Canada

What changed

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Programme (OINP) has changed the scoring for Canadian work experience earnings history within its Ontario Workforce Priority (OWP) stream's Expression of Interest (EOI) system. As of 5 October 2026, candidates who have earned CAD 80,000 or more in a single year during the last five years will receive 10 points. This update is automatically applied to all existing EOIs and aims to make the assessment process smoother for highly paid candidates in Ontario's workforce.

What changed

Canada has promised $6.863 million in new funding to support efforts to return, rehabilitate, and help Ukrainian children, unlawfully detained civilians, and prisoners of war reintegrate into society. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, announced this at the 'Pathways to Peace' conference in Toronto, which Canada co-hosted with Ukraine and Norway. These initiatives aim to deal with the effects of Russia's invasion by backing organisations that work on finding people, protecting them, advocating for them, and directly supporting those affected and their families.

What changed

On 29 September 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced an investment of about $1.2 million through its Francophone Immigration Support Program (FISP) for several new projects. These projects, led by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan, are designed to attract French-speaking and bilingual skilled people. The goal is to meet labour market demands and support French-speaking minority communities. In addition, the coordinated promotional campaign 'Osez le Nord' for Northern Ontario, which received FISP funding in 2025, has now been put into action. This shows Canada's continued commitment to increasing French-speaking immigration outside Quebec and improving the strength of French-speaking communities.

What changed

The British Columbia Provincial Nominee Programme (BC PNP) has refreshed its 'Invitations to Apply' page, effective 7 October 2026. This update primarily involves the reorganisation and presentation of recent invitation to apply (ITA) data for both Skills Immigration and Entrepreneur Immigration streams. While no new policy changes or programme criteria have been introduced, the information now explicitly details draw results up to 24 September 2026 for Skills Immigration and 22 September 2026 for Entrepreneur Immigration. This provides registrants with a clearer, updated overview of recent selection activity.

What changed

The Government of Canada has significantly expanded passport service options at the Charlottetown Service Canada Centre in Prince Edward Island. Effective from 15 September 2026, the centre now offers express passport service (2 to 9 business days) and urgent service (by the end of the next business day), enabled by new on-site printing. This change eliminates the need for residents to travel off-Island for faster passport processing.

What changed

The Manitoba Provincial Nominee Programme (MPNP) conducted Expression of Interest (EOI) Draw No. 279 on 10 September 2026, issuing 793 Letters of Advice to Apply (LAAs) for provincial nomination. The draw combined four selection groups: 233 LAAs for candidates currently working in Manitoba in Broad Occupational Category 3, Health occupations; 11 for candidates declaring French as their language of communication with the MPNP and holding a valid French-language test; 508 for top-scoring candidates who indicated that they or their spouse had completed post-secondary education in Manitoba; and 41 for candidates under the Skilled Worker Stream who had been directly invited through specified strategic recruitment initiatives. The lowest published ranking score was 825 for the Manitoba post-secondary education selection. Of the 793 LAAs, 272 went to candidates who declared a valid Express Entry profile number and job seeker validation code.