Canada Now Has Two Immigration Systems (Which One Are You In?)

The two most popular words in Canadian immigration right now are high wage because last week Canada switched on a new way of scoring people for permanent residence and it was sold as a reward for people who earn a lot of money. Well, except that IRCC doesn't even look at what you earn. They don't look at your salary. They don't look at what your offer letter says, which is strange. So how do they even determine that you are a high wage worker? Now, let me show you how strange this gets. Take two electricians, for example. They live in the same city and they have the same trade. One is a power system electrician and because of his occupation, he gets the 70 extra points. The other one is an industrial electrician, but his occupation is worth just 50 points. 20 points apart. And the difference has nothing to do with skill and even nothing to do with pay. The difference is a five-digit code that most people just type into a phone once and they never thought about it again. That code now decides which line you are standing in. Confusing, right? Now, we're going to talk about it and by the end of this video, you'll be able to open your own profile and know in about a few minutes whether this helps you, hurts you or changes nothing. Because really, why would Canada build a scoring system around job codes? And to answer that, you have to look at the immigration line itself and who got called out of it recently. We will start with why Canada built it this way because the answer is obviously hiding somewhere where we are not looking at. Now, most of us have taken a plane ride before, so let's use boarding groups to explain this so that we can all understand. So I want you to picture an airport gate. There's one plane that is about to be loaded. There's a few hundred people standing all around holding what looks like the same ticket. And then the agent picks up the microphone and says, Group 1, those in first class and business class, you can board now. Then Group 2, those with babies and toddlers, you can also board now. You know how it is, definitely. And those people, they start boarding the plane. And if you're in Group 5, you just stand there with your boarding pass, watching people boarding, watching the line move, and wondering when you are going to get to board. You are so worried that someone is going to either take your overhead luggage space Oh, that has happened to many of us. Maybe someone will even take your seat. That also happens. And the airport staff just keep calming you down. They say, you will soon board, sir. You will soon board, ma. And they are not lying to you. You will board, but only if there are seats left. And that is how the express entry is right now. As of October 25th, there were 228,724 people in the pool. Almost a quarter of a million. About 97% of them sit between seat number 433 and 500. 97,000 people, all within 70 points of each other, all waiting for their number to be called. Now, watch who actually got called last month to board the PR plane. On October 1st, trades got called. Three and a half thousand invitations, cutoff was 476. October 13th, and again on October 26th, provincial nominees got called 752 people at 772 CRS score. And then 792 people at 761 CRS score. Those scores look insane, I know. But a provincial nomination alone is worth 600 points. So those people got extra 600 points added to their points. October 15th, the Canadian Experience class got called. 2,500 invitations at 519 CRS score. That's rather high. Then on October 16th, French speakers got called. 5,000 invitations at 435 CRS score. Also high. 11 days later, French got called again. And this time, 5,000 invitations again at 407 CRS score. And on October 28th, 150 transport workers were called at 407 CRS score. And last month had the same thing as previous months. Canada has invited about 149,000 people this year, and about 40% of them went to French speakers. Now, I know what you're thinking. French again? Ah, but I don't speak French. And you're thinking, this has nothing to do with me. Well, just hold that thought for a second. Because the French group isn't the point. The point is what it tells you about how Canada is thinking. Canada is not I'm not ranking everyone in one group anymore. It's calling different boarding groups. French, Trades, Healthcare, Provincial Nominees, Canadian Experience Class. Each group has its own boarding door, its own cut-off pace. And all year, if you were standing in the Canadian Experience Class, the cut-off kept landing between 507 and 523. This is the same band, month after month. It tells you something. And many people were working on their language scores and trying to gain more work experience. Meanwhile, your actual work, your real work, accounted for almost nothing beyond how long you have been doing it. But all of that changes on November 3rd. Now, let me slow down on that one because this is the most important idea in this video. Since the announcement was made about the changes in the express entry, most people hear high wage and they assume that the points go to whoever is earning the highest salary. But like most of us already know, that is not how it works. IRCC doesn't look at your salary, they don't look at your raise, they don't look at your offer letter, not one dollar of it, they look at your occupation, most precisely your five-digit NOC code and where that code sits on a list IRCC published on October 16th. Every occupation on that list is placed in a tier based on its national median wage over three years. The tiers are 1.3 times the Canadian median, 1.5 times the