Canada Migration Process Brief Overview

Canada Migration Process Brief Overview 

There are a couple of ways one can come to Canada through Migration 

1. Express Entry: Fastest and difficult way
2. Provincial nomination (plus express entry): Easy and lengthy
3. Quebec: No idea. I hate that racist province.

For any type of immigration the whole ranking is done on a CRS score. It is a ranking system based on 1200 points. You get points from various aspects of your life, explained below. 

CRS point system detail link: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/eligibility/criteria-comprehensive-ranking-system/grid.html

You also have to satisfy the federal skills grid. Which is 67 out of 100.

Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/eligibility/federal-skilled-workers/six-selection-factors-federal-skilled-workers.html

Express Entry

Step 1

This is a point based system. They rank everyone based on these:

1. Age
2. Experience
3. Connection to Canada
4. English(Or French) language expertise
5. Proof of funds 

The ranking is on 1200 marks. Currently whoever is getting 472+ po jaints are getting invitation to apply (This is called ITA. And it is the first step) for Canada Immigration. They do draws every three weeks or so from the profiles submitted in their online system. You can see the recent draw here (https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/submit-profile/rounds-invitations.html)

How do we know how many points we have? There are calculators. The Canadian Immigration has their own tool to calculate: 

Link: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp

You will have input all the necessary information and see what your score is. If it is 470+ then proceed to the next step.

Brief explanations for the main things:

Age 

Age is an important thing here. After 30, the primary applicant loses 5 points every year. So one trick is to make the person who has the least age the primary applicant, considering he/she has at least 3 years of demonstrable experience.

Education 

You have to evaluate your educational credentials from one of the organizations. Most popular is WES. They do the fastest evaluation. If you need to apply fast, go for their evaluation. If you have an MS from private university, usually WES does not give MS equivalency and you lose out on some points. So, in that case your options are ICAS or CES. There is another institution who does evaluation, but has stopped taking new applications because of the pressure. That is IQAS. This ECA report is valid for 5 years. 

Experience

Your experience has to be from O,A,B category mentioned in the CIC (Canada Immigration) website. There is a term called NOC. you have to find out the NOC number from their site and see if that NOC is from category O, A or B. 

Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/eligibility/find-national-occupation-code.html

In addition to that you have to collect experience letters for each of your past posts from your organizations. This experience letters needs to be in a specific format. I can provide a sample one. Mostly some things that are mandatory there are-

1. Name of you
2. Name of the post you!held
3. Duration of the post
4. Mention that the job was permanent and full time (You worked at least 40 hours a week)
5. Your responsibilities

Your responsibilities HAVE to match with the NOC you have picked. Don’t copy paste. But rather match the responsibilities to 80-90%. 

My NOC was 2173

Connection to Canada

If you can provide that you have direct relations in Canada, you will be able to claim 15 additional points. You have to prove the relationship

Language (English/French)

Language is very important in this process. I’d say the most important one. If we want direct express entry approval, then you have to have a minimum score that translates to CLB9 (CLB = Canadian Language Benchmark). The conversion guide can be found here:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/standard-requirements/language-requirements/test-equivalency-charts.html

Basically: Listening - 8, Reading- 7, Writing- 7, Speaking- 7. More than this is definitely good. Most of the Bangladeshis can not come to Canada because of IELTS. Whereas Indians are way ahead in this. IELTS has validity for 2 years. You have to do the General IELTS. Not the academic one. 

Proof of funds

You need to show that you have a minimum amount of living expenses when you come to Canada. The minimum amount depends on family composition. The details is here:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html

Do not take loans to show the amount. Or dump the entire amount in an account at once. Rather show gradual increase in the amount. This fund has to be liquid. So no jewellery, fixed assets, stocks are not eligible.

Sanchaypatra 

Fixed deposits

Current accounts

Savings Accounts

DPS

You have to show the bank statements, or/and a letter from the banking institutions that these can liquidated anytime.

Step 2 (Your score is 470+)

You are good for Express Entry process. First thing to do is see if you have all the proof of the information you have provided in the previous step. This includes-

Checklist

1. Passport:
2. ECA result:
1. ECA: Educational Credential Assessment. 
2. Both ECA and IELTS have to be done prior to opening a profile in their system
3. Experience Documents (You can collect these later on)
4. If you have any connection to Canada, any first blood relatives (Brother, Sister, Parents, Step-parents, and step siblings)- their PR/Passport, birth certificate to show the connection between them and yourself.
5. IELTS result: At least CLB9 (Less for other circumstances)
1. CLB9 means:
1. Listening - 8
2. Reading - 7
3. Speaking - 7
4. Writing - 7
6. Proof of funds: You have to show you have the minimum funds required for your family to get settled in Canada. Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html 

Profile

If you have these, you can now safely open your profile on CIC website.

Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/submit-profile.html

You can update this profile anytime. The validity is one year. So, each year you will have to open one.

After you submit the profile, and in the next draw if your score is above or equal to the minimum CRS score of the draw, then you will get an Invitation to Apply. Or ITA. You will hear a lot about this term.

If you get the ITA then your actual process starts from here.

POST ITA

Now, in this step you have to actually submit your actual application. They will send you a personalized document checklist based on your family information. This includes:

Document Checklist:

1. IELTS result
2. Degree certificate and transcripts
3. Passport
4. Marriage certificate
5. Birth certificate (if any)
6. Police clearance certificate
7. Photos
8. Experience certificates
9. Salary certificate/payslip/bank statements
10. Proof of fund documents. Mainly bank statements

After you submit the application, you have to pay application fee. The fee is based on family composition. Rule of thumb is 1100 CAD for each adult and around 650 for kids (not sure about this number).

