For the first time since March 4, Canada resumed to accept invitations from its all-program draw for FSWP and FSTP candidates to apply for permanent residence.

This is indeed good news amidst the weary news we are all used to in these trying times of Covid-19. Canada has resumed the all-program Express Entry draws for the first time since the pandemic had struck the nation.

Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and Federal Skilled Traders Program (FSTP) candidates are now issued invitation to apply for permanent residence.

The country has issued around 3,900 invitations to eligible candidates to apply for permanent resident. The eligibility has been decided to be the minimum score of 478 on a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) to get the invitation for the July 8 edition of the draw. The new score has increased by 7 points from 417, which was the previous cut off.

However, one cannot look at the fact that the higher CRS would mean that it will include candidates with higher CRS who would have been already issued invitations had the pandemic did not happen. So, it is all in fairness, least to say.

In yesterday’s draw, IRCC has also used its tie-break rule as well along with the time constraint which as 13:08:31 UTC, February 11. This meant that anyone with the proposed score and above who submitted their profile onto the Express Entry catalogue before said time has been able to receive an invitation to apply in this draw.

Ever since Covid-19 had been categorized as a pandemic, Canada maintained various travel restrictions so as to stop the spread of the virus. This has led to the Entry Express draws being limited only to Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates. This pushed the cases of FSWP and FSTP candidates to a level of uncertainty till now.

Though the country introduced various travel restrictions, it did not affect most of the CEC candidates since most of them had already been in Canada. To meet the requirements of the labor markets, PNP candidates continued getting invitations from provinces.

It must also be noted, importantly, that some of the PNP and CEC candidates who were getting invitations from the provinces in previous draws were still outside the country even when the FSWP and FSTP candidates were excluded from the draws.