Everything You Need to Know About Ontario’s Provincial Nomination System
In the past month, provinces Ontario, British Columbia, and Manitoba have all issued invitations for candidates to apply to their respective provincial nominee programs (PNPs).
PNPs, economic immigration programs hosted by all Canadian provinces and territories, are designed by each province to meet their own specific economic and labour needs. The PNPs lack the federal power to approve candidates’ permanent residency, but can greatly accelerate the process through their nominations. Each PNP operates differently, with varying criteria and processes. The Ontario Immigrant Nomination Program (OINP) Pathway is Ontario’s PNP.
Every year, eligible candidates pursue Ontario nomination through the OINP Expression of Interest System. Their expressions of interest are registered through one of 9 different qualifying streams in three different categories:
If you have received a job offer in Ontario, you may be eligible for:
- Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream
- Employer Job Offer: International Student stream
- Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream
If you hold a Masters or PhD degree from an Ontario university, you may be eligible for:
- Masters Graduate stream
- PhD Graduate stream
If you qualify as a skilled worker and have skills that are in-demand by Ontario employers, you may be eligible for:
- Human Capital Priorities stream
- Skilled Trades stream
- French-Speaking Skilled Worker stream
This category of OINP streams with the Express Entry stream and eligibility for these streams involves additional requirements of an Express Entry profile, a notification of interest from Ontario, and specific National Occupation Classification (NOC) categorization.
The last stream, the Entrepreneur stream under the business category, is for foreign entrepreneurs wishing to establish a new business enterprise in Ontario.
Many of these streams have specific eligibility requirements for applicants to meet to be able to register expressions of interest. Depending on which stream the applicant is interested in, the expression of interest can range from creating an IRCC profile, to basic registration, to an online application and interview. The OINP will then collect their information, rank the candidates, and select those best-suited to meeting Ontario’s needs. Successful candidates will then be drawn from this reduced pool of candidates and contacted by OINP. In 2022, the program issued 9,750 nominations for permanent residence to successful applicants.
For Express Entry candidates, a successful nomination goes a long way, adding 600 points to the candidates’ Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score and putting them in a far more favourable position to receive Invitations to Apply (ITAs). Ultimately, however, the ability to approve candidates for permanent residency still remains with the federal government.
