CIP 132 - Alberta Opportunity Stream Update
All right, welcome back everybody to the Canadian immigration podcast. And my name is Alisha back and be Harry I am standing in for Mark Holthe. Today I'm joined by Igor Kerala, who is our articling student and faithful companion on these immigration law journeys. Igor, how are you today?
I'm doing great, Alicia, thank you so much for holding the fourth mark. We will do a very short episode today just to give an update as to what's happening with Canadian immigration, and especially what's happening with Alberta because we have some major news.
Absolutely. So we don't want it to do a quick little podcast on almost like a news flash what's happening with the Alberta advantage immigration program. And so there was some interesting news that is going to cause I think, some heartbreak for a number of people and also provide an option and an opportunity for another group of people. So we can start with what do you want to do? Er, do you wanna start with the bad news or you want to start with the good news?
Let's start with the bad news. And then we'll wrap up with some hopeful news for other candidates.
Okay, so the bad news came out on Thursday, February 15. So it wasn't a Valentine's Day present. It was the day after Valentine's Day. And all of a sudden, out of the blue, the AIP the Alberta advantage immigration program, which is our provincial nominee program announced without warning, no more Alberta opportunity stream applications will be processed, period. So there was no warning there was no Hey, everybody's gotta get their applications in by a certain date. It was just all of a sudden February 15. No more aos and this is a significant development. Just to confirm AIP said they will continue to assess Alberta opportunity stream applications that were submitted before the pots. So as long as people actually had submitted their application paid for it, got it into the system before February 15. They should be okay. However, any draft applications so as people may or may not know if you are applying for aos, it is a non Express Entry linked application. It's what used to be called a paper based application where you have a separate profile in the Alberta stream, you have to do an application for aos and you have a draft application that can sit in there for some time before you're ready to actually submit it.
If you were one of those people who had a draft application in the AIP portal, and you were trying to do aos and the application was not yet submitted. Even though it was pending the final fee payment, they will not be accepted. So if You're in the unfortunate position of having submitted it but you didn't get to have the final payment submitted yet. That application is going to get tossed as well. So maybe Igor, can you give us some insight on who would be using aos? What is this application stream? What does that typically held out hope for? In terms of the applicant demographic?
Yeah, the biggest benefactors of this program were the Ukrainian community. Right now in Alberta. We have more than 50,000 Ukrainians who came to Calgary alone. And with their knowledge of English, they don't have many choices. And for some of them, the federal programs are not an option because of the language barrier, education, Canadian work experience, especially skilled Canadian work experience. So they were looking at the Alberta opportunity stream as their main pathway to permanent residency in Alberta. And we both know, Provincial Nominee programs in Ontario and BC, and not the programs that you actually would really consider if you don't have significant ties and work experience in that province. And you don't have the employer who has a certain income threshold revenue threshold, I would, I would say. So Alberta opportunity stream was this. This one hope that Ukrainian community had to actually remain in Canada as permanent residents, and many people hoped to accumulate one year of Canadian work experience. And then which is minimum language requirements CLB four, or cod five, they wouldn't be applying for this program.
And Alicia, it brings me to a thought most of the important announcements don't come announced I would say like they appear all of our out of the blue without any warning. And when we have an announcement, like, hey, the minister is going to announce something very important, usually turns out to be not as important. So yeah, a big shock for Ukrainian community. Many people were hoping for the aos. And actually, not long ago, we went to Lethbridge with Mark, and gave a presentation where we explained why Alberta is an attractive province for the premium community and why aos is the program that they would be really interested in and encourage them to explore this program. And then maybe two weeks later, preferably less, I think it's nine days after the presentation, we have this huge change. So that that leaves Ukrainian community with less options. And maybe one of the alternatives that they can consider is the rural renewal program. rnap. Maybe the Alberta tech pathway, accelerate the tech pathway. So those are the options that you really have to consider now in light of the changes to the aos. And maybe then, when the AOS reopens its intake of the applications, we'll see some changes that will also enable some applicants work in specific industries to apply for this renewed program.
