2014 Immigration Plan Of Canada To Expand To CEC

08 Nov 2013

Chris Alexander, the Canadian Immigration Minister announced the 2014 immigration plan of Canada. The minister announced that he intends to keep total immigration at the same rate as the current year i.e., between 240,000 and 265,000. He stressed that the focus will be more on economic immigrants and a full report regarding the same can be found here.

Mr. Alexander also announced that 2 visa programs will be expanded prominently; the CEC (Canadian Experience Class) and the PNP (Provincial Nominee Program).

People who have been working in a managerial or skilled position for more than 12 months in Canada are allowed to apply for a Canadian Permanent Resident (PR) Visa through CEC. The main applicants are allowed to bring dependent family members with them, and the Minister targets 15,000 CEC Visas to be granted in 2014. For a CEC, applicants also need to meet the Canadian Admissibility Criteria which are:

• Ability to converse in French or English up to the necessary standard
• Good health
• A clean criminal record

Provincial Nominee Program

The PNP enables Canadian territories and provinces to nominate applicants of their own choice to migrate to Canada for Permanent Residence (PR). Mr. Alexander announced that under PNP, between 44,000 and 47,000 PR Visas will be issued in 2014, more than the 41,000 issued in 2012.

The PNP was crafted to spur immigrants to settle outside the main population centers of Canada i.e., outside Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Apart from Quebec and Nunavut, all of the territories and provinces of Canada have signed up to the PNP. Quebec has its own migration programs, and Nunavut is the newest of territory of Canada which was created as a homeland for Northern Canada’s indigenous Inuit people in 1999.