Last Updated on July 24, 2017

The Canadian government has just released its annual immigration target for 2017, with the majority of commentators saying 300,000 is an underwhelming figure, especially given the major hike that was expected.

However, before jumping to that conclusion, it is important to consider what the changes in target categories mean for Canada.

Firstly, Canada’s target of 300,000 immigrants for 2016 is already a modern-era record for newcomer numbers.

The increase – from 270,000 in 2015 – was driven by the goal of bringing in nearly 56,000 mainly-Syrian refugees.

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Canada’s 2017 Immigration Plan

Immigration Category	Category	Low	High	Target
Economic	Federal Economic	69,600	77,300	73,700
	Federal Caregivers	17,000	20,000	18,000
	Federal Business	500	1,000	500
	Provincial Nominee Programs	49,000	54,000	51,000
	Quebec Skilled Workers and Business	28,000	31,200	29,300
	Economic Total	164,100	183,500	172,500
Family	Spouses, Partners and Children	62,000	66,000	64,000
	Parents and Grandparents	18,000	20,000	20,000
	Family Total	80,000	86,000	84,000
Refugees and Protected Persons	Protected Persons in Canada and Dependants Abroad	13,000	16,000	15,000
	Resettled Refugees	20,000	30,000	25,000
	Government-Assisted	5,000	8,000	7,500
	Blended Visa Office-Referred	1,000	3,000	1,500
	Privately Sponsored	14,000	19,000	16,000
	Protected Persons and Refugees Total	33,000	46,000	40,000
Humanitarian and Other	Humanitarian and Other	2,900	4,500	3,500
OVERALL		280,000	320,000	300,000

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

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In 2017, that refugee figure is set to drop to 40,000 (still significantly up on historic numbers), but the overall target remains at 300,000, with the gap being made up by 12,000 extra economic immigrants.

Those numbers could grow even more, given the overall upper limit for new permanent residents is 320,000, and for economic immigrants is 183,500. Should the government get nearer these levels of immigration for 2017, it will represent somewhere near the significant increase that was talked about in the run up to Monday’s announcement.

Second, if Canada is going to reach such high levels, the qualifying Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score under the Express Entry System looks likely to drop significantly. Here is why.

Hypothesis

Consider that for its 2016 levels under the Federal Economic class, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will process the majority of admissions to Canada from applicants who submitted applications prior to the launch of the express entry system.   It is expected that for 2017, this component will decline to about 25% of economic admissions to Canada or (18,425 applicants with dependents).  This will allow about 55,275 admissions to be sourced from the express entry pool covering federal skilled worker program, federal skilled trades, Canadian experience Class, post graduate students (a new category expected to be created in 2017) and the newly created Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program.

Hypothetically, if in 2017, the government issues 90,000 Invitations to Apply (ITAs) through Express Entry, more than triple the approximately 24,000 invitations issued to-date in 2016, statistics show that only 60 per cent of those candidates will end up moving to Canada, bringing an average of 2.2 dependents along with them. This would translate to about 55,275 of the targeted 73,700, that will derive from candidates (plus dependents) in the express entry pool.

This means that depending on the profiles of future applicants in the express entry pool, CRS scores need to drop below 400, at some point in 2017, for the first time since Express Entry began (the current lowest score is 453).

Invitations with CRS scores above 450 are difficult to achieve without a positive LMIA.  With IRCC still needing to achieve a target of 73,700 immigrants (possibly more), and with the number of pre-express entry applications declining in 2017, how will IRCC reach its targeted number of candidates in 2017?   The obvious answer is by issuing a much larger number of invitations.  This can only occur by lowering the CRS scores of future draws.

New rules expected to be tabled this fall will help many international students who have graduated from Canadian universities to qualify for an ITA without a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), when applying for permanent residence. This is provided they have 12 months of postgraduate work experience in Canada and suitable language ability. This will likely become a separate category with an annual cap of 5,000 applications.

We can also expect further changes to the express entry ranking system, in order to facilitate the admission of certain categories of temporary foreign workers admitted to Canada under the International Mobility Program.  These important adjustments designed to satisfy the needs of Canadian employers could remove candidates with very high CRS scores from the express entry pool.  This could further result in lower CRS scores than we have seen to date.  It is going to become a lot easier to move to Canada through Express Entry at some point in 2017.

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