IRCC is deferring the invitation of FSWP and CEC candidates in order to clear its backlog.

This is revealed in an official briefing memo obtained by CIC News after a request from the department.

Despite being substantially classified, the memo offers important information about Canada’s Express Entry operations.

To support its 2021 immigration targets, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) halted Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) invitations in December 2020 in order to pursue a strategy of “aggressively” inviting Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates and candidates under the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident (TR2PR) pathway.

“This strategy resulted in significant inventory expansion, a backlog of applications, and processing durations in excess of service norms for all economic categories,” according to the document.

According to CIC News, the IRCC’s backlog as of October 2021 was 1.8 million applications. This comprises petitions for permanent residence, temporary residence, and Canadian citizenship. In July 2021, there were 1.5 million applications on the queue. As of October 27, 2021, there were 99,968 Express Entry permanent residency applications awaiting processing, according to statistics.

It looks that work is being made on reducing the backlog of Express Entry applications. According to an internal IRCC briefing, the backlog was around 108,500 as of September 3, 2021, when the note was written.

This means that between September 3rd and October 27th of this year, the Express Entry backlog was reduced by around 8,500 applications.

The backlog of Express Entry candidates was 62,450 candidates at the same stage last year, according to the briefing (i.e., September 2020). As a result of IRCC’s plan to focus on offering permanent residence to candidates in Canada, it has nearly doubled.

“Adjusting to fulfill the Afghanistan resettlement objectives has caused the need for trade-offs in the Spousal Sponsorship category, CEC, and the TR2PR program,” the IRCC writes in the memo. As a result, the Department now expects a PR [permanent residence] inventory of over 760K people by the end of 2021, including 360K in the economic class.”

It’s unclear whether the IRCC’s forecasts have changed. The permanent housing inventory stood at approximately 550,000 applications as of October 27, with over 255,000 of those falling into the economic class. Given the minor decrease in the Express Entry backlog between September and October, it’s probable that IRCC has updated its internal backlog prediction and no longer expects them to be as huge as the September 3rd memo stated.

In its memo, IRCC states that in order to meet its Express Entry processing standard of six months or fewer, it will need to reduce the backlog by “more than half.”

Senior IRCC officials will return to the department’s highest-ranking civil servant (i.e., non-political employee), Deputy Minister Catrina Tapley, in November 2021 with a plan for Express Entry intakes throughout the remainder of 2021 and early 2022, once a better understanding of the composition of immigrants IRCC will look to target in 2022 has been gained.

The IRCC manages applications for the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the Canadian Experience Class (CEC), and the Federal Skilled Trades Program through the Express Entry system (FSTP). Express Entry is the most common option for low-income immigrants to enter Canada.

On the IRCC website, candidates who are eligible for any of the three programs can build profiles. They are assigned a CRS score based on human capital criteria including age, education, language skills, and work experience.

Prior to the epidemic, the IRCC hosted Express Entry lotteries every two weeks or so, inviting the top scorers to apply for permanent residency. IRCC has 60 days to receive completed permanent residence applications from invited individuals. The IRCC then set a goal of processing applications in six months or fewer for the majority of individuals. Candidates from the FSWP received the most Invitations to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence, followed by those from the CEC.

However, the epidemic has altered the situation. IRCC has only invited CEC and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates to apply for a permanent residence this year, even though they did not receive the highest score among all Express Entry candidates. Furthermore, due to the pandemic, IRCC is now unable to commit to maintaining its six-month processing standard.

Former international students and foreign workers with at least one year of professional job experience in Canada flock to the CEC. The PNP was created to help provinces and territories across Canada meet their particular labor market needs. A province can invite an Express Entry candidate who fits the criteria for a PNP stream to apply to their PNP. If the candidate accepts the invitation, they will receive 600 CRS points, effectively ensuring that they will receive an ITA under Express Entry.

Only CEC and PNP candidates will be invited in 2021 to enable IRCC to meet its objective of landing 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021, as outlined in its Immigration Levels Plan 2021-2023. Two-fold reasoning guides IRCC’s concentration on CEC and PNP candidates.

First, because CEC candidates are largely in Canada, they are less likely to be affected by COVID-related delays, which would obstruct their ability to obtain permanent residence and, as a result, jeopardize IRCC’s capacity to net 401,000 immigrants this year. Second, the IRCC sees PNP draws as important to meet the provinces’ labor market demands.

This year, the IRCC hosted 33 PNP-specific lotteries, inviting a total of 17,785 candidates. In the meantime, 27 CEC-specific lotteries have resulted in 133,868 invitations.

The most recent CEC draw was held on September 14. The suspension in CEC draws, according to the IRCC briefing letter, is to allow IRCC to handle its present Express Entry backlog.

The above temporary policy adjustments have had the most damaging impact on FSWP candidates. As of October 25, 2021, IRCC stated in an email to CIC News that there were around 165,000 FSWP eligible individuals in the Express Entry pool. This indicates they make up over 85% of the Express Entry candidates in the pool right now.