens is really key just because, like you said, Mark, some people are trying to figure out right now, do I only have a short window before my work permit expires where I'm trying to gain that next year of Canadian work experience? Do I have to have my spouse go home right now so that I can update my express entry profile and hopefully get in before there's significant changes next year on eligibility?
So track one is these ministerial instructions, which really there isn't a lot of regulatory oversight, but track two is the regulatory amendments, and we expect those to come probably late next year, late 2027. Even finalizing those changes likely to occur where they're proclaimed [00:08:00] and become law, maybe even into the beginning of 2028.
So the proposals for this second track, this regulatory amendments, are focusing on merging the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the CEC, and the Federal Skilled Trade into one program, but that requires a regulatory adjustments within the act and the regulations, and, uh, unlike the ministerial instructions.
And so they have to publish this in the Canada Gazette, part one and two. There's public consultations, and then the rules become finalized. But the three programs that you know today will exist probably at least until the end, maybe late of 2027, when these things happen. And clearly the distinction is clear that the ministerial instructions can happen at any time, so that's, that's where you have to be ready right now.
But the actual merger of the programs is more of a long track. So those are the two different tracks that we've been monitoring at least and trying to explain here as our... as [00:09:00] these express entry reforms come to fruition. Okay, Lisa, let's talk about what's not changing, okay? This is the- Hmm ... stable foundation that you need to build on.
The system is evolving, not collapsing. So let's chat just a little bit about this stable foundation and what remains unchanged for 2026. And this is helpful to remember, okay, here's where we've got some stable ground. Here's what we can count on. We know that the way that express entry fundamentally functions is staying the same.
We still have that same process by which you have eligibility criteria. You're then going into a pool. It's based on your CRS score. They will scoop out with some regularity candidates based on program-specific draws or category-based draws, and you still have those 60 days after the ITA to submit your full EP- EAPR.
So we know that's staying. It's still a matter of having high human capital, right? [00:10:00] So the system still rewards people who are under age 29. It still rewards language. We will still have a PNP pathway even if they take away those bonus 600 PNP points, and the reason is because they're still doing program-specific draws under PNP.
So as long as there's still nomination spots with the provinces, then we'll still have a federal PNP invitation to apply. And we know that at least for 2026, we'll still have those basic eligibility criteria for CEC, FSW, FST, because those regulatory changes are gonna take a long enough time that it won't be implemented until at earliest 2027.
So that's all staying the same. The other thing that's really important to understand is the reforms are not talking about reforming the category-based draws, and that is a separate thing that is happening. So all of those [00:11:00] categories that we currently have for 2026, Immigration has said, "We will keep those same categories until the end of the year."
So you can at least count on the fact that even though we don't know when or which category they will do a draw under, we know those categories will stay the same for 2026, and we still have relative fast priority processing for express entry. Like, you're looking at other economic PNP-based non-EE applications, we're looking at well over a year.
But we know under express entry, if you've got express entry basic nomination or a PNP express entry linked, these processing standards are about the same, 80% within six months, so that's really good. Yeah. All right, so let's take a quick look at three messages, I guess, that cut against the headlines. So I think people aren't really talking about the fact that for French speakers, it's still a major driver, and lots of people are freaked out the 50 points are gonna disappear.
But what is [00:12:00] staying, you guys, is the category-based draws. And it makes sense if you have an individual who is... And we'll talk about this in more detail in later episodes, but effectively, yes, the 50 points may be gone. You may not be as competitive in, say, a general draw or a CEC draw, but when you are drawn under the French-speaking category, you're competing against everybody else that speaks French.
It's possible that if you have a score of 200 CRS points, maybe you might not get an invitation to apply. But generally speaking, even if the pass mark is, well, if you add the points in, there's 50 extra bonus points for French alone, we've seen scores under 400 already for French. So it's possible that the French scores, the cutoffs might be in the low 300s.
But those categories will exist, just like the Provincial Nominee Program. But it remains still one of the 10 active categories, and Francophone outside of Quebec is absolutely a standing commitment from the government. And so the path is probably just [00:13:00] as streamlined as it was before, and now depending on how many category-based draws they decide to do, I don't see a lot changing for our French-speaking candidates.
So that's one. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Alicia, you got something else to add to that? Yeah. Yeah. The French-speaking candidates is interesting because many people are asking, is it still worthwhile to learn French? And so one thing I wanted to highlight was that immigration has a policy on Francophone immigration. It was a 2024 to 2028 plan, and it is there because we have the Official Languages Act, and the Official Languages Act specifically says that immigration is one of the ways that we can maintain or increase the demographic weight of a French linguistic minority.
And they just basically say under this act, under the Official Languages Act, Francophone immigration is important to economic development. They just make that statement, and then they set out a requirement for the Minister of Immigration to adopt a policy on Francophone immigration [00:14:00] to enhance the vitality of French linguistic minority communities in Canada, and this policy's in place until 2028.
