New Refugee Public Policy for Permanent Residence

On September 3, 2021, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Marco Mendicino, released a new public policy which aims to help refugees living outside of Canada to come to Canada easier. This public policy exempts them from several financial requirements for permanent residency. The public policy can be found on the IRCC website here: Public Policies

In this post, you will learn about what this pilot program is about and whether you are eligible.

The new refugee public policy is in regards to the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP), which is a pathway for refugees abroad to apply for permanent residence in Canada who face challenges in meeting all the requirements of Canada's immigration programs. Permanent residence programs require a minimum proof of funds to show officers that they will have enough money to support themselves when they arrive in Canada. However, many refugees do not have access to this amount of money due to the fact that they are outside their country of nationality and face struggles within the country they currently reside in.

The Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot is focused on helping refugee and refugee claimants in applying for permanent residence under the Provincial Nominee Program, Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program (High-skill and Intermediate-skill) and the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot Program.

As stated in the public policy, eligible refugees and refugee claimants are exempt from the following:

In order to be eligible for this pathway, you must be a refugee or refugee claimant who:

At the time of writing this post, they are currently not accepting applications under the EMPP in this refugee public policy. However, IRCC expects to start accepting applications in late fall. What is important to note is that there is a cap of processing 500 applications. This means that after they have processed 500 applications, no more applications will be accepted. There are two application stages: Stage 1 will be open until June 30, 2022 or when 150 applications are processed. Stage 2 will start on July 1, 2022 and will cap processing at 350 applications.

If you would like to stay up to date with EMPP and see when you can apply, be sure to Book a Consultation by clicking the link below or send us an email by going to the Contact Us page.