The Additional Instructions that Apply to Applications for Canadian Provincial Nominee Class
It is worth mentioning that the process for verifying the application for permanent residence under the provincial nominee class is a part of the completeness check. As such, this process appears on the monthly nomination spreadsheet that the Centralised Intake Office (CIO) receives directly from the province or territory via Entrust.
The Confirmation of Provincial Nomination
The province or territory typically sends the encrypted provincial nomination certificate (or the monthly nomination spreadsheet) directly to the Centralised Intake Office (CIO). For sending these certificates or spreadsheets, the province or territory uses an application called Entrust.
This spreadsheet includes confirmation and details of all nominations that the province or territory has issued each month. As such, the authorities consider this spreadsheet as proof of nomination certificate issuance by the province or territory. The Centralised Intake Office (CIO) would need to be satisfied that the spreadsheet it receives is coming from the responsible provincial or territorial government authority. This is why the e-mail address of the sender must be from the provincial or territorial government department that processes provincial nominations.
The authorities consider a provincial nomination certificate valid as long as the applicant submits a complete application for permanent residence on or before the expiry date of the nomination. However, it is worth highlighting that the authorities typically do not require nomination extensions for nominations that expire during the processing of the permanent residence application.
Situations could arise where the nominees do not apply for permanent residence before the expiry of their nominations. In this scenario, the provide or territory could consider issuing nomination extensions to the nominees. These nomination extensions would give the nominees additional time for submitting their permanent residence applications. However, provinces or territories would need to notify Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) of all the nomination extensions that they issue. For this, the provinces or territories would need to send the monthly nomination spreadsheet to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) regularly.
The nominating provinces or territories issue a nomination approval letter to the individuals they have nominated. Therefore, the authorities require applicants to include a copy of this letter along with their permanent residence application. Similarly, the authorities require nominees to submit a copy of this letter to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). However, nominees would only need to submit this if they:
- Apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment exempt work permit for a job offer in the nominating province or territory [refer to Appendix B] or,
- Apply for a bridging open work permit
Officers would be able to find more details on this in Appendix C.
The Provincial Nomination Streams
Under the Provincial Nominee Program, applicants would need to first apply and receive nominations from one of the provinces or territories. Only after doing this would they be eligible for applying for permanent residence. It is worth noting that each province has its own set of criteria, nomination streams and programs.
The authorities have classified the province or territory nomination streams and programs into six categories in the Global Case Management System (GCMS). These comprise:
- Worker – Job Offer
- Worker – No Job Offer
- Business
- Family Support
- Students and,
- Community Support
The Global Case Management System (GCMS) stream breakdown list provides the breakdown of the Global Case Management System (GCMS) category that each provincial nomination stream typically falls under.
The Lock-in Date for Age of Dependent Children of Provincial Nominees
On August 01, 2014, the authorities made a change to the definition of “dependent child” in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). The change became effective the same day, as did another change to the date at which the system locks in a child’s age.
The regulatory amendments included a transitional provision for the Provincial Nominee Program. Based on these amendments, officers needed to process all complete nomination applications received by the province or territory before August 01, 2014 under the pre-amendment definition of “dependent child”, when Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) processes the permanent resident application (refer to Appendix B).
In case, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) receives permanent residence applications in the provincial nominee class before August 01, 2014, the lock-in date for the age of the applicant’s children would be the date that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) received the complete permanent resident application. The child would need to meet the former definition of “dependent child” at the time the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) receives the complete application for permanent residence. Only then would the child be eligible for processing as a dependent (refer to Appendix B).
If Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) receives permanent residence applications in the provincial nominee class on or after August 01, 2014, the lock-in date for the age of the applicant’s children would be the date the province or territory received the complete application for provincial nomination.
Officers could refer to OB 588 for more details about the definition of “dependent child” and the lock-in date.
The Minimum Language Standards and Mandatory Testing for Provincial Nominees in the National Occupation Classification (NOC) Skill Levels C and D
Applicants would need to include a copy of their language test results along with their applications for permanent residence. Readers could refer to Appendix D for more information on this.
Source: Citizenship and Immigration