Practice Guides

The CRS is scored out of 1200: core human capital, spouse factors, skill transferability and additional points. Job offer points were removed on March 25, 2025. In the additional-points column only a provincial nomination is worth 600; every other item caps at 50.

An LMIA is assessed by ESDC and looks at the effect of hiring a foreign worker on the local labour market. Since March 25, 2025 a job offer earns no CRS points, so an LMIA now bears on eligibility and route rather than score. Includes the provincial wage thresholds.

A provincial nomination is not an alternative to Express Entry. Some PNP streams connect to it, and a nomination adds 600 points; others do not, and you apply for permanent residence directly. Which route applies is decided by the stream, not by you.

Express Entry CRS calculator: scores core, spouse, skill transferability and additional points against the official IRCC grid, shows where every point comes from, and checks your language against the minimums for all three federal programs. Job offer points were removed on March 25, 2025.

As of June 25, 2026 eight former OINP streams are closed and replaced by OWPS. Applications already submitted are assessed under the former rules, EOIs without an invitation are withdrawn automatically, and the OWPS expression of interest system opened on August 4, 2026.

Ontario Workforce Priority Stream (OWPS) applicant requirements: work experience, education and language rules for the three job offer situations, taken from the official page.

Ontario Workforce Priority Stream (OWPS) employer requirements: revenue and full-time employee thresholds, domestic recruitment rules, job offer and wage standards, and the employer internal review process, taken from the official employer guide.

Ontario Workforce Priority Stream (OWPS) points calculator. Scores all 11 official EOI factors one by one and shows the breakdown. A cut-off score is produced by each draw rather than set in advance by the province. The maximum shown on this page is calculated from the individual factor maximums, not published by the province.

Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program EOI points calculator. Scores the six factors on the official Manitoba grid out of 1000 and shows the breakdown. Manitoba draws by occupation, by broad category, by language and under the Strategic Recruitment Initiative, so there is no single province-wide cut-off. The page also lists the minimum scores recently published for each segment.

BC Skills Immigration registration is scored out of 200: directly related work experience 40, education 40, language 40, hourly wage 55, area of employment 25. Both current streams require a full-time indeterminate job offer from a B.C. employer.

The Alberta AAIP Worker Expression of Interest is scored out of 100: human capital 69 (education 22, language 13, work experience 21, age 5, Alberta relative 8) plus economic factors 31 (job offer 16, work location 5, regulated occupation 10). CLB 4 in all four abilities is required to submit.

In most cases there is no income requirement to sponsor a spouse. The decision to make before filing is inland versus outland: an outland refusal can be appealed to the IAD, an inland refusal cannot. Genuineness is tested at two separate points in time.

The parent and grandparent sponsorship program (PGP) was paused on July 15, 2026 until further notice. The super visa allows stays of 5 years at a time. The income rule changed on March 31, 2026, and the visiting parents’ own income can now be counted.

Which day a dependent child’s age locks in depends on the class: the general rule is the date the application is made, while the provincial nominee class locks in on the date the nomination application was made to the province. A separate exclusion covers children who did not accompany and were not examined.

A spousal open work permit runs on two different sets of conditions. On an economic PR pathway the principal applicant needs at least 6 months of validity left; a high-skilled worker needs at least 16 months plus a TEER condition.

Maintained status, called implied status until IRCC renamed it in 2021, covers the period after an extension was filed before expiry with no decision by that date. The Regulations use neither term: they extend the period authorized for your stay, and s.183(6) preserves your status during it.

IRPR s.182 gives a 90-day window to apply to restore temporary resident status, counted from the day status was lost. It is not a grace period: you have no status during it and cannot work. The restoration fee is CAD 246.25.

A study permit becomes invalid no later than 90 days after studies are completed, and the PGWP must be filed within 180 days of confirmation. Two clocks, different start points.

Attaching other documents in the letter-of-acceptance space is giving consent to disclose them to your school. If the school does not respond by the deadline, the application is returned and the fee refunded. Proof of funds is $22,895 a year for one person, tuition and transportation not included.

A visitor visa application does not turn on proving the absence of an intention to immigrate. The provision requires establishing that you will leave by the end of the authorised stay, and the onus sits with the applicant.

Every permanent residence pathway on IRCC’s caregiver page is marked Closed, and intake to the Home Care Worker pilots has been paused since December 19, 2025. What remains open is an LMIA-based work permit, and from outside Canada it is only available for work in Quebec.

Three routes are commonly taken after a refusal: reapplying, reconsideration, and judicial review. Whether reconsideration helps depends on the category. Judicial review carries the tightest deadline: 15 days inland, 60 days abroad.

Under IRPA s.25 the Minister must examine a request made from inside Canada, but must examine is not must grant. Five situations bar examination outright, and the twelve-month wait after a refused refugee claim is the one whose start date is most often miscounted.

A request for your own personal information goes under the Privacy Act, which is open to foreign nationals regardless of where they are located and carries no fee. Thirty days to respond, and only a few licensed groups may charge to represent you.

You need 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada in the five years before you apply. Days before permanent residence count as half, up to 365; days after count as one. The five years runs back from the filing date, so the window keeps moving.

Ontario Small Claims Court moved from $35,000 to $50,000 on October 1, 2025, and the minimum appealable amount from $3,500 to $5,000. In most cases a claim cannot be filed more than two years after the incident, and enforcing a judgment is left to the plaintiff.

A notice of termination is not an eviction order: where the tenant has not moved out, the landlord cannot recover possession without an order of the Board. On the arrears track the Act sets out four successive payment points, each with a different consequence. From September 21, 2026 the notice period becomes the 7th day in all cases.

A provincial offence notice gives three routes: a trial, a meeting with the prosecutor, or a guilty plea. Fifteen days without a response means the charge is deemed not disputed, and so does requesting a meeting and not attending. After a conviction entered in your absence, the 15 days runs from the day it became known.

Ontario does not permit remote notarization. What can be done remotely is commissioning: affidavits and statutory declarations, by real-time two-way audio-visual technology, with the deponent abroad and the commissioner in Ontario.

Notary public and commissioner for taking affidavits are two separate authorities. Certified true copies, witnessing signatures and affixing a seal sit on the notary side, which Ontario does not permit remotely. Affidavits and statutory declarations can be commissioned remotely.