As of August 26, 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has begun accepting study permit applications under a new cap year of the Francophone Minority Community Student Pilot (FMCSP), with a ceiling of 2,970 applications and an intake window running until August 25, 2027 or until the cap is reached. The pilot is open to citizens of 33 francophone countries and territories and covers 17 francophone and bilingual post-secondary institutions outside Quebec, and its defining feature is that applicants who enter Canada on a pilot-specific study permit, graduate and meet the conditions can apply for permanent residence (PR) directly, without competing for the limited invitations handed out to other international graduates through Express Entry or the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) — the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) draw of August 18, 2026 carried a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut-off of 523, and provincial nomination allocations have been cut by roughly half since 2025, which makes an all-but-uncontested pathway a rare commodity. Uptake, however, has been thin since the pilot launched in August 2024: a report by the Auditor General shows that only 780 study permits were issued against the first year's cap of 2,300, and as of July 2026 just 515 students and 150 accompanying family members had arrived through the stream — the direct reason Ottawa opted in July to extend the pilot by a single year rather than make it permanent, as francophone institutions had urged.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) held Express Entry round #437 on August 19, 2026 at 12:35:37 UTC, issuing 5,000 Invitations to Apply (ITAs) to candidates in the French-Language proficiency 2026-Version 2 category with a minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 382 — the lowest cut-off recorded in the French category in 2026 and the lowest in any French-language draw since March 2025. The tie-breaking rule was set at March 1, 2026, 18:34:05 UTC, candidates had to rank within the top 5,000 of the category to be invited, and invitations were issued over a window running from August 19 to August 20, 2026 under Ministerial Instructions signed in Ottawa by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Lena Metlege Diab; those invited may apply for permanent residence through the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) or the Federal Skilled Trades Program (FSTP). This was the tenth French-language draw of 2026, bringing the category's year-to-date total to 50,500 ITAs — surpassing the full-year 2025 figure of 48,000 in just eight months — and the cut-off has now slid across three consecutive rounds from 420 to 382 while the tie-breaking date has moved further back in time, a combination widely read as evidence that the supply of high-scoring French-speaking profiles in the pool is being exhausted. With Ottawa targeting Francophone permanent residents outside Quebec at 9 percent of admissions in 2026 and 10.5 percent by 2028, French-language ability has become the single most powerful advantage available in Express Entry — yet IRCC is simultaneously advancing a CRS reform proposal that would cut or remove French-language points, clouding the medium-term outlook for this pathway.

Nova Scotia announced on its immigration website on August 6, 2026 that it will begin charging application fees under the Nova Scotia Nominee Program (NSNP) on September 1, 2026, setting a flat CAD $1,000 fee for all three work streams and $2,000 for the entrepreneur streams, where until now the province charged nothing at all for a provincial nomination application; the fee applies only to candidates selected from the Expression of Interest (EOI) pool for assessment on or after September 1, leaving anyone who received a selection notice on or before August 31 unaffected, and work stream candidates must pay within seven calendar days of being selected while entrepreneur candidates get either 90 or 180 days depending on the pathway, with any EOI that misses the deadline closed and never assessed; the province's stated reason is that demand for nominations keeps outrunning the annual allocation Ottawa gives it — provincial open data shows the 2026 NSNP allocation at just 2,344 places, down more than 30 percent from 3,570 in 2024, while 7,942 unprocessed NSNP expressions of interest were still sitting in the pool at the end of the second quarter of 2026, roughly 3.4 times the entire year's allocation; submitting an EOI remains free, and the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP) still carries no provincial application fee.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) held its 425th Express Entry draw on July 9, 2026, inviting the top 5,000 candidates in the French-language proficiency category and issuing 5,000 invitations to apply (ITAs) for permanent residence at a minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 420, the highest cut-off and the largest single-round total the category has recorded in 2026 and an increase of 11 points from the 409 seen in the previous French draw at the end of May; it was also the third Express Entry draw in a matter of days, extending a steadily reinforced francophone immigration strategy that has now produced seven French-specific draws in 2026 and 35,500 cumulative invitations, in line with the current 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, which sets rising annual targets for the share of French-speaking immigrants settling outside Quebec and a long-term goal of 12% by 2029.

