Ministerial Instructions 33 (MI33): Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot
On September 1, 2019, Ministerial Instructions came into force to establish the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot. This new community-driven pilot is designed to spread the benefits of economic immigration across Canada’s regions by partnering with 11 participating communities to test a community-driven approach to economic immigration.
The Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot was created under section 14.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It allows the Minister to issue instructions to create economic immigration programs that are limited to a duration of 5 years, and where there are no more than 2,750 principal applicants in a class per year. Applicants for this pilot must, in addition to meeting other program requirements, have a recommendation from a designated community partner, a job offer and the intention to live in that community to apply for permanent residence.
The Ministerial Instructions were amended on September 23, 2022, to:
- expand the geographic boundaries for seven of the eleven participating communities, so more employers are able to participate. The communities expanding their boundaries are: North Bay (Ont.), Sudbury (Ont.), Timmins (Ont.), Thunder Bay (Ont.), Moose Jaw (Sask.), West Kootenay (BC) and Vernon (BC)
- modify the period of time communities are able to participate, from the original 3 years until February 2024 to ensure all permanent residence applications are received by August 2024 (when the pilot comes to an end)
- make it easier to fill labour market needs in the health care and trades sectors, by expanding the range of job offers available to candidates, with specific work experience
- reduce the amount of settlement funds participants are required to have, from 50% to 12.5% of the Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICO) for rural areas outside census metropolitan areas or census agglomerations
- strengthening program integrity