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Canada Atlantic Immigration Program

The Atlantic Immigration Program aims to attract qualified workers to Canada’s Atlantic provinces in order to boost economic growth. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island are among the Atlantic provinces.

PNPs pathway to Canadian Permanent Residency

Atlantic Immigration Program Guide

The Atlantic Immigration Program allows competent foreign workers and international graduates of a Canadian university to work and live in one of Canada’s four Atlantic provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. Employers can use the program to find eligible individuals for positions that they haven’t been able to fill locally.

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Atlantic Immigration Overview

Applicants must have a formal work offer to be eligible for the Atlantic Immigration Program. A Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) is usually required in order to secure a genuine Canadian job offer for immigration purposes. The Atlantic Immigration Program does not require this. Instead, the job offer must come from a designated company.

The Atlantic Immigration Program began as a pilot program in 2017 and became permanent in January 2022. Each year, the AIP welcomes nearly 6,000 newcomers to the Atlantic provinces.

Complete our free assessment so we can evaluate your eligibility for all immigration programs and guide you toward what fits you best.

Who can apply

To be eligible for the Atlantic Immigration Program, you must have qualifying job experience, unless you’re an international graduate of a recognized post-secondary institution in Atlantic Canada

  • Fulfil or exceed the educational requirements
  • Meet or surpass the language requirements
  • Show that you have enough money to maintain yourself and your family when you get to Canada If you’re already living and working in Canada with a valid work permit, you don’t need to produce documentation.

If you meet all of these qualifications, you can start looking for a job with a designated Atlantic employer.

Over the last 5 years, you should have worked at least 1,560 hours. That’s the number of hours you would have worked in 1 year if you were working 30 hours each week.

To calculate your hours
– Count hours worked in part-time and full-time jobs.
– Count just paid hours of employment. Volunteering or unpaid internships don’t count.
– Don’t count hours while you were self-employed.
– Count work hours inside or outside Canada. You must have been lawfully allowed to work in Canada as a temporary resident.
– Count hours that were completed during a period of at least 12 months.
– Count work experience earned while studying, as provided as the work hours don’t exceed what was approved.

This work should fall into one of the following National Occupational Classification (NOC) skill categories.

– NOC Skill Type 0 (management jobs such as restaurant managers, mine managers)
– NOC Skill Level A (professional jobs that usually need a degree from a university, such as doctors, dentists, architects)
– NOC Skill Level B (technical jobs and skilled trades such as chefs, electricians, plumbers)
– NOC Skill Level C (intermediate jobs that usually call for high school and/or job-specific training, such as industrial butchers, long-haul truck drivers, food and beverage servers)

Your work experience must include
– The actions in the description of your NOC
– The main duties of your NOC

If you’re an international student who graduated with honours, you’re exempted from the aforementioned work experience requirements.
1- A credential from a 2-year or longer post-secondary program in which you were
a) Enrolled full-time for the entire 2-year program
b) Received the credential no more than 18 months before applying for permanent residence
c) Spent at least 16 of the last 24 months studying for your credential in the community

Or

You must have a master’s degree or above.
a) Were a full-time student for the duration of your degree
b) Received your degree no more than 18 months before submitting your permanent residency application.
c) You spent the most of your time in the community during your studies.

If your credentials are from a program that does not accept international students, you will not be able to apply as an international student. Some of these are;

– More than half of the program was spent learning English or French.
– More than half of the curriculum was delivered via distance learning
– You were awarded a scholarship or fellowship that required you to return to your home country and put what you learned into practice.

Based on the NOC category that relates to the employment offer in the community, you must meet the minimal language requirements. This could be

– Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) or Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens (NCLC)
The language requirements for each NOC category are as follows:

– NOC 0 and A: CLB/NCLC 6
– NOC B: CLB/NCLC 5
– NOC C and D: CLB/NCLC 4

You must submit the results of a language test that has been designated. When you apply, these results must be less than two years old.
To learn more about language testing, request a callback and one of our immigration specialists will get in touch with you.

