Voyageur 89
Canada Might Fast-Track the Express Entry Changes That Benefit High Earners, and Americans Are Finally Paying Attention to Canada. The Feeling Is Mixed.
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Canada Might Fast-Track the Express Entry Changes That Benefit High Earners
The Express Entry overhaul Canada announced earlier this month is supposed to take 12 to 18 months to fully land, but one piece might arrive much sooner.
At an April 21 webinar for immigration lawyers, a high-ranking IRCC official said the High Wage Occupation factor - which would award extra CRS points to candidates with a job offer or Canadian work experience in a role paying above the national median hourly wage - might get fast-tracked ahead of the full program merge. IRCC wants to use it to speed up Canada's talent attraction strategy, and Ministerial marching orders can move faster than full regulatory changes.
The rest of the overhaul is still coming (Voyageur 79): the Federal Skilled Worker Program and Canadian Experience Class fold into one unified class, age points stay the same, and trade skills get tiered points - full Red Seal licensure earns more than apprenticeship status. Studies-in-Canada points may survive in a reduced form, limited to higher education only. Candidates in the pool when the changes kick in will have their CRS scores recalculated.
If you have a competitive profile and a high-wage Canadian job offer, the wait might not be 18 months after all.
Read more: CIC News
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Americans Are Finally Paying Attention to Canada. The Feeling Is Mixed.
When NDP MP Leah Gazan used the acronym (take a deep breath) "MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+" at an Ottawa news conference earlier this month, she probably thought she was talking to a small domestic audience. Within hours, Elon Musk and Ted Cruz were dunking on it across the MAGAsphere, and Fox News had run multiple segments.
The old truism - that Americans neither know nor care about Canadian politics - is fading fast. The trucker convoy in 2022 first hooked MAGA's attention, and according to McGill's Media Ecosystem Observatory, that interest never faded completely. Canadian moments that can be weaponized - Indigenous issues, assisted dying, vaccine policy - are now getting picked up and amplified almost instantly. Even U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was going on about Canada last week.
Canada is being treated as something between a blue state and a foreign adversary, which makes it a useful foil for right-wing American politicians. "They look at us as a blue state in many ways," former RCMP intelligence manager Patrick Lennox told CBC. "We get the same treatment as Gavin Newsom does in California."
For Canadians living in the U.S., this change is something to navigate at dinner parties, in offices, and in comment sections - every day.
Read more: CBC News