Canada’s Provincial Nominee Programs or PNP had seen major developments last year. PNP allows the participating Canadian provinces and territories to nominate candidates from the Federal Express Entry pool. Nominated candidates receive an additional 600 points to their CRS score. It increases their probability of receiving an Invitation to Apply (ITA) in the next Federal draw.

n 2018, 34,700 candidates were nominated through PNP (an increase by 1300 from 2017). It is expected that there will be more nominations this year. However, IRCC has not released any numbers yet.

Within the first week of 2019, a couple of draws has already been held in the provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

• On January 2, BC issued the first invitations to candidates in Skilled Worker, International Graduate and Skills Immigration — Entry Level and Semi-Skilled. The lowest scores were 85 for Skilled Worker, 95 for International Graduate and 68 for Entry Level and Semi-Skilled. A total of 151 invitations were issued.
• On January 3, Saskatchewan issued invitations to candidates in the Entrepreneur category. 90 invitations were issued in this draw. The scores range of the nominated candidates was 115 – 150.