Express Entry coming this January 1, 2015
Monday, December 15th, 2014
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) recently announced that Canada’s long awaited expression of interest program will be opening in January 2015. The new program, “Express Entry,” is exciting for skilled workers around the world who are interested in immigrating to Canada.
The new program will involve many improvements to Canadian immigration, including quicker processing times, greater accessibility to applicants from a wider variety of different fields, and a greater focus on the quality of applications. The one main drawback of the new program, uncertainty, is unavoidable in the application process for any immigration program and appears to be outweighed by all of the potential benefits that the program will create for applicants and Canadian employers.
The Express Entry system will be the first step to immigrate to Canada under these programs. Potential candidates will be able to complete an Express Entry profile at any time once the system is online. Note that there will be no deadline to complete a profile and there will be no caps on the number of candidates that will be accepted to the pool.
Anyone who is accepted into the Express Entry pool could get an Invitation to Apply for permanent residence. Draws to invite candidates to apply are expected to take place at regular intervals over the course of each year. We will only pick the top ranking candidates regardless of when they were accepted into the pool. If you have been invited to apply, you will have 60 days to submit a complete Application for Permanent Residence online.