So- It seems like it's going to stay, so if you are in the process of trying to figure out, how can I increase my chances under express entry, French is still a good bet. You bet. And just back, circling back again on the married common law situation, it's so strange. IRCC almost phrases it in their messaging that we're also removing the points for spouses, as if somehow there was an advantage to having a spouse within the process.
So that messaging has always puzzled me because it was always a penalty, and now I can't wait for the day when it's removed. And it's, it's quietly been reducing married applicants' chances of getting ITAs. And people, if your spouse had a lower, excuse me, like I said, lower human capital than the principal applicant, it actually pulls the combined score down, so you can't compete as freely with individuals.
And I don't know [00:15:00] where it ever came from. I don't know why they created it. You know, it was interesting, Alicia, in the early days when Express Entry was first launched, I had a workaround. Essentially, what we would do is we would just list the spouse as non-accompanying till we got the ITA, and then when we submitted the APR, said, "Oh, I changed my mind.
Now my spouse is accompanying." And there wasn't the barrier, the 11.2 barrier that we have now, where they reassess scores if a spouse that was formally declared as non-accompanying is now declared as accompanying, and then they will reassess, and if your score is below the round of invitations, that you'd get your application refused.
Back then, that was a loophole, and I remember, just like I recently returned from the National CBA Conference and speaking on the Express Entry panel, back in I think it was 2016, I was on a similar panel, and after Express Entry was first launched, and I remember, I still remember the officer, John Atchison, saying, "Yeah, we're aware of that, and yeah, stay tuned."
And so most of my clients, I was like, "Let's go quick. Let's get this submitted quick before the policy changes." And [00:16:00] sure enough, it did. But if this is removed, this is one of the things, at least for people who are in this current status quo, you're gonna benefit from if they get rid of this thing. And then your numbers are gonna, you're gonna show that they're gonna go up, and you're not gonna have to have your spouse go home if they're already here with you.
And that's a whole separate landmine that we could have a separate podcast on, this whole concept of listing a spouse as non-accompanying just to get the points, but at the same time not be misrepresenting to IRCC if your spouse is still here on a work permit with you in Canada. And then the final of these three messages that kind of cut against the headlines is just the fact that the PNPs also, if those points are removed, they're gonna fit into the same category as the French speakers.
Yes, the 600 points will be gone, and people won't have over 1,000 CRS points, but with a category-based or a, like an actual program draw, PNP like they've been doing, it doesn't matter if the person has 200 points, and we've seen [00:17:00] over 100 points or t- under 200, 150 plus 600 to seven- 750. We've, w- those scores are gonna be a lot lower for PNPs, and it's interesting, Alicia, with our discussion on where the government's priorities are, and they, this super heavy emphasis on high wage, which we'll talk about here in a little bit, it's so interesting to see what they're gonna do with the PNPs.
The express entry rounds are still gonna exist for the PNPs, but the allocations, are they gonna continue to suppress them so that they can maintain higher numbers on the federal side because they feel like those individuals have the best chance of, of success, or at least success in their terms, which is economic success and that they're gonna be earning more money and paying more taxes.
So- Mm-hmm ... none of these are real headlines that anyone's talking about, but as far as I'm concerned, that gap at least when we're talking about these things is where the strategy really lives, knowing that you don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater if you're win- [00:18:00] in these types of categories.
So we'll see, we'll see how that plays out. Yeah, and so the good news here is that even though things are changing, there is a window of opportunity for existing candidates who have strong human capital, who have Canadian experience that's high-skilled, and who say, "Okay, well, I meet all the program eligibility criteria right now for CEC."
I know that IRCC is prioritizing currently people who are in Canada and have Canadian experience. And Mark, we heard a lot about this whole TR to PR in quotation marks program that wasn't a program. It was just the fact that IRCC is cherry-picking applicants that are there through existing streams in order to try to get more landings for this year for people who are in rural communities, remote communities, and high in-demand jobs.
So that's already happening. All right, let's shift gears and let's dive just a little bit deeper into what [00:19:00] is changing. And like we talked about, we've got the two tracks, right? We've got the imminent one, which is the ministerial instructions, and we have the regulatory one, which is really making substantive changes to how immigration flow is going forward.
So if we take a look at the, these tracks and we dive deep, we've talked a little bit about this already. The reality is there's no fixed date for the ministerial instructions, so tomorrow you could wake up one day, like you could wake up tomorrow and your score in your profile could be changed. And it, they, this isn't unprecedented, Alicia, these changes.
All along express entry, they have made little tweaks through ministerial instruction with respect to the comprehensive ranking criteria. And in the beginning, we had 600 points that were being given to people that had an LMIA-based job offer. So what it meant was, at least at that stage, individuals that were maybe working, uh, even as a CEO or an executive of a company, and maybe they [00:20:00] were on an open work permit for whatever reason, well, they would rank lower than someone who was a food service supervisor that had an LMIA to work for McDonald's.
