The Government of Canada announced that it would restart its draws for all Express Entry programs starting on July 6, 2022. The Express Entry system, which is used to select immigrants to Canada under economic streams, has been shut down for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions.
The Canadian Experience Class (CEC) were paused last September, while the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) have been temporarily paused since December 2020.
Currently, Canada’s immigration authorities are dealing with a backlog of 2.4 million people. Additionally, Canada is facing a labour shortage. Many Canadian employers rely on the Express Entry system to recruit skilled foreign workers. As these programs have been paused for several months, many employers have been struggling to fill jobs.
The Express Entry system allows foreigners to submit an application and receive a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score, based on factors such as age, education, work experience and English and French language skills. To learn more about the Express Entry system, please read our previous blog post on “How Can I Immigrate to Canada Under the Express Entry System“. To calculate your CRS score, please use our free CRS calculator.
Those with the highest CRS scores receive Invitations to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence. Now that ITAs are resuming, Canada’s immigration authorities hope to reduce the inventory of backlogged applications enough to be able to process new applications within a 6-month period.
The delays have been extremely difficult on the millions of people whose applications are stuck in the backlog. However, the Canadian government has committed $2.1 billion over the next five years to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to help the department work more efficiently and recover from the pandemic rules. Additionally, between March 2020 and June 2022, IRCC hired over 1,200 additional staff.
Unfortunately, despite the additional funding and staff, it will still take significant time to work through all these applications. If your case is taking much longer than the estimated processing times, it may be possible to file a mandamus application.
At the Law Office of Matthew Jeffery, we have years of expert experience helping individuals with their immigration applications, and understand how stressful the process can be, both due to delays and other reasons. If you are looking for help with the immigration process, or are interested in filing a mandamus application, please CONTACT US today to see how we can assist you.
