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Alberta nominated about 6,250 newcomers to apply for permanent residence and this year, it is hoping to do better.
On the 16th of February, the Alberta Premier, Jason Kenney announced that the immigration department of the province would be changing its name and adding two other new immigration program. The province also announced it Provincial Nomination Program (PNP) draw results from earlier this month.
On February 1, the province invited about 400 Express Entry candidates to apply for the Alberta Express Entry Stream and the candidates from the Express Entry required a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of at least 340 in order to get an invitation to apply for a provincial nomination.
Candidates that receive nomination will get 600 points to add to their score and then be eligible for an Express Entry PNP round of invitations.
The Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program has now been changed to Alberta Advantage Immigration Program (AAIP) and the two new streams that were added to the program are the Rural Renewal Stream and the Rural Entrepreneur Stream.
Alberta also changed the name of the three entrepreneur streams:
- The Self-Employed Farmer Stream is now the Farm Stream
- The International Graduate Entrepreneur Immigration Stream is now the Graduate Entrepreneur Stream
- The Foreign Graduate Start-Up Visa Stream is now the Foreign Graduate Entrepreneur Stream
Although the eligibility criteria and requirements still remain the same for the streams.
The government of the province says that candidates that submitted their application through the Alberta’s online portal must request for a nomination extension in the portal. So if you submitted your application through the online portal and you want an extension, you will have to submit the request for an extension through the portal and if you submitted your application through paper, you will have to submit the request for an extension through paper application.
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Every other post-decision process remains unchanged.
The Premier Kenney made the announcement at the inaugural Premier’s Summit on Fairness for Newcomers. The Immigration stakeholders from across Alberta met on to discuss actions to support newcomers’ success and how to drive economic growth in the province.
The names of the new program and streams will be updated on the Alberta website in the coming weeks.
The new name is to help promote the reputation and benefits of the province to attract people so that they can choose Alberta as the right place to work and raise a family.
The new Rural Renewal Stream and the Rural Entrepreneur Stream are intended to encourage skilled and talented professionals and entrepreneurs from every part of the world to come settle in the rural Alberta communities.
The rural communities have to be outside the Calgary and Edmonton metropolitan areas and have a population that is less than 100,000 as per the 2016 census.
The Rural Renewal Stream is for people who have a job offer from an employer in Alberta to work in a designated rural Alberta community.
Alberta is currently accepting applications from rural communities in the province to participate in the Rural Renewal Stream as a limited number of communities will be selected to participate as a designated community in this program.
The Rural Entrepreneur Stream is designed to for entrepreneurs who want to start up or buy an existing in a rural community in Alberta and eligible candidates can submit expression of interest and also visit the community they would like to start up their business.