So the McDonald's employee with the LMIA would get 600 points, which would guarantee them permanent residence. And so they thought initially, hey, this is a good way to ensure the people that we know are filling roles that Canadians are not f- able to fill, because the LMIA wouldn't be issued, at least that was the premise originally.
They are the ones that we want to prioritize, ones that are filling labor shortages. But very quickly, they realized that the ranks of those were being dominated by individuals with, with LMIAs for, at the time, skill level B, that we had our zero A and B kind of categories, so the equivalent to a tier three, the supervisors.
They were dominating the ranks of the invitations to apply. And what was happening, because of the age factors, which are still alive and well, they're not going anywhere, those age factors would really prejudice the older applicants. So then what did they [00:21:00] decide? They decide, well, we better give 200 points for anyone that's on an LMIA for an executive to compensate for the age.
And then someone decided, well, boy, like education, Canadian education is important. We're gonna give 15 points for a diploma or certificate, one to two years. We'll give 30 points for a undergraduate degree or higher. And, and then they- and then after that, the next domino was siblings. If you've got a sibling in Canada, you probably have a greater chance of succeeding, so we'll give you 15 points for that.
And each of those little changes affected the comprehensive ranking system score. In fact, it caused it to incrementally increase. And then finally, the biggest domino was French. And when they added in 50 points for French, that completely changed the landscape of our system as it is. So they're proposing, at least in terms of for removal, those 50 points for French, which we talked about, but the category draws, they're [00:22:00] gonna continue, so don't worry about that.
Siblings in Canada, those 15 are gone. Canadian study bonus. Now, that is, that's an interesting one, Alicia. So what do you think about that? 'Cause we've heard mixed signals on this. Yeah. And so when we look at the consultation documentation, when they're asking and framing, what do you think about express entry reforms, they said, well, we've done studies and we have actually found that people who have only a couple years, so a one or two-year diploma at a college-level credential, you know what?
In the long term, they actually don't do quite as well with their earnings as the Canadian cohort does. And so they're looking specifically at removing the Canadian study bonus points. But does that mean only for a one or two-year program? We don't know. They did say in the consultation document, a higher predictor for economic success is a graduate-level program.
So [00:23:00] will they keep only graduate or higher, so PhD at masters? Does that mean it'll be 15 or will they keep that 30, or will they completely wipe out Canadian study bonus points? And this is a really big deal because we've seen a huge reduction in the number of study permits. We h- now have provincial attestation letters.
We have students now who are really feeling the pressure of, am I gonna be competitive in my CRS score? And if you're currently trying to decide, do I do a master's program or a one or two-year diploma program, this really makes a difference. And we just don't know at this point because we don't have the results from the consultations.
Yeah. And if I was to speculate, and if I was to pull up my crystal ball, I would have to assume that those upper-level educational credentials are something that they would probably keep the points for. We don't, like Alicia said, we don't know for certain, but it just makes sense, a master's, PhD, as long as they feel that it's resulting in those individuals actually getting [00:24:00] those high-paying wages, those jobs in the high tier, then I think it's going to probably keep something there.
But all of the lower education, their statistics, where they're pulling them from, is showing that it doesn't necessarily equate to high-paying jobs, some of these lower-level educational credentials. And it's tough, right? And I think everything is skewed, Alicia, by the volumes of people that, that came in, and jobs are not as plentiful if the labor market is saturated.
And there's a whole bunch of things. We've got young kids that are coming up, and they're looking to take jobs, people that are graduating from the universities that are Canadian and permanent residents, and then we had a lot of international students that came in, and it definitely has had some impact on the labor market, and the ability to get those higher-paying jobs is just more competitive.
And then this leads to the propose- and we talked about the spousal grid. We've talked about that, so the 40 points, hopefully get rid of those and re- reattach them to the, the individual applicant. But [00:25:00] proposed for introduction is some interesting things. And high-wage occupation factor is the new... It's like the new French almost.
It's like- Yeah ... this, this factor that's this wild card that's gonna revamp everything, and we don't, despite everything that's being said, we don't know exactly how this is going to be determined So this is the details here matter, the points that they assign to this new high-wage occupation factor really is going to matter.
We don't know. It- they've said significant points, so does that mean 50? It might. That's what it used to be for a job offer. But they've also proposed two variations on how they might implement these high-wage occupation factors, and we don't know if they're going to go either/or, so you could qualify for either Canadian experience plus a high-wage occupation factor, or maybe they'll just do a job offer with that high wage.[00:26:00]
Will it be either/or? Will it be one or the other? We don't know. So that's something that we have to stay tuned for. But basically, this is going to significantly change the landscape and give higher-wage earners a leg up in express entry. And where there are some definite unknowns in terms of how they are crunching the numbers and what our baseline will be to determine every single occupation and what the high-wage median is, and then what the multiplying factor is on that median.
