The Northwest Territories is restarting an immigration program so popular in 2024 that the territory hit its federal cap of 300 people just halfway through the year.
The nominee program allows people to move to the territory from other countries, ordinarily to take up a job being offered by a northern employer.
It’s a path to Canadian permanent residency for many people looking to come to the country from elsewhere.
The NWT reached its 300-person federally imposed cap so quickly in 2024 that anyone who had wanted to apply from the summer onward has had to wait for the program to reopen in 2025.
On Monday, the territorial government said the program will resume at 9am MT on January 16 for up to 100 new applications, which will be “processed in the order they are received.”
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Ninety of the 100 applications will be accepted under what is known as the Employer-Driven Stream, which allows businesses in the NWT to employ foreign nationals. The stream helps immigrants to acquire permanent residency in Canada.
The remaining 10 applications will be accepted under a stream dedicated to francophone applicants.
The territorial government provided more information in a news release.
However, the 100-applicant cap appears to be only for this first wave of applicants and not the territory’s federal limit for 2025.
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Previously, the GNWT had said it was asking the federal government to increase the nominee program’s cap from 300 to 500 people a year.
The territory has increasingly relied on international immigration to maintain its population and fill jobs, and so the nominee program’s popularity has grown in step. While the program had 77 applicants in 2020, that figure had risen to more than 300 in 2024.
On Monday, the territory said it had not received its federal allocation for 2025 from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The 100 places being released in January appeared to be an interim measure designed to get the system going until that allocation is confirmed.
“Once IRCC provides the 2025 allocation, an additional intake period may be added later in the year,” the GNWT stated.
Early indications are that the 100 available places might be rapidly filled.
Within hours of the NWT government issuing Monday’s news release, Cabin Radio had been contacted by multiple prospective applicants with questions about the process.
Two people, for example, said they had waited months for the nominee program to reopen and their work permits were set to expire in the coming months. (Work permits are federally managed and follow a separate system. Usually, you have to have a work permit to apply for the nominee program.)
One person said the territory’s first-come, first-served approach from January 16 might disadvantage people with expiring work permits who could not act before the nominee program reopened, particularly if the overall pool of candidates seeking those 100 places has steadily grown since the program shut down last summer.
In its news release, the territory did not address that scenario but told prospective applicants to “review the program guidelines and application checklists and begin compiling required information and documentation before the program reopens.”