Canadian median, and 2 times the Canadian median. And there are just about 186 occupations on that list. If you want to grab the list, I left you a PDF in the description. But if you want it, you would have to join my newsletter to get it, which is a good thing. So grab that list in the description now so that you can check if your occupation is on that list So, the points belong to the job, not to the person, or not to the pay too. Remember the example I gave earlier? One person is a power systems electrician, and because of his occupation, he gets the 70 points. The other person is an industrial electrician, but his occupation is worth just 50 points, 20 points apart. Power systems electricians sit in the 1.5 tier. Industrial electricians sit in the 1.3 tier. Same electricians, just different points. Now, I will tell you a few more so that you can start to picture that list. Engineering managers, family physicians, and university professors are at the top, the two times tier. Software engineers, civil engineers, and registered nurses are in the middle, at the 1.5 tier. Financial auditors and accountants. Industrial electricians, medical lab technologists, and bricklayers are in the 1.3 tier level. And if your code is not on the list at all, you get zero. It doesn't matter how well you are paid. That is the first thing that most people are getting on with this new system. They read high-weight jobs, get up to 100 points, they check their salary, and they decide whether they are in or out. That's the worst way to read this announcement. You will be using the very, very wrongest criteria. Now, the points themselves. I'll keep this simple because there are only two routes. Route one is a job offer. A qualifying offer in a listed occupation is worth 100 points in the top tier, 70 in the middle, and 50 in the bottom. But this is the part that really surprised me. Since March 2025, a job offer in Express Entry has been worth zero, nothing. So after a year and a half of nothing, it's back. And it no longer needs an LMIA to count for you. Route 2 is the Canadian Experience Work. You still get your regular points for how long you've worked in Canada, up to 80 points for 5 years of work. But on top of that, if you have spent at least 12 months in one of the listed occupations, you add 70, 40 or 20 points depending on your tier. But here's the catch. You cannot get both. If you qualify for both routes, IRCC takes whichever one is higher. And the most that this can ever give you is 150 points or 140 points if you are applying this pass. Now you might be thinking, okay, great, I'll just get a job offer. 100 points will be mine. Darn, no dear, not so fast. The offer has to be in a listed occupation like we said before. It has to be full-time, continuous work for at least one year after you become a permanent resident. An immigration officer has to be satisfied that it is genuine, that the employer is really operating, that the job reflects a real need, that the employer can actually pay what it promises, and that you're really qualified and likely to take that offer. And remember that an offer is not a work permit. It's a number on a score sheet, not permission for you to work. So you still need work permits to do the job. So, no, please don't pay anyone for a job offer. And I'll say it again, because people can really get hot here. Never, ever pay for a job offer. Misrepresentation carries serious consequences. And IRCC has said clearly that it will keep checking and checking and checking to be sure that fraud does not get through. Now, I could end this video here. A lot of videos do. Great news. Everybody gets points. But something has been bothering me lately. I'm going to explain it like this. I see a picture of a packed stadium. Imagine it with me. Everybody is seated. You are seated too. You are in row 40 and you can see the pitch just fine. But now imagine a new rule that adds a step stool to people in certain sections in that stadium. Those people are now standing higher and they can see better than everyone else. Well, good for them, I guess. But what happens to the view of everyone that is sitting behind them? Your guess is as good as mine. When tens of thousands of profiles each pick up 20, 40, or 70 points, the line doesn't get shuffled. It just gets reshuffled. IRCC itself says that extra points don't guarantee an invitation. And the 519 that was through on October 15th may not mean the same thing after your scores are recalculated. Because it will be. IRCC said that that can take up to two weeks with invitations rounds paused while that happened. Now, I can't tell you what the cutoff will be afterwards. Nobody can. If somebody online gives you a confident number, they are just guessing. What I can tell you is the direction. If your code is on that list and you have Canadian work experience, that's amazing for you. If it isn't, nothing was taken from you. But some people in the line are going to move ahead in front of you. Those people may be happy, but not everybody is cherry. Critics argue that dropping the LMIA lets employers skip the step of looking for a Canadian worker first at a time when they point out youth unemployment is still around 13% in Canada. You may or you may not agree, but that's the debate that's sitting underneath this change and you should know that this is actually happening underneath. Employers are not even obligated to pay the high wages, so what's stopping them from employing high wage occupations Honestly, what's stopping them? Did analysts really think this through? Or is this just a ploy for something else? Your guess is as good as mine. But there's a bigger story