Jim Metcalfe – Director of Immigration: The Canadian government has released its results of the Express Entry program so far. A taste:

As of January 3, 2016, a total of 191,279 Express Entry profiles were submitted by foreign nationals. Of these, 88,048 were found not eligible because they did not meet the criteria of at least one of the three programs managed by the system; 1,303 were pending due to Job Bank registration or verification of their Provincial Nomination by a Province or Territory; 63,937 were in the pool as active candidates or with an outstanding invitation to apply; and, the remaining 37,991 profiles have left the pool. Exit from the Express Entry pool occurs when a profile expired after being in the pool for a year or when a candidate does not decline an invitation to apply and does not submit an application in the 60-day mandatory period.

Be sure to read the whole report for an in-depth look at the Express Entry system in practice.

Transition to Express Entry

This was a transition year for the Express Entry program. The department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) was cleaning up the backlog of the old system and bringing Express Entry online. As such, it is difficult to draw hard conclusions.

One striking figure is that a whopping 78% of people who received invitations for permanent residency through the Express Entry program were already living in Canada. This means that the system is skewed in favour of such people and that few people residing outside of Canada can compete. In essence, Express Entry has become a way for those already in Canada to adjust to the new ground rules.

The true effectiveness of the system will probably not be known until the backlog of people already in Canada has dissipated. That could take years. Meanwhile, IRCC is talking about revamping the system yet again.  I’d wish them good luck, but I’ll save those wishes for the immigrants who need to constantly adjust to the shifting sands of Canadian immigration policy.