Ontario’s Provincial Immigrant Nominee Program Has Met its Federal Quota For the Year
Unfortunately, Ontario’s provincial Immigrant Nominee Program has already met its federal quota for the year and will no longer be accepting new applications for most of its streams. This follows their decision on February 16th to suspend sending out Notifications of Interest for the Human Capital Priorities (Express Entry) program.
Affected programs include:
- The Employer Pre-Screen
- The International Student – Masters Graduate stream
- The International Student – PHD graduate stream
Applications sent after 5:00 p.m. EDT on May 9, 2016 will not be processed and payments will be returned. OIHP will technically continue to accept Foreign-Worker-and-International-Student-with-a-Job-Offer stream applicants, but those employers must have already been approved through the Employer Pre-screen.
The only remaining streams for people looking to immigrate through Ontario’s program are the French-Speaking Skilled Worker stream, the Corporate stream, and the Entrepreneur stream. It will receive its quota for 2017 from the Federal Government in November, 2016.
This is not the best news for those looking to immigrate to Ontario, but remember: the vast majority of immigrants to Canada are not provincially nominated. Ontario’s program itself represents only 1.8% of total Canadian immigrants. Also, in November of 2016, the federal government will be providing Ontario its new quota for 2017.
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Arghavan Gerami
Arghavan Gerami is the Founder and Senior Counsel at Gerami Law Professional Corporation ('PC'), a full-service immigration law firm in Ottawa, Ontario. Since 2011, Ms. Gerami has focused her practice on immigration and refugee litigation. Prior to that, Ms. Gerami worked at the Ministry of Attorney General and the Department of Justice and had the privilege of serving the Honourable Mr. Justice M. Evans at the Federal Court of Appeal on immigration and administrative law appeals. Ms. Gerami contributes to the Immigration Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms. Gerami has also published numerous journal articles and presented at various immigration and refugee law conferences and events across Canada.