A new Statistics Canada Report confirms the significant contribution of Provincial Nominee Programs to Canada’s immigration.
Canada launched the Provincial Nominee Program to distribute the benefits of skilled immigration across its provinces and remote territories. PNPs helped Canadian provinces meet labor market needs by dispersing economic immigrants outside the main cities.
Canada allowed its provinces to design, operate, and manage their provincial nomination programs. All Canadian provinces provide various PNP streams to meet their demographic and labor market needs. These Provincial Nominee Programs have the following prominent streams:
- Workers with job offers
- Workers without job offers
- Entrepreneur streams
- International student streams
There was an influx of 68,000 new immigrants through Provincial Nominee Programs in 2019. Provincial immigration contributed 35 percent to the total number of new immigrants. It was up from only one percent in the year 2000.
The yearly Immigration Levels Plan by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announces a guiding plan to drive its operations. Canada plans to welcome 465,000 new immigrants in 2023 and 500,000 by 2025. The number of new immigrants through the annual provincial immigration plan will surpass the principal economic class pathway Express Entry. IRCC plans to welcome 117,500 permanent residents through various Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs) by 2025.
The economic immigration went through the decentralization process with the increase in the number of new immigrants through provincial nominee programs. It reduced the number of new immigrants in Ontario and British Columbia. There was simultaneous growth in the number of new immigrants heading to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Atlantic provinces.
