Today, IRCC Minister the Honourable Sean Fraser, made an announcement on upcoming changes related to Express Entry and opportunities for international graduates. Minister made following 3 significant announcements.

1. TR2PR Processing

Taking effect this summer, the policy changes announced today include:

Applicants will no longer be required to remain in Canada while their application is being processed.
Applicants who apply for an open work permit while waiting for their permanent residence application to be finalized will be able to get work permits valid until the end of 2024. This will ensure that all permanent residence applications will be finalized before applicants will need to apply to extend their temporary status again.
To support family reunification, immediate family members who are outside Canada and who were included in a principal applicant’s permanent residence application will be eligible for their own open work permit.

2. EXPIRING Post graduate work permits (PGWP)

Beginning in summer of 2022, former international students who are in Canada and have a post-graduation work permit expiring between January and December 2022 will qualify for an additional open work permit of up to 18 months. More details of this new temporary public policy will be made public in coming weeks.

3. Express entry dRAWS

Minister announced that express entry federal high skilled draws will resume in early July 2022. Federal high skilled express entry includes Canadian Experience Class (CEC), Federal Skilled Worker (FSW), and Federal Skilled Trades (FST). Furthermore, he added that the vast majority of new applications will be processed within the 6-month service standard.

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This became possible because federal high-skilled processing inventory has been cut by more than half, decreasing from approximately 111,900 people in September 2021 to just 48,000 people by March 2022. IRCC is expecting that this inventory will be further reduced by July 2022.

Background

There hasn’t been any CEC draw since September 2021 and FSW draw under express entry system since December 2020. Additionally, Post-Graduate Work Permit (PGWP) holders (International Graduates) in Canada mostly rely on CEC draws to convert their status into permanent residency. However, in the absence of CEC draws their PGWPs are nearing the expiry date.

So, international students are legally bound to either leave Canada after expiry of their PGWP. OR, Opt to apply for another study permit taking admission in new course. OR, apply for employer specific work permit if they have a job offer. And, Some may qualify for PNPs.

On April 20, 2022 IRCC Minister acknowledged impact of no CEC draw on expiring Post Graduate Work Permits (PGWPs). Also, he said that temporary residents whose PGWPs are expiring might be potentially seeing at leaving Canada, if no changes are being made. Moreover, minister said he is aware of no FSW draws as well.

Adding further, he said IRCC intends to introduce a solution to this in a very short period of time. However, he doesn’t have a concrete date on actual draws to resume. But, within the matter of days he will be sharing more information once IRCC has all of the information available.

So, two days after the above statements, today he provided information on express entry draws and expiring PGWPs.