Foreigners intending to apply to this pathway might consider preparing some documents in advance, which include language tests and evidence of education as is detailed in our article on documents to prepare to the launching of this pathway.
The new TR to PR line is welcomed when a great number of the temporary residents are experiencing the expiry of their status.
Most of the temporary residents in Canada are known to have status in terms of work permits and/or study permits which are never granted permanently as they have an expiry date.
Based on the circumstances of a foreign national, they can seek an extension or renewal of their study permit or work permit. In case they cannot do it, and in case their extension request is denied, they must depart Canada at the expiry of the approved period of their residence.
Measures To Reduce Temporary Resident Levels
As of January 2024, Canadian federal government is heading towards eliminating all of its temporary residents by cutting the amount of study permits and work permits issued by the government, aiming at decreasing the proportion of temporary residents to less than 5 per cent of the Canadian population by the end of 2027.
The decline in the levels of temporary residents as envisaged by the government will be achieved by a combination of both the conversion of the current temporary residents to permanent residents and the exodus of the temporary residents to Canada whose status will lapse.
In January 2024, the government imposed a limit on applications to study permits annually, and made it so that graduates of post-secondary programs taught under curriculum licensing agreements would cease to be able to receive post-graduation work permits (PGWPs).
Additional actions were made in summer and fall.
Following a surge in unemployment rates in high unemployment areas, in September of 2024 the government enacted a moratorium on the labour market impact assessment processing of the low-wage stream of the temporary foreign worker program (TFWP) in high unemployment regions, barring both employers and foreign workers in such regions to initiate the process to obtain a new permit or renew an existing one through the low-wage stream of the TFWP.
In September 2024, the government also announced significant limitations on the already existing post-graduation work permits (PGWPs) and spouse open work permits (SOWPs) and plan to reduce the number of work permits issued by hundreds of thousands in the next three years.
The government has also made targets in its annual immigration levels plan of October of 2024 to include temporary resident admissions- the first time it had ever done so.
The criteria to qualify as a student in the new programmes, starting in November 2024, included graduates of a study program in one of the fields of need (including healthcare and the skilled trades), subject to an exemption of this field of study requirement on graduates of bachelors and master’s and doctoral study programs.
They further asked the applicants of PGLP to satisfy the minimum language proficiency by official language examinations.
Spousal open work permits (SOWPs) given to the spouses of international students, beginning in January of 2025, were limited to spouses of international students studying in a doctoral program, master’s programs over 16 months in length, or in specific professional programs including engineering, nursing, law, medicine, and dentistry.
Beginning as well in January of 2025, SOWPs to spouses of foreign workers were restricted to spouses of workers in the highest skill (TEER 0 and 1) and spouses of workers in medium-skill (TEER 2 and 3) workers in areas such as healthcare, construction, and natural resources.
The package of measures has worked, as per the quarterly population estimates by the statistics Canada and the figures that the immigration department posted in its temporary residents in Canada page.