Once you have submitted the application and paid the fee, you just have to wait for the application to approve. Don’t forget to contact your previous work places so that they can verify your experience. 

The processing time for EE (Express Entry) is from 1-6 months. Average is 6 months. Ours got approved in just one month though and it surprised us. 

Post approval

Buy plane tickets. :D 

Provincial Nomination

Every province in Canada operates independently. While Express Entry is a federal process. (Canada has two types of govt. Federal and Provincial). Every province can offer nomination to candidates to come to their provinces based on their own criteria. This is one of the most sought out options for those who can not score the required points for Express Entry. Most popular destinations are Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Why is it so important? Because if any province nominates you, you get 600 points automatically in the Express Entry grid. Which basically means you can easily meet the express entry criteria of having more than 470 score.

The nomination process is different from Express Entry and it is decided by each province. They update their requirements based on their needs in the job market every year.

Ontario

Ontario is the largest and most economically developed province in Canada. Toronto is its capital. Other prominent cities are Ottawa (which is Canada’s capital, which is weird, because we now have two capitals in one province.), Mississauga, London, Windsor etc.

Ontario has its own immigration system. The one that I am going to talk about is OINP. This is the most sought out nomination in Canada. You can not apply directly for their nomination. They find their candidates from the express entry pool and send out Invitations. This is called Notification of Interest (NOI) . They are currently (as of November, 2019) sending nominations out to people with 435+ CRS in the express entry grid.

Link: https://www.ontario.ca/page/oinp-express-entry-notifications-interest

https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-immigrant-nominee-program-oinp

After you get the NOI, you have to apply to their site, given above. Submit all the documents needed. And have to pay separately which is around 1500 CAD. You can find that information here (https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontarios-express-entry-human-capital-priorities-stream)

This is the stream we have to apply from Bangladesh. After you get approved, you will get a nomination certificate/letter. When you put that nomination information in your express entry profile, 600 points will get added to your profile. And in the next Express Entry draw you should have the ITA. The processing time for OINP is around 6-9 months

Then proceed to POST ITA section of this document. 

Saskatchewan

One of the provinces in the North-west region. Capital is Regina. There is a big Bangladeshi community booming there. Most people who can not score CLB9, come here because they have lower language requirements. It is popularly known as SINP. And it is very cold out there. :P 

Overview: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/residents/moving-to-saskatchewan/immigrating-to-saskatchewan/saskatchewan-immigrant-nominee-program/applicants-international-skilled-workers

They have a demand list and they update it very regularly.

Link: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/residents/moving-to-saskatchewan/immigrating-to-saskatchewan/saskatchewan-immigrant-nominee-program/applicants-international-skilled-workers/international-skilled-worker-occupations-in-demand

You have to apply for the nomination. And after you apply

Basically if you have a MS degree equivalency, CLB8 and worked for around 10 years you will get 68-69 points in their grid system. The last time they approved invitations - the applicants had 67 points. 

After you get the nomination 600 points will be added to your profile and you should be able to get the ITA in the next draw. 

After that go to POST ITA section of the document.

I do not know accurate processing time of SINP. 

Manitoba

Manitoba is another province. It is a neighbour of Saskatchewan and Ontario. It is very cold out there. No one in Ontario likes Manitoba :P

I do not have any information other than you need to have a relative in Manitoba to get some points and that will get you the required points to apply.

Link: https://www.immigratemanitoba.com/immigrate-to-manitoba/

Can you change your province after you come here?

If you get nomination from a province it is expected that you will try to get settled there. Because that is why they nominated you. But after coming to the province, if you spend a reasonable time settling down, but can not do that for various reasons, you can move to other provinces. But you will have to give proof that you have spent a reasonable amount of time trying to get settled in the province, but you could not. It might be required in your Citizenship application.

Appendix

Find all the acronyms used in the document and their meaning here

PR - Permanent Residency (Equal to the US Greencard)

EE - Express Entry (Canadian Skill Immigrant PR process)

FSW - Federal Skilled Worker Program (One of the 3 sub-categories of EE)

CRS - Comprehensive Ranking System (Points your ITA is based on)

ITA - Invitations to Apply (You made the CRS cutoff you can now submit your PR application)

COE - Confirmation of Permanent Residence (Letter confirming PR. Important keep safe)

PRTD - Permanent Resident Travel Document (Alternative to PR Card. Eg If you lost card)

NOC - National Occupational Classification (1 or more numbers that identify your work experience)

CLB - Canadian Language Benchmarks (English)

NCLC - Canadian Language Benchmarks (French)

IELTS - International English Language Testing System (Required English test for PR)

CELPIP - Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Prog (Alternative to IELTS)

IRCC - Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

LMIA - Labour Market Impact Assessment (Required for work visa and permits. Similar to the US H1B LCA)

PNP - Provincial Nominee Prog (A province of Canada grants you a nomination and 600 CRS points)

AINP - Alberta Immigrant Nominee Prog

OINP - Ontario Immigrant Nominee Prog

For more

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/reports-statistics/evaluations/immigration-consultants-canada-regulatory-council/acronyms.html

Q&E 

Please post your questions and answers (if anyone knows) here.

Questions

1. What is EE?
1. Express Entry program.