As 2021 has come to a close, 2022 brings big changes which are predicted to occur on the Canadian front. As a result, it is critical to understand what to expect in terms of Canadian immigration in 2022, which we will go over in depth today.

To begin, we anticipate that Canada will increase its immigration objectives more than tenfold this year. Canada projected to welcome 411,000 newcomers in 2022 under the previous Immigration Levels Plan. The new objectives will be announced by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser by February 10th, thus being the first significant announcement on the horizon and within reach.

While announcing that the Atlantic Immigration Pilot will become a permanent program in 2022, Fraser stated that Canada would return to admitting immigrants from both within and outside the country.

“I anticipate as we go forward we are going to have a healthy mix of people who are here with some experience in Canada now and other employees who may not yet be here that will come to Canada through a program such as the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, as the public health situation allows,” Fraser told reporters.

In a leaked September internal memo, IRCC stated that it intends to decrease the current Express Entry backlog in half in order to satisfy the six-month processing timeframe standard, before beginning drawings for categories other than the PNP. In December, the Express Entry backlog has shrunk to around 119,000 applicants awaiting outcomes, down from over 138,000 in October.

The drop was led by CEC applications, which fell to over 25,000 in December from more than 48,000 in October. The FSWP backlog climbed to almost 55,000 in December, up from nearly 51,000 in October.

IRCC has increased processing in recent months. Toward the end of 2021, IRCC was processing over 45,000 applications per month.

In November, senior IRCC officials met with high-level government workers to discuss the Express Entry intake plan for the months coming up to early 2022. When the material from this meeting gets public, we will know what was discussed.

We do not know when IRCC will resume FSWP or CEC draws, but we can get clues from how fast IRCC is processing applications, and the briefing notes from the November 2021 meeting.

Nonetheless, 2022 will prove to be an exciting year and provide the perfect conditions to become a permanent resident of Canada. There is no doubt that if you have not yet begun your Canadian process, it is vital that you contact a licensed immigration consultancy to assist you.