285,000 to immigrate to Canada in 2015

As the Globe and Mail reported the number of economic immigrants that come to Canada will be between 172,100 and 186,700, so the economic immigrant will be the largest class of immigrant brought into the country.

The Express Entry system will leave the selection process with computers. The potential immigrant must create an online profile and register with the federal job bank, unless they already have a job secured in Canada.

A computerized system will examine applications of everyone seeking entry under the skilled trades program, skilled worker program and the Canadian Experience Class program, and award them points.

The computer will award points based on age and education achieved, the transferability of their skills, ‘spousal factors’ and whether they already possess a job offer or invitation from a provincial or territorial immigration program (the most points are awarded to this final category).

Given there will be more candidates than placements, draws will occur 15 to 25 times yearly, and those draws will produce the names of those who may be offered to immigrate to Canada; naturally the more points the computer has given a potential immigrant, the higher chance that person has of getting a spot should their name appear in a draw. If offered, a potential immigrant has 60 days to file an immigration form.

Chris Alexander: “higher calibre”

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander told media the new policy will enable the government to accent skilled workers. Mr. Alexander referred to the people who will be coming here under this program as a “higher calibre” immigrant.

“We are recruiting a higher calibre of economic immigrant than we have ever seen before,” he said in November. “This (bringing in more economic immigrants) is a goal we’ve had for some time. Many provinces already have 70 per cent economic immigration; that’s the aspiration Canada has as well.”

There is a cap on how many economic immigrants provinces can bring in and Alberta is already on record as saying they would like to see that cap lifted so they might bring in more.

The system will be tweaked at some point during 2015 that will give employers to search for employees they may have a need for if they cannot find someone in Canada to fill a position.