Essential Workers in Healthcare and Other Categories Can Benefit from 6 New Canadian Immigration Streams

How Essential Workers in Healthcare and Other Categories Can Benefit from 6 New Canadian Immigration Streams

3 minute read

"The Canadian government launched 6 new immigration streams for different groups of temporary foreign workers and international graduates on May 6, 2021. Canada’s immigration minister announced this decision on April 14, 2021, as a measure to ensure that Canada can achieve its immigration target of inviting almost 401,000 new immigrants in 2021. "

Written by My Visa Source Team
Published on: Jun 2, 2021

The Canadian government launched 6 new immigration streams for different groups of temporary foreign workers and international graduates on May 6, 2021. Canada’s immigration minister announced this decision on April 14, 2021, as a measure to ensure that Canada can achieve its immigration target of inviting almost 401,000 new immigrants in 2021.

These immigration streams will include pathways to permanent residency for essential workers in healthcare and other occupations, international graduates and Francophone or bilingual applicants. All immigration pathways except for French-speaking applicants will have a visa cap of 90,000 combined.

These new immigration streams will target 40 occupations in healthcare including doctors, nurses and various lower-level jobs like home support or home care workers. These streams will also target 95 other occupations considered essential by the Canadian government. An applicant must intend to reside outside the province of Quebec to be eligible for these streams. Quebec Immigration has its own system to nominate applicants for permanent residency in Canada.

What Are Canada’s 6 New Immigration Streams?

The following six new permanent residency (PR) pathways were introduced by the Canadian government:

All immigration pathways mentioned above have a visa cap except the last three for French-speaking categories, which will continue accepting applications till November 5, 2021.

The PR pathway for essential workers in the healthcare stream will accept 20,000 applicants while the essential worker in other occupations streams will accept 30,000 applicants. The PR pathway for international graduates will accept 40,000 applicants. Therefore, a total of 90,000 applicants will be invited from these 3 streams.

What Are the Eligibilities of These New PR Streams?

Temporary foreign workers applying for these streams will require at least 1 year of Canadian work experience and the ability to demonstrate language proficiency as required by the occupation.

International graduates interested in this program must have graduated no earlier than January 2017 from an eligible designated learning institution from a post-secondary program. They must also meet the required language proficiency level. All applicants must intend to reside outside the province of Quebec.

Why Were These 6 New PR Pathways Introduced?

These new immigration streams were necessary for Canada to achieve its immigration level target for 2021. Given the ongoing global pandemic and the imposed travel restrictions, it is increasingly difficult to maintain a steady immigration level from overseas. Therefore, the solution is to encourage temporary residents to put down permanent roots in Canada.

Especially essential workers who are required to develop Canada’s healthcare system and overall meet the labor market’s needs. These immigration streams will bring 90,000 essential workers in healthcare and other occupations. As they are already temporary residents in Canada, they will have less trouble applying for permanent residency than those facing travel restrictions from overseas.

What Are the Alternatives to These Immigration Streams?

There are plenty of other alternatives to gain permanent residency in Canada. Canada offers over 80 immigration pathways for temporary foreign workers and international graduates. The most popular one being the federal Express Entry system. Almost 90% of the total Invitations to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence in 2021 were issued to the applicants to the economic immigration program, the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). If you want to settle in a specific province or territory outside Quebec, each province or territory has its own separate Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), with the exception of Nunavut.