And we're gonna dive into these in a little bit more detail in future episodes once we get into episodes six through, through 11. But the key for us here is just to understand that this is coming. Wage will be a factor. We don't know exactly how it's gonna be calculated, although Jonathan Josip-Kup in our presentation at the CBA National Conference in Ottawa this past month did provide some examples, some case scenarios, and we'll talk a little bit about those here in just a bit.
But [00:27:00] before we get to those case studies, let's just address just some of the specifics of track two, the regulatory rebuild. And like we said, we don't anticipate this to really come to fruition until late 2027, early 2028. They're gonna merge the programs, okay, FSW, CEC, FST, into a single federal high-skilled program with one set of eligibility criteria.
And Alicia, I just had a consult this morning with, with a physician who, who basically had a nomination from the province. He was trying to figure out... Actually, let me just pull this right back in. He didn't include birth certificates within his application, and ultimately he got his permanent resident application rejected seven months after he'd filed it.
And of course, by that time, the PNP certificate had expired, so now he has to apply to get it extended, then resubmit, start all over. And he said, "Well, what options do I have through express entry?" And it was really hard to explain. And this specialist physician, he's, he's intelligent and understands things, but it [00:28:00] is so convoluted, this eligibility criteria for getting into the pool.
Because like we've talked about at the very beginning, episode one You know, it's these three programs, FSW, CEC, and FST are just managed by express entry. And then explaining the eligibility factors for the Federal Skilled Worker Program has its own selection criteria, its own point grid out of 100, and then once you're in the pool, then the comprehensive ranking system kicks in, and then you're ranked against the other employees, and oh boy, it was, it was convoluted.
So the program merger's number one for these regulatory rebuilds. Then the FSW 67-point grid is g- we're getting rid of that 'cause it's just a duplication, essentially, of the CRS, so there's no advantage to doing that. Then they're gonna do what they can, obviously, to streamline eligibility to make it a lot easier for people to understand.
The expected baseline, and understand we don't yet have the actual regulations, but a one year of skilled work experience in a tier zero through three, so those are the skilled categories, a minimum language level, and minimum education, which are actually fairly low. [00:29:00] And, and so we've talked about those in the past as well.
And then finally, this licensure and certification pathway, which, oh, it's still so confusing because they're looking at creating this new regulated kind of professionals and Red Seal tradespeople route, but we've got this catch-22 with the fact that it's really hard to get trade certification if you're not a permanent resident But you need the certification to help give you a chance of getting permanent residence.
So we'll see how that plays out. It'll be interesting. But, uh, yeah, the merger of these, we're looking about 18 months away, and, uh... But remember, the CRS scoring, that could change literally overnight. So let's go through, and let's take a look at these scenarios. So like I said, this was presented to us in the slide deck with IR- from IRCC at our National Immigration Conference.
I know the consultants got something similar in their conference. But this is kind of what we're looking at. So we've got three profiles: Eric, Amal, Charlotte, and Ken. Okay? And these individuals, you can see we've got a nice little breakdown. If you are listening on the podcast, we'll just jump on [00:30:00] and watch the video as a recording on the YouTube channel.
You'll be able to see the visuals that we're providing. But essentially, we have, we have four profiles, and it's a reflection of what they look like now in terms of their competitiveness, and then balanced against what the future will look like based on IRCC's projections, which they haven't fully revealed the details to us.
So we'll start with Eric, and he is a 45-year-old senior executive. We'll leave it at that. So senior executives are typically your zero zero tiers. And so his wage, and that's one of the factors that they're looking at here that they feel are important. Wage, Canadian experience, job offer. Those are the three main factors that IRCC has placed on this little grid for us, and those are the factors that they feel carry the biggest weight when it comes to who they think they really want to have as candidates to apply for permanent residence.
The fact that they don't have other things on this particular chart [00:31:00] tells me that these factors are gonna be weighted more heavily. And right now, those other points that we have are really heavy weighting, 30 points for up to 30 points for education, 50 points for language, your French in particular.
And another 50 points, which we talked about being stripped away last year, was for the job offer, which they're now looking to institute. Once again, we don't know exactly where they're gonna settle on this. We provided feedback through the na- the first consultative process, but at this stage, we don't know where things are gonna settle.
So Eric excuse me, as a 45-year-old senior executive, his wage is about $84 an hour. Now, on the slide deck that IRCC shared, Alicia, the figures that we see here on our screen are what they shared. So they shared two times the median. Well, $84 per hour, two times the median. Well, what's the baseline? What's the median?
Yep. And so I went through a bit of a rabbit hole looking into [00:32:00] StatsCan data for 2024 to try to figure out wage median occupation factors, and it is very difficult to decipher that because all we really have right now are the job bank. So we have job bank median wages, but it's broken down on an hourly basis for most occupations, and it's also broken down on a provincial basis.