One of the following is required:
1- A Canadian educational certification, such as a
– A diploma from a secondary school (high school) in Canada
– A certificate, diploma, or degree from a Canadian post-secondary institution

2- An educational credential assessment (ECA) report from a designated organization or professional body that is
– Less than 5 years old on the date you apply
– Demonstrating that you completed a foreign credential equivalent from a
a) Canadian secondary school (high school) diploma or
b)Canadian post-secondary certificate, diploma, or degree.

Unless you’re already working legally in Canada when you apply, you’ll need to show that you’ll be able to support yourself and any family members while you settle in.

You must show that you have sufficient funds to maintain any family members you may have, even if they are not accompanying you to Canada.

You must intend to live in the community in order to participate in the pilot.

Eleven villages have been chosen to participate in the trial as of June 2019. In order to test the pilot, these communities will get a variety of services and initiatives.

Ontario:
– Thunder Bay
– Sault-Ste-Marie
– Sudbury
– Timmins
– North Bay

Manitoba:
– Gretna-Rhineland-Altona-Plum Coulee
– Brandon
– Saskatchewan
– Moose Jaw

Alberta:
– Claresholm

British Columbia:
– West Kootenay
– Vernon

A community must have a population of 50,000 or less and be located at least 75 kilometers from the center of a census metropolitan area, or a population of 200,000 or less and be considered remote from other larger cities, in order to qualify.

Communities must be in one of the provinces or regions listed below:

  • Alberta
  • British Columbia
  • Manitoba
  • Northwest Territories
  • Nunavut
  • Ontario
  • Saskatchewan
  • Yukon

Communities must submit an economic development strategy that is backed up by a local economic development agency capable of running the pilot. Communities must also show that they possess work options for newcomers as well as the financial means to assist them in settling in.

Atlantic Immigration Program Eligibility

Employers must first be designated and then have their employment endorsed by the province in order to participate in the Atlantic Immigration Program.

Once the employer’s jobs have been endorsed, the foreign worker(s) identified by the employer can apply for permanent residency directly with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. While waiting for permanent residency, the foreign worker can receive a temporary work visa.

Questions? You’re covered

An "Invitation to Apply" (also known as a "Notification of Interest" or "Letter of Interest") is a province's invitation to apply for nomination. Provinces shall provide applicants with a deadline for submitting their application when they issue an invitation. The deadline varies based on the program via which an applicant is invited.

To apply for most Provincial Nominee Programs, you must have at least one year of work experience. Some nominated programs for post-graduate students, on the other hand, do not require work experience or a job offer to apply. The Ontario Masters Graduate stream, Ontario PhD Graduate stream, and British Columbia International Post-Graduate stream are examples of these programs.

To demonstrate competency in one of Canada's official languages, almost all PNPs require candidates to take a specified French or English language exam. If you want to immigrate to a specific province, check the language criteria for the program you want to apply for to see what degree of language ability is required.

Eligibility checkup

Interested in the Atlantic Immigration Program? Discuss your eligibility to apply

Based on the details and supporting documentation included in the application, candidates should be evaluated in relation to the pass and fail selection criteria listed above. Contact us to discuss your eligibility status.

Atlantic Immigration Program Application Process

1 1

STEP 1

Canadian Employer Designation

Employers must meet the following criteria to be designated:

– Maintain a successful business.
– Give details on the labour shortages.
– Commit to collaborating on settlement and retention with a service provider.

2 2

STEP 2

Employer Position Endorsement

An employer must meet the following criteria to get a post endorsed:

– Demonstrate that your efforts to hire locally have failed.
– Obtain the services of a foreign worker.
– Provide a valid full-time, non-seasonal job offer with the foreign worker’s signature.
– Provide a personalized settlement plan signed by the foreign worker.
– Completion of mandatory on-boarding training and, if necessary, intercultural competency training is required.

3 3

STEP 3

Foreign Worker Immigration Application

To apply for permanent residency foreign workers must:

– Have a valid endorsement certificate issued by the province
– Foreign workers in need of a work permit must have a work permit referral letter issued by the Province
– Employers supporting work permit applications should be registered in the federal employer portal, submit the employment offer and pay a compliance charge.

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