The CRS draw for Canada Express Entry recently reached 529 points, which is out of reach for many, and with EE immigration lottery system scores soaring, many international students and temporary workers feel uncertain about their future.
Kanika Maheshwari came to Canada from India in 2020 to study business administration in Brampton, Toronto.
Maheshwari says her dream is to open a jewelry store one day.
After graduating, she worked as a sales executive in a logistics company. The 29-year-old international student has built her life in Canada with her husband, who is a trader, and both are saving up to open her jewelry store.
But Maheshwari said her dream was now at risk because her Canadian work visa was due to expire in August and she had not received any news of her permanent residency application since she applied last year due to the unattainable CRS score in the Immigration Comprehensive Ranking System draw, which has been well above her score.
According to an immigration consultant, this is because there is a record number of permanent residents with higher application scores, who have earned more points through a lengthy and expensive application process, but still do not guarantee a successful invitation from the Department of Immigration.
In 2022, Canada received a record 430,000 applications for permanent residence.
"It feels like I'm going to keep walking, and then there's a well ahead of me and I'm going to fall from there," Maheshwari said. ”
The CRS is a ranking system used by Immigration and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to score immigrants applying for permanent residency based on factors such as age, education level, English proficiency, and work experience. On average, the Department of Immigration conducts a lottery every two weeks, and applicants with higher CRS scores will be invited to submit documents to receive a PR card.
CBC News calculated the CRS of a 25-year-old single person with a Canadian bachelor's degree, one year of full-time Canadian work experience, and the highest score on an English proficiency test, based on the Department of Immigration website.
The outstanding young man finished with a final score of 474, which, combined with a year of full-time work experience, jumped to 499.
But according to the Department of Immigration's IRCC website, since January of this year, all draws in the general category have averaged over 540 points.
Manan Gupta, an immigration consultant, said: "This score is too high to reach and very rare. ”
Gupta said that most people with a post-graduation work permit (PGWP) of up to three years did not meet the current threshold.
The record-breaking score comes as immigration minister Marc Miller said work visas expiring after 2023 would not be extended.
Gupta said he feared it would cause hundreds of thousands of people to leave Canada.
"If these temporary workers suddenly withdraw from the labor market, we will not have anyone to fill the same jobs," he said.
According to IRCC, in 2022, there will be 286,000 PGWP holders in Canada, with a similar number of work permits issued each year since 2019, with more than half of them intending to work in Ontario.
Since Miller took office as immigration minister last July, there has been a series of changes in immigration policy. One of them is to maintain the target of 500,000 permanent resident immigrants by 2026.
However, there are six priority categories to fill the labor shortage: STEM, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, trade, and French.
However, Canada's admission of international students does not match its labor shortage, with nearly 800,000 business students enrolled between 2018 and 2023, according to CBC News' analysis of federal data.
During the same period, about 142,780 visas were issued for health sciences courses, 36,208 for trade and vocational training courses, and 6,266 for medical courses.
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Maheshwari said that her mother died two years ago, and she said that she provided financial support to her family back home. Her husband holds a spousal work permit, which means that if she leaves, he must also return to India.
"I couldn't sleep all night because of anxiety. It's a huge hell," she said.
With only three months to go until her visa expires, she said, learning French or switching careers is not an option.
The couple is working overtime to make ends meet and has paid about $30,000 to hire a lawyer to advise on their possible next steps.
Gupta said he sees more and more people spending tens of thousands of dollars to improve their CRS scores, by hiring a lawyer to qualify for different categories such as the Provincial Nominee Program, or by completing a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA).
"If I had to go back, everything I did in four years would be just a waste, spending a lot of money for my jewelry business, but losing everything. There will be a lot to lose not only for me, but for the whole family I support," Maheshwari said.
If the Canadian government wants to have skilled workers, it needs to focus on closing courses that only attract international students but can't fill the acute labor shortage, Gupta said.
"It's a bit unbelievable right now, because every other week the Trudeau government announces a new policy. Every other week the government takes a band-aid approach, which needs to be stopped altogether. He said.
"For those who have spent five or six years of their youth in Canada, they are now told that they have to go home and start over. Canada is closing its doors to them," Gupta said.
"You don't know what the future holds, it's a dilemma."
It's cruel for this group of people.