And so when we were taking a look at these three or four scenarios where we have these four theoretical applicants, and when I went to Job Bank and I looked at, okay, what's the Canadian median overall wage? I was looking at Ken, for example, who's 31, he's a crane operator, he's earning $36 an hour, and it says he's got 1.3 times the median wage.
But when you look at the national job bank, so the Canada-wide median wage, it's actually higher than $36, so it makes no sense. So we have to wait to hear exactly how IRCC is calculating what they're using for their baseline for the median [00:33:00] occupation. But we do know it will go by NOC code. So it's not what that individual is actually earning at their job, it is what is the overall median for that NOC across Canada.
And you know, Alicia, when I, when I was thinking about this, when I was on the panel, Jonathan was explaining, at least at a very high level, generally how they would be calculating it. But even after his explanation, it's still not abundantly clear what the data is. So not only are we uncertain what the median actually is for each of these occupations, and he did say that their goal wasn't to punish someone who was working in, say, rural Alberta compared to someone who was working in downtown Toronto.
Obviously, the Toronto wages, in most cases, would be significantly higher than, uh, than rural Alberta. So the figures are, like you said, are not based right on what the person is actually being paid. And conversely, if an individual is working as a food service supervisor and the employer says, "Hey, [00:34:00] let's get more points for you.
I'm gonna offer you $100,000 to be my food service supervisor," well, that isn't gonna work, uh, either. So there's a lot of uncertainty here, and we also don't know, even if you're in that range, how many CIRAS points they're actually going to attribute to someone who is working at one point five times that median rate or two times that median rate.
So we're gonna have to see how that plays out. Excuse me. There's been a ton of speculation on all of these things, for sure. But the moment we hear anything, we'll be sure to let you guys know. So let's dive back here, and let's look at what else we have for Eric here. So you can see $84 an hour, two times the median.
So in their world, that means something important. And actually, on the slide deck, it specifically talked about b- that being a significant factor. And so if they use that terminology, I have to assume that the points are going to be higher, like more in the range of those 50 extra bonus points that used to exist or do exist right now for, say, French.[00:35:00]
Then in his case, Eric, this is the interesting part, Alicia, and the example they give here, Eric has no Canadian experience, but he has a job offer. We don't know what those are gonna look like. We don't. But we will have our episode our future episodes, we're gonna dive in a little bit deeper into those.
But he's got a high wage, so his salary, it's interesting that they... This must be the wage as per... So he's making $84 an hour. It's quite interesting, but they say he has no Canadian experience. So is, are they factoring in wages overseas? Like, how do they balance that in? And so the $84 is just gonna be attributed to the NOC code, we assume.
And then if that's the case, then his job offer also is in that high wage range. And right now, Eric doesn't have a snowball's chance in you know where. Like, he's the lowest of all four of these candidates, Eric, even though he's a senior executive making the most money almost of all of them. But they indicate that [00:36:00] future, he would likely get an ITA.
So that just talks about the weighting. It's gotta be weighting heavy enough to counter the fact that he's older and he has no age points. So he's losing 100-plus points, 120 points or so because of age. So- Yeah ... in their mind, Eric is up there as a likely candidate Yeah. So I want to contrast that with Charlotte.
So Charlotte right now is our star candidate because Charlotte is the youngest of all these four scenarios. She's 27. She's working as a food service supervisor. She's getting $17 an hour, which is below the median, they say. She's got a Canadian college diploma. She doesn't have a red seal, so she doesn't have a certificate of qualification.
She does have two years as a food service supervisor, but she's not hitting that high wage threshold, and she does have a job offer, but it's not in a high wage occupation. And right now, IRCC says, well, Charlotte actually has [00:37:00] the best chance to receive an ITA because she's young, because of those bonus points for Canadian study, and because she has that Canadian work experience.
But here is who is going to lose. And so in the new system, when they now implement all of the changes, then Charlotte is not likely to get an ITA. And this is the biggest reversal where because you have that high wage occupation factor and because they're likely taking away those Canadian study bonus points, especially for a one or two-year program, Charlotte's gonna be the one who misses out in the new system.
Yeah. And that's why it's so interesting to see how they're gonna weight this. Are they gonna give 100 points then for the high wage factors? It's obviously gonna be enough to skew and push out everyone else who are getting maximum age and Canadian work experience, all those kinds of things. So we'll see how it plays out.
But yeah, in the, in the new world, Charlotte will be significantly [00:38:00] disadvantaged, which means that if you're in that situation, you do not want to wait. You need to absolutely get your profile in as quickly as possible. There's no reason to delay it. If you meet the eligibility thresholds, get it in, and so that you have the best chance.
And even now, Charlotte, even though they say that she's the best under the current rules, Charlotte really isn't the best under the current rules right now because her CRS score, even with all of those things, isn't ranking high enough for an invitation to apply, generally speaking anyways. Although Canadian education, which we don't have on the list, other factors might push her over the top, you know, into the 515, 520 range, but it is not- and language has got to be perfect for Charlotte.
