Canada invites 668 candidates in Express entry to apply for permanent residency

The Government of Canada released specifics of the Express Entry draw this week, welcoming 668 applicants to apply for permanent residency. Invitations were issued on March 18 but today, March 20, official details of the draw have been published. This draw takes to 19,368 the total number of invitations (ITAs) provided by Canada’s Express Entry program so far this year.

The minimum required score in the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) was 720. Compared with the last Express Entry draw, which included a score of 471, the score threshold might seem high, but this draw only featured candidates who had provincial nominations aligned with Express Entry.

Amid the measures being taken for COVID-19 which has been slowing down services provided by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Canada continues towards its aim to reach its 2020 immigration goals. Most of those are distributed to Canada’s Express Entry program to gain permanent residency.

At present, the Express Entry program handles the pool of candidates for the three Federal High Skilled Economic Immigration programs— the Federal Skilled Worker Class, the Federal Skilled Trades Class and the Canadian Experience Class. In the Express Entry pool, qualifying applicants are rated based on a score given under the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), which awards points for criteria such as age, education, skilled work experience and English or French proficiency. A number of the highest scoring applicants are invited to apply for permanent Canadian residency by frequent drawing from the Express Entry Pool, usually taking place in every two weeks.

The tie break on 19 March 2020, at 02:04:06 UTC, was carried out by the Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). That implies that any candidate with minimum CRS scores of 720 and above who submitted their profiles before that date and period in the express entry pool received an Invitation to Apply (ITA).

Of 320,000 immigrants welcomed in 2018, and 341,000 in 2019, Canada has once again planned 341,000 immigrants this year. In the federal government’s Immigration Levels Plan 2020-2022, revised immigration goals were announced last week. The overwhelming majority of arrivals in Canada are projected to join the economic class, with 58 percent originating from Express Entry, PNP, Quebec programs, and other Federal streams such as the Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP).