Ministerial Instruction 3 - MI3 - Canada Visa application - List of eligible Occupations Canada

Last June 24, 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, sent a publication in their website (cic.gc.ca) about the Changes in their Economic Immigration Programs.

In this publication they have presented a glimpse of the what the Ministerial Instructions would be, or the new Federal Skill Workers Class program.

It has been noted that the following changes will take place:

1. Citizenship and Immigration Canada will limit the intake of new applications to 10,000 between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012.

2. Only maximum of 500 applications per occupation would be considered.

3. The List of 29 Eligible occupations, will be retained.

4. There are other changes affecting the Federal Investor Immigrant Program and Federal Entrepreneur Program but I will cover that on another blog post.

Here are the publications highlights:

"November 2008, the government first took steps to identify for processing those federal skilled worker applications that responded to Canada’s labour needs, such as applicants with arranged employment offers from Canadian employers or with experience in an occupation in high demand. In June 2010, the government released an updated list of 29 priority occupations and introduced a global cap of 20,000 for federal skilled workers, as well as a sub-cap of 1,000 under each occupation. Over the past year, CIC has received approximately 13,800 federal skilled worker applications under the priority occupations list (figure accurate as of June 24, 2011).

Now, for applicants who do not have an offer of employment in Canada, the government will further limit the number of new federal skilled worker applications that are considered for processing to 10,000 a year, beginning July 1. This limit will help better align the number of applications with labour market demand. Within the 10,000 limit, a maximum of 500 new applications in each of the current 29 priority occupations will be considered."


These Changes in the program or the Ministerial Instructions 3 is being done to make sure that the backlogs will be reduced and wait times will be improved.

The original intention of the Canadian Government was to process Federal Skilled Worker applications - Permanent Residents Visa application for Canada within 6 months to a year.

When they implemented the Ministerial Instruction 1, they were not able to control the influx of applications that they receive that is why there are still applicants in the first Change that still has not received their application results. At present the average wait times for applications filed in Ministerial Instructions 1 - 38 High Demand Occupation is 1 year and 1 month.

While applications filed under Ministerial Instructions 2 are processed within 6 to 7 months.

They would want to maintain this fast processing time in the new Ministerial Instructions 3, that is why they need to further modify the program.

If you are one of those applicants has work experience in the 29 in demand occupations who wanted to apply before under this program but did not have enough time to prepare for the requirements of the application you have another shot to be able to take advantage of this program.

What you should do is call or email us to find out what your options are.

Look for Jay Araneta - contact number 352 83 24 loc. 8703 - email jaraneta@go2canada.com

To read this Citizenship and Immigration Canada publication you may visit cic.gi.ca

CANADIAN IMMIGRATION CONSULTANCY-SM North EDSA

Address: Unit 301, 3rd Floor, NorthLink Bldg, SMNorth EDSA 1105 Quezon City, Philippines Tel No: 0917 820 2531 Email: iai@go2canada.com