Yeah. But yeah, in the future world, yeah, Charlotte's not who they're targeting. Okay, so let's take a look at who they describe as the strongest of all candidates, who's strong now and likely strong in the future as well, and that's Amal, a 38-year-old physician. And there's a number of reasons for that. And like I said to [00:39:00] my physician that I had the consult with this morning, I said, "Yep, it got rejected, but once you hit your one year, then you're gonna be able to go through the Canadian Experience Class, and you'll be, you'll be eligible."
Because he was older and didn't have enough points through the Federal Skilled Worker Program to get into the pool now through express entry, even though this is a physician. And so once he hits one year, then there we have our physician category-based draws. But Amal's making $97 an hour, which is probably not really accurate for a physician.
They probably make more than that. But it says, it describes it also as two times the median, whatever that is, for his wage. And then- Her, I think ... her, yeah, her wage. And then one year of a high-wage occupation with the Canadian experience, and job offer, yes, high wage. Now strong, and that's accurate. And in the future it says strongest of all.
So you can see layered for Amal are a number of different pathways that might be available through express entry. The general kind of [00:40:00] draws, category-based for, for doctors, and even for a lot of physicians across the country, there are a lot of bonus avenues through the various provincial nominee programs in any event.
So if you're a doctor, a nurse, you're upper level h- healthcare, the future is bright for you in Canada, just like Amal here. And then contrast that with Ken, Alicia. We talked a little bit about Ken, who right now optimistically they say Ken's chances are good. I'm not personally buying it. But there are some category-based draws for trades level people that potentially Ken, who's a 31-year-old crane operator, might be eligible for.
They describe his wage as $36 per hour, which is 1.3 times the median, which Alicia and I can't figure out where that would be coming from. And then he's got one year of high-wage occupation, but he doesn't have a job offer, so either his employer can't support him or they're just not ready or willing to do that.
Excuse me. And they say now that his [00:41:00] chances are good, but I kinda question that. They're moderate, I guess. But why do you think they say that for the future Ken is a strong candidate? And I think it comes down to that wage multiplier. And so they are saying that Ken as a crane operator is getting 1.3 times the median, and combining that with the Canadian experience, work experience, the way that they're gonna weight CRS scores probably means that that's gonna tip him into a higher CRS bracket than he would've been currently Okay, let's summarize these just quickly for everyone, and then we will move forward.
So four people, four very different trajectories. As we start off with Eric, we can see that he goes from the bottom to near the top as an executive. No Canadian experience, but he's got a lot of past experience, and he's coming in with a high-wage occupation, at least a job offer. So it'll be so curious how they sort this out.
But for him, his position was probably the most counterintuitive [00:42:00] story in the series. Then we've got Amal, which we talked about, goes from strong to strongest, and of course, doctors are just gonna be big winners going forward. Charlotte, the cautionary tale. In her case, she's young, Canadian-educated, Canadian experience, all of the golden standards that we saw in the past.
But because she's working in a low-wage occupation or a lower kind of tier occupation, even though she's got all of these factors, it may not be enough for her going forward, and so she's probably the one that will be disadvantaged the most with these changes. And then last but not least, Ken. We'll see how it plays out.
It's kind of overlooked good news maybe, but unless they make some changes with the various trade regulatory bodies and open up opportunities for people to be able to obtain trade certification, it's gonna be pretty tough. And we know that for years, Alicia, people, foreign tradespeople have been able to come in, get a labor market impact assessment, [00:43:00] have their foreign credentials assessed, and obtain certification.
It's possible. It is, under a labor market impact assessment that's supported by em- an employer, so that traditional pathway may very well be possible for a foreign-trained tradesperson. But to go that route from within Canada is gonna be pretty tricky. So we'll see how things pan out for Ken. We'll deep dive in episode 11 for the trades, and we'll take a look at the Red Seal Catch-22 that we're talking about in episode 11 of our series here.
But this is kind of the four people, and I don't know if you have any last-minute thoughts on these fine folks, but before we transition to our early game plan here for people, but what do you think? Yeah. My, my heart goes out to the students, right? Because I think the world has just become so much harder for them.
A lot of families have literally sold their farms back home to pay for these international tuition fees, and the landscape is just constantly changing, right? We've had a huge reduction in terms of the number of study [00:44:00] permits. Then there were provincial attestation letters, and of course, this is all doing, being done to rule out fraud and to try to restrict bad actors in the system.
But now we definitely have a move by the provincial and federal governments to say, "Okay, we are only going to accept certain levels of education. They have to be accredited programs that are going to lead to jobs." That's really what they're pushing, so they're looking at graduate and master's and PhD level, and that's where they're rewarding spousal open work permits, right?
It's really difficult. And now we have reduced eligibility for PGWP as well. So if you are a student, the world, the landscape of express entry has really changed, and you've got to be very strategic in which kind of program you're looking at if you are gonna study in Canada, and make sure that it's PGWP eligible.
