Canada Holds Largest PNP Draw Under Express Entry

Key Highlights:

• Overview
• Candidates Selected
• Draws in 2021

The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recently held a new round of invitations under the Express Entry system and invited a whopping 1,032 Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates, making it the largest PNP draw ever.

Candidates Selected

The candidates who were issued the Invitations to Apply (ITAs) for permanent residency had received a provincial nomination under PNP  and had to have a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of above 698 points.

After getting nominated by a Canadian province, the candidates get an addition of 600 points to their score, which would mean that they only had to have 98 points in their CRS before PNP to be eligible.

Ever since the Express Entry system was introduced in 2015, they had only held 38 PNP-specific draws to date, inviting less than 1000 candidates, a trend they broke when on June 23, they invited 1002 immigrants.

Moreover, since September, the IRCC has only been conducting a draw for PNP and has stopped issuing ITAs for candidates under the Canadian Experience Class (CEC).

Draws in 2021

Since the start of 2021, the IRCC has conducted only PNP, and CEC specific draws. This was intended only to invite candidates who are already in the country due to travel restrictions place since the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, it has issued 34 PNP-only draws that invited a total of 18,817 new immigrants, and 27 CEC draws inviting a total of 133,837 candidates.