than the points, and it's the one that almost nobody connects. Now, check this out. While one door opens wider, look at what is happening to the hallway that leads to the door. Between January and August this year, 65,240 new international students arrived in Canada. In those same eight months of 2024, it was almost 222,000 students. That's about 71% down. New workers were 130,000, down 57%. Now, if you put those two together, that's 63% fewer people. The student target for the whole year is 155,000. By the end of August, Canada was at about 42% of that number. Now, here's how that number connects with everything. Now, listen very closely, please. Between January and July, 57% of the new permanent residents that Canada admitted were former temporary residents, people who were already here in Canada. Did you catch that? Now, think back to that airport, the people that were waiting to board. Canada has largely stopped letting people into the terminal, and now it is choosing who boards from the people that are already inside the terminal. That's why Canadian experience suddenly matters so, so much. And it's why the new points are tied to Canadian work. It's why even the students who do arrive are still shrinking. University students are now 46% of new arrivals, up from 29% in 2024. And in October, Canada widened its work permit freeze to six more labour markets, including Halifax, Fredericton, Kingston, Regina and Lethbridge. Which means the worst thing you can do right now is plan your immigration with an old playbook. The playbook of Arrive First, figure it out later, hope the rules wait for me. That playbook is dead and it isn't coming back. If you want us to chat about how the new rules may affect you, please book a one-on-one with me. We can talk like buddies, and I can explain the immigration rules as Canada has explained it on their website. The link to book is in the description. I've lived in Canada for 8 years now, long enough to know that every time the rules change, the panic arrives before the facts even become clear. If you're on a work permit in a job that isn't on that list, or you're a student wondering whether your program leads anywhere, I know exactly what this video can feel like. It feels like the goalposts just got shifted again. God, when will they stop moving these goalposts? But look at what we just did for the last few minutes. We found a rule that we explained, a list you can download on the description, a calendar you can book on to speak with me, and hope that things will get better. And that's amazing. So what do you actually do? After all is said and done, just five things. And you can do the first two tonight. One, find your knock. Go to IRCC's high wage occupations page and look for your own five-digit NOC code, not your job title, your duties, the ones written in your employment letter. Remember those two electricians. Your duties determine your code. And this next part, I'm going to say slowly, slowly. Never, ever pick a NOC code just because it scores higher. Officers can compare your duties with what you are claiming. The code has to match the work you actually do. If it doesn't, you are not giving the system. You are creating a problem for yourself. Okay? Number two, count your months. You need at least 12 months of Canadian work in a listed occupation. That work has to have happened in Canada within the last 10 years in a tier 0, 1, 2, or 3 job. You can combine months across more than one listed occupation. Write down the dates that your 12th month arrived or is going to arrive. Number three, if you have a job offer, make sure its details are your Express Entry profile and that they are accurate. Employer name and address, start date, end date or no end date, and your NOC code. IRCC has published special instructions for offers with no NMI, so follow IRCC's current instructions. If your points come from Canadian experience, you don't need to do anything. RCC recalculates those on its own. And please. Do not create a second profile to try to squeeze out more points. It will help. Four, run both routes and use the higher one. Don't add them together. When the recalculation is done, check the score inside your own profile. Those are your points. Don't treat this as just one opportunity. Look at the other doors. French, maybe? Or is there a provincial stream that fits your job? Any other thing? One last thing. IRCC has said draws will pause for up to two weeks after November 3rd, while scores are being recalculated. So please wait and see. So far, we saw the draws that happened in October 2026. And at the start, I told you about two electricians. They had the same trade, but they were 20 points apart. And now you know why. It was never about their paycheck. It was just about a code, an NOC code. Now, I can't tell you whether you are ahead or behind because that depends on the number in your profile. But I can tell you this, being behind in a system you don't understand feels very different from being behind in a system you do understand. The first feels like bad luck. The second feels like a plan. So if you need help understanding the system, book a one-on-one call with me. And tonight, find your code, count your months, and write down the number you get. Whatever it is, you will make your next decision with facts instead of fear. If you want to understand how Canada will probably reset immigration next year and what the next few years may look like, watch this video on your screen right now. I have tons of interesting videos on my channel that can help you attain your Canadian dream. Go and check them out. My name is Shinya Basi and this is The Canadian Dream.