Make sure that you have a game plan after you graduate, because the one thing that will significantly change when they collapse these [00:45:00] 10-year eligibility to three-year eligibility is if you're a Canadian student doing a PhD or a master's, you better have one year of recent work experience, or you might no longer be eligible, and you have to finish your program, gain your Canadian experience before you can even go into the pool Everything we've covered today, the two-track timeline, what is staying, what is changing, the four profiles we've discussed, really comes down to five questions.
If you can answer these five questions honestly about your own situation, you will know exactly where you stand and basically what your next steps are going to be. So let's take a look at these questions, Alicia, and let's start with is your occupation high wage? This is a bit of a thorny question because the data matters and where they're pulling the data from really matters.
And so it is hard to gaze into this crystal ball because we don't know exactly how IRCC is going to calibrate their [00:46:00] median Canadian occupation for that NOC. And so they're looking at a figure probably from the data from Stats Can and from ESDC, but they're probably using backwards-facing data. So they're probably using the previous year's data so that they have a comprehensive picture.
So is your occupation high wage? Well, maybe. So what you can look at is the job bank. You can take a look at the job bank, and you can look up your NOC code, and you can take a look at the wages. And when you go to wages, you'll have a provincial breakdown, and you'll have the Canada-wide breakdown. And so until we know more, the higher wages the better.
But this is also where it's not based on your wage. And so it's-- there's no point, and I think they did this to weed out fraud, there's no point trying to get your employer, just like Mark said, to in-inflate your wages to pay you specifically a higher wage, because that's not what IRCC is looking at on this [00:47:00] wage multiplication factor.
They are actually looking at the high-wage occupation factor for the median overall. Yeah. Question number two, is your Canadian experience actually in a high-wage role? So once we sort through all of this, what is a high wage or what isn't a high wage, we know that the government clearly sees that Canadian earnings as a temporary resident are one of the strongest predictors of post-landing success.
So if that's what's driving the ship, you know, if you have Canadian work experience and you are in a high-wage position, well then, yeah, you're gonna-- that, that's gonna be a really indicator of how strong your opportunity is to actually obtain permanent residence. But if you have Canadian experience in an occupation that is below the median wage, well, then you need to kind of think carefully about your strategy and if it's really the right investment of time.
And people that are in those lower-paying jobs, we know how hard it is to level up. [00:48:00] It's for years now, we've had people that were working as food service supervisors or so let's say food counter attendants, who were doing everything they could to try to level up to get a food s-service supervisor position because the skill level was the main decider.
Moving from a tier four, tier five, tier four to, to a tier three. So that was the big driver, and people would move. They would change provinces. They would go wherever they could to try to get a job in a skilled position, and an employer that was willing to support them. But now it's all about how much that, that, that median wage is, and are you working in an occupation where you're gonna fit into that new world, that new threshold?
All right, question number three are your points on the removal list? Yeah. And so this is a tough one. I think most people who have that 50-point bonus in French, they're probably not going to be affected that much because we've talked about the [00:49:00] fact that it doesn't seem like category-based French draws are going anywhere.
And so as long as you still meet those NCLC level sevens, you've got your TEF or your TCF exam, and you have that in your basic French, either first language or second language, then you'd should, you should still be eligible. Same thing for PNPs. You should still be eligible. The spousal grid, hopefully that will give an uplift to candidates who have a, a spouse that has slightly lower CRS in terms of human capital.
Those sibling points, that will affect some people, so if they were hoping that they would get over a threshold on the CEC draw because of those sibling points or because they needed that to hit the 67-point selection factor on an FSW, it could affect those people. So take a look at that. The biggest one that I have the most question marks about are what's gonna happen with those Canadian study bonus points, because that will affect a significant number of people.
Absolutely. And it's really gonna dictate what [00:50:00] the future of Canadian education looks like. For years, we always expected people to come get education, and then in some cases they might stay, but the provisions weren't favorable for post-grad work permits like they are now. There was a time where they experimented with a lot of things over the years, Alicia.
I remember people on labor market impact assessment, sometimes if they graduated, they would be able to extend those LMIAs without needing to re-advertise. And so basically the post-grad work permit holders now have to realize that it doesn't necessarily secure PR if you come and study in Canada. So are there other countries that people are looking at that are more favorable?
And maybe when the dust settles, Alicia, 'cause they've reduced over 50%, right around 49, I think, percent the total number of international students that are coming in now compared to when they, when they initiated those restrictions. The volumes of students are gonna be lower for sure, and maybe that will just have a natural kind of, uh, reducing effect [00:51:00] on how competitive everything is, but it's still a reality and people are gonna have to make determinations on what their plans are for the future.
That's kind of what we're talking about in this episodes, all these episodes, this series. It's all in trying to give you the information so that you can make your own strategic plans. So question number four, are you on track one timing or track two timing? And people say, "Well, what's the difference? Who cares, Mark?"
