Cleveland to lobby in Ottawa for more nominee program slots

Caitlin Cleveland says she will fly to Ottawa next week as she seeks the restoration of a 300-applicant cap for the NWT’s main immigration program.

Cleveland, the minister responsible for immigration in the territory, told the legislature this week she has been in touch with new federal counterpart Lena Diab.

The Trudeau government halved the number of applicants the NWT can accept this year through its nominee program, which supports foreign workers who already reside in the territory.

Business groups have said the new, smaller cap is placing a strain on firms’ ability to recruit workers, and have asked the territory to reach a deal with Ottawa where it can extend work permits by up to two years, as has happened in the Yukon and Manitoba.

“The Yukon has gone one way and the NWT has gone another way,” Cleveland said this week.

“I am travelling to Ottawa in order to ascertain what the difference is and how we get to a more equitable place as far as how our immigration program works in the Northwest Territories.

“I very much look forward to having the conversations to talk not only about our allotment, talk about work permits, and to talk about settlement services, as well as flexibility within the program here in the territory.”

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins asked on Monday if the territory had considered the federal government’s earlier offer to increase the NWT nominee program’s intake if the territory agreed to accept 50 asylum seekers,

Cleveland said the GNWT had not rejected that offer and had instead sought information from the federal government about the refugees and the types of service they may require in the territory.

“I never received a response to those questions,” Cleveland said, adding the federal election may have been the reason for Ottawa’s lack of reply.

On Tuesday, Great Slave MLA Kate Reid asked the minister whether the redesigned program will attempt to avoid a scenario where potential applicants are “left in limbo.”

If the nominee program seeks to prioritize applicants with expiring work permits but the GNWT also tries to extend work permits by two years, Reid said, a conflict could be created in which people avoid extending their work permits so as to remain in contention for a place in the nominee program. (Entry to the nominee program offers a path to permanent residency.)

Cleveland said she will advocate in Ottawa for both an increase in the nominee program’s cap and the ability to extend work permits, for which she said the federal government holds “exclusive responsibility.”

“While there is never an intention to design a program that has a gap, certainly I do know that going into next year, we have more people interested in the program than we currently have spaces for,” she said.

The Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce has estimates that nearly 700 people in the city were affected by the federal changes earlier this year, including those workers who subsequently did not apply to the nominee program as they did not meet its latest eligibility criteria.

If Cleveland’s mission to Ottawa is successful, the territory will essentially get back its previous intake cap. The NWT accepted 300 applicants to the nominee program in 2024.

The NWT nominee program isn’t the only option for some people.

For example, a majority of skilled workers also hold eligibility for the Canadian Experience Class – a highly competitive federal immigration stream for those pursuing permanent residency.

However, lately applicants have been unable to take advantage of that stream, either. While draws for CEC are typically conducted every two weeks, the program just experienced a three-month pause before resuming again in mid-May.

CEC operates on a points-based system and the latest draw required applicants to have a higher score than many applicants had anticipated, meaning only 500 invites to apply for permanent residency were sent to qualifying applicants across Canada in the latest round.

Montreal-based immigration consulting firm ImmigCanada characterized the type of candidate likely to be selected through such draws as a 35-year-old with a master’s degree completed in Canada, four years of skilled work experience in the country, one year of skilled experience abroad, and high English proficiency scores.

That’s a level many applicants struggle to meet.

For NWT skilled workers who did not receive a CEC invite – and many, if not all semi-skilled workers in the territory – the nominee program remains their last option to live and work in Canada unless they move to another province or territory in search of alternative immigration streams.