Ontario’s Provincial Nomination Program (OINP) has issued new invitations to the candidates who have submitted their profile under the express entry program and have shown their language proficiency in the French language.

These invitations were issued via the popular stream of OINP – French-Speaking Skilled Worker Stream with a total of 61 invitations was issued on the draw held on February 7. This stream allows the OINP to search the express pool (especially candidates apply under Federal Skilled Worker Class or Canadian Experience Class) for the French Speaking candidates having strong English abilities and are able to meet other eligible criteria like work experience etc.

Express Entry program is a point-based program that manages the profiles of the candidates who have applied under the skilled economic immigration programs – Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Express entry program uses the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) that ranks the profiles of the candidates based on the points awarded to their profiles via the factors like age, educational qualification, skilled work experience and proficiency in English or French. Higher ranked profiles have then issued the Invitation to Apply (ITA) to apply for PR visa to the Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Landing a provincial nomination for an express entry candidate awards them with 600 CRS points. These many points are more than enough to land the ITA to apply for the Canada PR visa.

Express Entry candidates applying via the French-Speaking Skilled Worker Stream have two key advantages:

1. They do not require a job-offer in Ontario.
2. Also, it does not require a minimum CRS score in order to be eligible.

For French language, candidates must be able to understand, read, write and speak French with minimum Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) level 7 and CLB level 6 for the English language.

With this latest draw, OINP has issued a total of 189 invitations to apply via the French-Speaking Skilled Worker Stream in 2019.