Well, the reality is obviously if you see your opportunity slipping away, if the points, the CRS scores, the scoring factors that they strip away are gonna affect your ability to qualify, in other words, you're one of those food service supervisor Charlotte kind of categories, then you need to be very aware and try to move as quickly as you can.
Urgency is high. You need to act now. If your concern is about program eligibility criteria, that's the track two when they merge everything. You do have a little bit of time. And I think of my physician, for example, who if you weren't in Canada and you were overseas and you're looking at express entry and you [00:52:00] realize, okay, my age, I can't even get in through FSW right now because I don't have the 67 points.
Well, as we saw from our example of, of Eric, I think it was, he didn't have Canadian experience, but the job offer, his occupation, his work experience was in one of those high-wage kind of occupations. And so when the, the CRS changes happen, that's gonna be good for him. But also, if you can't qualify and the only draws that are happening are CEC, then someone like Eric wouldn't even have an opportunity to apply unless he could qualify through one of the category-based draws.
And so going forward, you've got about 12 to 18 months of advance notice before the regulatory changes are implemented, and understanding which track your concern falls on is the difference between needing to act this week, Alicia, and having a more thoughtful six-month maybe or longer planning horizon.
But these are all leading to the reality that change is here. It is right on the doorstep. Question [00:53:00] five that people need to ask themselves, have you had a professional assessment? Yeah. And I think the biggest group cohort that I would like to make sure is listening to this are the students, are the international students.
People who are in a one or two-year diploma program in Canada right now, or maybe even a bachelor's program, 'cause the bachelor's degrees might be on the chopping block as well. They might only give Canadian study bonus points for graduate or master's level or PhD programs. So if you're in that scenario right now and you don't have a year of work experience, and here's where the Canadian students are really disadvantaged, 'cause we know you can claim work experience under FSW for work experience while you were a foreign student, but you cannot claim work experience while you are a full-time Canadian student to meet CEC eligibility.
And so my big takeaway for Canadian students is if you [00:54:00] are currently studying in Canada, start working part-time, make sure that you are following all the rules and your study permit conditions on whether you can work off-campus or on-campus, and take a very careful look at the hours and make sure to chart them so that you're not exceeding the maximum hours of s- of work that you can do while you're in full-time studies, or you can work full-time during regularly scheduled school breaks.
But you're gonna want to accumulate your one year of work experience because we don't know what's gonna happen with this new merger to a three-year window, and whether you will, in the future, be able to claim points as a Canadian student working in Canada while you're a full-time student. But there is potentially a chance, and you do wanna hit that minimum eligibility.
And sometimes, and this is a little bit more of a sophisticated strategy, sometimes you can still claim, for example, research assistant work to qualify for a category-based draw [00:55:00] even if you are in Canada, right? So even though it doesn't qualify for minimum eligibility for CEC, if you have a year of foreign work experience, it's still beneficial.
Yeah. All right. Well, Alicia, we covered a lot of ground today. The two-track timeline, what's stable, what is changing, and when. The four profiles that IRCC used as examples for us, the case studies, and the five questions that you need to answer about your own situation. So if you walked away from today knowing exactly where you sit on that map, well, this episode then did its job.
Now let's talk about s- episode four. So on Thursday, we're gonna drop the biggest shakeup since 2015, the full policy context, the government-stated rationale, and what was said in public consultation. Episode five, next Monday, we're gonna cover inside the IRCC consultations the two-track timeline in full detail, and intelligence from the CBA [00:56:00] conference in Ottawa that you'll not find anywhere else.
Now, we've hinted at a lot of stuff from that, that particular conference, but I'm gonna dive a little bit deeper into some of the things that I pulled away as I sat right beside Jonathan as we were presenting, and we were able to ask questions that kind of elicited some more detailed responses that were not in the slide deck and that have not been publicly released, and we'll address those.
Episodes six through 11 is all our deep dives. So they're gonna dive right into these reforms, the program merger, the high-wage factors. Hopefully, we'll have a little bit more information when we get there. I've actually reached out, and I'm looking for a little bit more clarification to see if we can figure out what this median actually is.
Maybe I can get some information. We'll see. And then job offer restructuring, which is just uncertain as the high-wage factors. We'll address French sibling directly, study, and the removal of those factors, and then of course, the trades pathway. We'll dive in a little bit deeper [00:57:00] All right. So if you've been watching this episode, if you've been listening to this episode, and it gave you pause and you said, "Uh-oh, I don't know how these track one or the ministerial instruction changes might affect me," or, "Uh-oh, am I gonna be eligible under the new system coming next year?
Maybe it could be a problem. I don't know what's happening," then please reach out. You can book a consultation. We're at holthelaw.com. Awesome. All right. Thanks everyone for joining us. Stay tuned for episode four. That's gonna be dropping right away. Take care, everyone.
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 [00:58:00] on one of his many Canadian Immigration live Q&As.
See you soon, and all the best as you navigate this crazy world we call Canadian immigration.
