The Government of Manitoba, Canada, has announced the launch of a special work permit initiative starting April 22, 2025. This initiative will allow certain candidates under the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP) to continue working legally while awaiting immigration results. The policy is intended to bridge the “status gap” in current immigration procedures and prevent valuable international workers from being forced to leave due to expired permits. The application window remains open until December 31, 2025.

In February 2025, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) implemented a significant update to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) occupation list under Express Entry (EE). The new list has been reduced from 30 to 11 occupations. Traditional engineering roles (such as civil and mechanical engineers) and cybersecurity specialists have been retained, while 19 information technology (IT) related roles, including software development and data science, were removed. This shift aims to better align immigration with Canada’s real-world industrial skills gap and provide applicants with clearer pathways.

Following Canada’s elimination of the "Arranged Employment" policy in the Express Entry CRS scoring system on March 25, 2025, the distribution of candidate scores has undergone seismic shifts. The 501-600 CRS bracket plummeted by 5,740 applicants, while mid-to-low score segments surged. Despite a net increase of 7,373 candidates in the total pool within three weeks of the policy change, the top 10% high-score brackets lost 8,342 profiles. This structural realignment may redefine future ITA trends, particularly impacting traditional skilled immigrants’ competitive edge.

On April 14, 2025, British Columbia (BC), Canada, officially announced a structural overhaul of its Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP). The province’s annual nomination quota will plummet to 4,000, with only 1,100 new application slots available for the entire year. These will be primarily allocated to frontline healthcare workers and high economic value professionals. Meanwhile, the International Post-Graduate (IPG) stream is facing systemic backlog, with all applications submitted between September 2024 and January 2025 moved to a waitlist. Three new international student immigration streams are also indefinitely suspended. This policy reform is a direct result of the federal government’s drastic move to halve the national PNP quota from 110,000 to 55,000, forcing provinces to adopt stricter elite selection mechanisms.

On March 25, 2025, the Canadian federal government implemented a significant change to its Express Entry system, removing the additional Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points previously granted for arranged employment. Despite this change, the importance of job offers in Canada’s immigration framework remains undiminished. A valid Canadian job offer continues to play a pivotal role—not only as a mandatory entry requirement for numerous federal and provincial programs (such as the PNP, Atlantic Immigration Program, and various pilot programs) but also as a key step in gaining Canadian work experience, which greatly boosts one’s CRS score and enables eligibility for the Canadian Experience Class (CEC). For prospective immigrants, securing a job offer is still one of the most effective paths toward permanent residency in Canada.

On April 14, 2025, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) conducted its first Express Entry draw since adjustments were made to the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scoring mechanism. This round exclusively targeted Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) candidates, issuing 825 Invitations to Apply (ITAs). The high cut-off score of 764 underscores the critical role of a PNP nomination in boosting competitiveness, especially after points for 'Arranged Employment' were eliminated. To date, IRCC has issued 31,508 ITAs through Express Entry in 2025, aiming to welcome 124,680 new permanent residents via this pathway by year-end.

Recently, the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) made history by issuing its first round of immigration invitations through its newly launched Expression of Interest (EOI) system, introduced in February 2025. Meanwhile, neighboring New Brunswick (NB) actively conducted several targeted draws across different provincial nominee program streams, focusing on candidates with experience in specific high-demand industries or those with local study/work history. These actions highlight both provinces’ more targeted immigration selection strategies aimed at meeting local labor market demands and adapting to federal immigration quota constraints.

The Canadian federal government has confirmed an increase in the Right of Citizenship Fee for adult applicants, effective midnight on March 31, 2025. The fee will rise from $100 CAD to $119.75 CAD, bringing the total cost for adult applicants to $649.75 CAD, up from $630 CAD. This adjustment does not affect fees for minor applicants, which remain unchanged. Applicants who completed their online application and paid the previous fee before the deadline are not affected, though those who submitted paper applications may need to pay the difference.

Receiving an Invitation to Apply (ITA) through Canada's Express Entry system marks a significant milestone for immigration candidates. However, applicants face a strict 60-day deadline to submit a complete application for permanent residence (PR). This report provides a detailed breakdown of the core and supplementary documents required to respond to an ITA, explains the rationale behind each document requirement by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and identifies applicable candidates, while emphasizing the critical importance of advance preparation and information accuracy to avoid application refusal or potential long-term bans due to incomplete submissions or misrepresentation.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officially opened the application portal for its highly anticipated Home Care Worker Immigration Pilots (HCWP) on March 31, 2025. However, due to the large number of applicants, the online application quotas for the two sub-categories aimed at in-Canada applicants – the Child Care Pilot and the Home Support Pilot – rapidly reached their annual caps on the afternoon of the opening day. This reflects the program's immense popularity and the intense competition among applicants. Currently, the stream for overseas applicants has not yet opened.