After much anticipation, Canada finally held its latest Express Entry draw on November 5th (today) with 4,500 invitations issued to all candidates with a minimum score of 478. This is the third time that the country has sent 4,500 invitations which is the highest number of invitations issued in a single draw.

Express Entry

Express Entry is Canada’s immigration application system for its federal economic-class programs known as the Federal Skilled Worker Program, Federal Skilled Trades Program, and Canadian Experience Class. Points are granted based on several factors including age, education, work experience, and language ability etc. Draws are held every two weeks and the candidates with the highest scores receive an Invitation to Apply for permanent residence depending on what the cutoff score is.

Surprising cut-off score

The government recently announced its 2021-2023 Immigration Levels Plan and its intention to invite more than 1.2 million immigrants into the country by the end of 2023 with projections of more than 100,000 of these newcomers entering Canada through Express Entry. In light of these numbers, the latest cutoff score of 478 was quite unexpected since it is one of the highest minimum scores sought since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope that the cut-off scores will be lowered in future draws which will result in more invitations and thus enable the country to actually reach its ambitious targets.

Missing draw

IRCC explained that a draw did not take place last week because of their new announcement awarding more CRS points to French-speaking candidates with 25 additional points for their language skills (up from 15) and bilingual candidates with 50 points (up from 30). We are expecting the overall CRS scores to be updated in the system within two weeks before the next draw.

Encouragement of Francophone immigration

The reason for the increase in points for French speakers is to persuade more Francophone skilled workers to move to Canada thereby enabling the country to meet its goal for Francophones comprising 4.4% of all immigrants outside of Quebec with this figure currently standing at only 2.8% as well as to cultivate its Francophone identity.

Please refer to our LinkedIn page to get access to online webinars or articles posted on the most recent Canadian immigration updates. To discuss the details of your situation, please reach out to our office and we will gladly assist you.