Yeah, so it's definitely going to be a blow to anybody who was hoping for aos because as Igor said, You're right, Igor, that was kind of the one beacon of hope. If you had CLB, four or five, if you were in a lower noc, then you could still have some sort of pathway to PR in Alberta. And that was the only program aos is the only program where you can have those lower language because for anything in the Alberta Express Entry linked pathway, of course, you've got to meet the federal requirements under express entry for either Canadian Experience Class or Federal Skilled Worker which requires you to have the CLB level not us. Sorry, seven for everything. You get additional points if you have nine, but it CLB seven for everything under the other streams.
So what has happened, though, is that, you know, if you take a look at the numbers, you can actually go to the AIP website and take a look at the streams for workers. Keep in mind that Alberta only has 9750 nomination spots for 2024. And if you look to the ongoing applications, the number of applications in the queue for AOS, they already had 5000 applications in the queue 5093. Were sitting in the queue for Alberta Express Entry stream linked applications for Alberta PNP. They had about 766. And for rural renewal stream they already had 1477. So my sense er is that Alberta figured hey, we've got a lot of applicants sitting in the queue. You already we can be really choosy about who we want. And so what they did was on the 13th, February 13, they announced this brand new pathway. So it will be a new stream. We don't have all the details of the stream yet. It isn't open yet. It should be opening on March 1, but it will be targeted specifically for people who are in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
And so we know that chronically, Alberta has shortages, especially during the summer months Banff and Canmore. And everywhere in the mountains, and in other areas to within the sectors. And so there will be a new stream, this is the good news, it's not going to necessarily help most applicants who were relying on AOS, but it may help some applicants. And so there's not a lot of details on the AIP website yet. It does say applications are going to open March 1, it's going to have a limited number of applicants. There has been a CBC article that was mentioning that out of the total 9750 nominations, they're guessing that it's going to be about eight to 10% of the nominations will come through this new category. And there should be expedited processing. And presumably they want to expedite these applications because it's February now, and most of the time people are required for the spring summer months here. So the only details we have yet is that the tourism hospitality stream is going to be open to individuals who've already been working for tourism and hospitality business for at least six months. And they've met the criteria to establish themselves in Alberta permanently.
So what we don't know is whether that means you have to have been working that whole six months in Alberta. Or if you could have been working six months within the industry. And you've got ties to Alberta. And you can prove that Alberta job offer, because you do have to have a valid full time non seasonal job offer from an approved employer operating within the appropriate industry. So they haven't told us what exactly that means yet. For some of the other streams, like when they had the Alberta Express Entry, tech subcategory, they did have these NAICS codes. So they said, you know, the employer has to be within these industries, and the candidate has to be within these noc. So it could be that they're going to be doing something similar to that. And there was also in the news article, but not on the AIP website. Supposedly a statement from the Alberta Ministry of Immigration and Multiculturalism, which says that this new immigration stream is going to target specifically eighteen national occupation classification codes. So I will go through them super quick.
But what we're going to do is create a blog post and we will have that on our website so people can go and read this as well. But those 18 occupations should be programmed leaders and instructors and recreation, sports and fitness. Keep in mind as well that people need to be making a median wage, of at least the wage that's indicated and there is some discrepancy about whether that would be the median wage based on the job bank, or it might be the median wage based on a list ALIS which is the Alberta website. So those details have yet to come out. But keep in mind that not everybody is going to be eligible your employer has to be paying you a high enough wage. So first one is program leaders and restaurant and food service managers. Then we have accommodation service managers, food service supervisors, chefs, cooks, Maitre D's, and hosts hostesses, bartenders, hotel front desk clerks tour and travel guides, outdoor sport and recreational guides, food and beverage servers, food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations support occupations and accommodation travel and facilities setup services, light duty cleaners, specialized cleaners, janitors, caretakers and heavy duty cleaners. And the last one is dry cleaning, laundry and related occupations.
So there you have it, everybody. We have a brief little short and sweet update. We had the bad news, we have the good news, and stay tuned for more information. As always, we want to thank our sponsor, Joorney Business Plans for helping to send out some fantastic immigration legal information. And stay tuned for another podcast coming soon.
Thank you, Alicia.
Thanks, Igor.