Quebec's Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) confirmed in a press release on June 10, 2026 that the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) will reopen on July 2, 2026 for a two-year window running to July 2, 2028; the first intake period starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on July 2 and runs until October 31, 2026, with no cap on applications, and is open to the two groups who already qualified when the program was abolished on November 19, 2025 -- Quebec graduates and temporary foreign workers -- under the same eligibility criteria that applied at the time of the suspension and abolition. The government says that over the remainder of the planning period, it intends to issue a roughly equivalent number of Quebec Selection Certificates (CSQs) between the PEQ and the Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ); until October 31, PSTQ invitations will be reduced accordingly and will mainly target candidates in TEER 4 and 5 occupations and those with less than two years of work experience. MIFI stresses that the reinstatement is temporary, expects 8,000 to 12,000 applications in the first period, and confirms that once the PEQ is finally retired, the permanent selection of skilled workers will be consolidated under the PSTQ.

Newfoundland and Labrador has become the latest province to opt into the federal government's temporary public policy giving rural employers more flexibility to hire low-wage temporary foreign workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), according to a federal webpage update on June 2. The policy, in force since April 1, 2026, will see Newfoundland and Labrador adopt both available measures across all sectors: eligible rural employers may retain their existing share of low-wage temporary foreign workers even where it already exceeds the 10% cap, and may apply a 15% cap rather than the standard 10% on the proportion of low-wage positions filled by foreign workers. The measures take effect provincially on June 11 and are expected to remain in place until March 31, 2027. Only employers located outside Statistics Canada–defined census metropolitan areas qualify, and those that fail to meet all regular TFWP requirements—including proving efforts to recruit Canadian citizens and permanent residents first—are excluded; British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec have already opted in, while Alberta and Nunavut are not participating.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) issued another round of invitations through the Express Entry system on May 28, 2026, sending 4,500 invitations to apply (ITAs) to candidates with French-language proficiency, who needed a minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 409 and an Express Entry profile created before 10:20 p.m. UTC on April 29, 2026. This was the 30th Express Entry draw of 2026 and the fourth in May, as well as the sixth French-language draw of the year. Across 2026, IRCC has clearly concentrated its selections on candidates already inside Canada — particularly those with provincial nominations and Canadian work experience — with the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) together accounting for 20 of the year's draws, or roughly 60 percent. French-language draws have meanwhile issued 30,500 ITAs so far this year, close to four in ten of all invitations and second only to the CEC. In total, IRCC has issued 79,841 ITAs through Express Entry in 2026 to date.

Nova Scotia has launched a new initiative called "Critical Vacancies" and begun sending Notices of Interest (NOIs) to candidates in the federal Express Entry pool, with the aim of connecting qualified foreign skilled workers to local employers who have been unable to fill roles domestically. For now the initiative covers only two sectors with long-standing labour shortages — construction and healthcare — and while the province has uploaded dedicated forms for six construction occupations, it has not yet named any specific healthcare occupations. Candidates need only hold an active Express Entry profile to receive an NOI, with no requirement for Canadian or Nova Scotia work experience. Crucially, an NOI is neither an invitation to apply (ITA) for provincial nomination under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) nor an endorsement under the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP); it functions instead as a bridge between job seekers and employers, though candidates who land a job offer through this channel are typically better positioned for a subsequent federal or provincial immigration pathway — and some may even receive an ITA directly in their Express Entry account. The move aligns with the provincial nomination priorities Nova Scotia announced in April 2026, and is the latest step in an immigration system the province has been steadily reshaping since late 2025.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) held a category-based Express Entry draw on April 29, 2026, issuing 4,000 invitations to apply (ITAs) to candidates in the French-language proficiency stream with a minimum Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 400 and a tie-breaking date of April 7, 2026 at 20:13:59 UTC. The round marks the fifth French-language draw of 2026 and the twenty-sixth Express Entry selection of the year overall, capping a week in which IRCC ran three back-to-back draws. Set against Ottawa's commitment to lift Francophone permanent residence outside Quebec to 9 percent of admissions in 2026 — and a freshly reserved pool of 5,000 federal spaces for French-speaking candidates — the French-language category has become, despite a comparatively low frequency of draws, the second-largest source of ITAs this year, trailing only the Canadian Experience Class (CEC); IRCC has now issued 71,627 ITAs in 2026, with the bulk going to in-Canada candidates holding provincial nominations or domestic work experience.

On April 15, 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) held its fourth Express Entry draw of the year targeting candidates with French-language proficiency, issuing 4,000 invitations to apply (ITAs) with a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) cut-off of 419 for candidates who had created their Express Entry profiles before 7:14 a.m. UTC on November 14, 2025; this was the second consecutive French-category draw with a reduced invitation count, and the twenty-third overall Express Entry draw of 2026, reinforcing the broader trend of IRCC prioritizing in-Canada candidates—particularly those holding provincial nominations or Canadian work experience—while year-to-date invitations across all categories have now reached 65,154.