On Sept 17, 2026, the British Columbia (B.C.) Provincial Nominee Program (BCPNP) held the second draw under its Temporary Rural/Remote Health Support Initiative (TRHSI), issuing 33 invitations to apply for provincial nomination to cleaning and security staff employed by a public health authority in a rural or remote part of the province, with a minimum score of 60 — 10 points above the 50-point cutoff used in the first draw on July 23, 2026 — while the number of invitations fell from 60 to 33, bringing the two-draw total to 93 invitations to apply (ITAs), or roughly 37% of the initiative's cap of 250 nominations. TRHSI is a one-time, time-limited permanent residence (PR) pathway launched when B.C. restructured its nominee program on April 23, 2026; registration opened June 15, 2026, and eligibility is confined to three National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes — 65312, 65310 and 64410 — with applicants required to have completed nine months of continuous full-time work with the same employer, in the same eligible region and in the same occupation. The registration window was originally set to close at midnight on Aug 31 but was extended to 11:59 p.m. on Oct 7, 2026 because of wildfire-related impacts. The wider context is that B.C.'s 2026 nomination allocation rose to 6,254 after the federal government added 1,000 spaces in August, with at least 35% of nominations required to go to candidates outside Metro Vancouver; and that since June 9, 2026, base Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) nominees applying for PR no longer need to wait for an Acknowledgement of Receipt (AOR) before applying for a Bridging Open Work Permit (BOWP) — a federal temporary measure running to Dec 31, 2026 that matters especially to TRHSI applicants, who have no Express Entry-aligned option.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced a temporary public policy on September 9, 2026 that allows foreign nationals holding a valid work permit to enrol in a course of six months or less without applying for a study permit, even if the course ends after the period of stay authorized on their first entry to Canada. Signed by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Lena Metlege Diab on August 5, the policy took effect on September 4, runs until December 31, 2027, and may be revoked at any time. It revives a measure of the same name introduced in June 2023 that expired on June 27 of this year, but with a narrower reach: the earlier policy let eligible workers, including those on maintained status, study programs of any length without a study permit, whereas the new one requires applicants to hold a valid work permit and waives only the requirement that a course be completed within the initial authorized period of stay. As of June 30, 2026, roughly 1.55 million foreign nationals in Canada held a work permit only, and about 630,000 held a study permit. IRCC says the measure is intended to help workers already in the country, such as tradespeople, nurses and laboratory technicians, upgrade their skills and credentials to fill gaps in critical sectors, and that it does not change the government's overall target of reducing temporary residents to less than 5 percent of the population.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has raised the study permit proof-of-funds requirement as of September 1, 2026, with a single applicant studying outside Quebec now required to show at least $23,448 CAD for a first year of living expenses, up $553 from the previous $22,895, and with the thresholds for larger families rising in step. Alongside the higher dollar figures, IRCC has updated its guidance to make clear that officers will assess not only how much money an applicant has but where it came from and whether it will remain available throughout the period of study, with applicants expected to supply six months of bank statements and documents explaining the source of the deposits shown in them; those enrolled in programs longer than one year must also set out how they intend to pay for the remaining years. The threshold covers living costs only, meaning tuition and round-trip transportation must be demonstrated separately, and Quebec continues to apply its own financial capacity standard through the CAQ, set at $24,617 for a single applicant. The increase extends a policy direction Canada has followed since 2024, combining sharply higher financial requirements with a shrinking study permit cap, which falls to 408,000 for 2026, a 7% reduction from 2025.

British Columbia has for the first time put numbers on where its provincial nominations will go next year, disclosing in the "BCPNP – 2025 Statistical Report and Year in Review" released on August 26 that it plans to issue 1,620 to 2,015 nominations to skilled workers in priority healthcare occupations and 360 to 440 to early childhood educators (NOC 42202) over the course of 2026; measured against the 6,254 nominations available for the year, that works out to 25.9% to 32.2% for health care and 5.8% to 7.0% for early childhood education, meaning the two groups together would absorb 31.7% to 39.3% of the province's entire allocation, well above the 1,844 nominations and 29.7% share the two accounted for in 2025. The tilt continues the direction set by the sweeping overhaul the province made to the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BCPNP) in April, when it closed several streams — including International Graduate, Entry Level and Semi-Skilled (ELSS), and targeted draws for tech occupations — and rebuilt its selection logic around three lanes, Care, Build and Innovate, designating health care, child care, education, veterinary care and construction as its five priority sectors; only two of those five received numeric targets in the new report. On the execution side, the province had issued invitations to apply for nomination to 474 priority healthcare workers and 451 early childhood educators as of August 25, a combined 925, with no fewer than 4,838 invitations issued across all skills categories, and as the province's available allocation grew by a federally granted 1,000 nominations on August 18, minimum scores in recent draws have fallen steadily — the healthcare cut-off dropping from 108 in May to 84 in August, the lowest so far this year.

British Columbia announced on August 18, 2026, on the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) news page, that Ottawa has granted the province an additional 1,000 nominations, raising its 2026 allocation from 5,254 to 6,254 and channelling the new spots into the three program objectives the province set on April 23 of this year: care, covering 36 in-demand occupations across health care, education, childcare and veterinary medicine; build, covering nine construction trades; and innovate, aimed at candidates with high wages or high registration scores. British Columbia is the third jurisdiction to publicly confirm a federal top-up in 2026, after the Northwest Territories added 103 nominations on August 7 and Alberta added 200 on August 10, and its increase is by far the largest of the three. Seen against a longer horizon, however, 6,254 is only 40 more than the 6,214 the province ended 2025 with after two federal top-ups, still well below the 8,000 it received in 2024, and short of the 9,000 it asked Ottawa for this year. As of August 20, 2026, the BC PNP had issued 3,260 invitations under innovate, at least 946 under care and 572 under build, plus 60 through a separate time-limited rural health stream, pushing the year's total past 4,800. Cut-off scores have fallen across every stream since May, the latest innovate draw dropped the wage floor to $55 per hour, the lowest of 2026, and the province has said it intends to use the entire allocation before December 31.

British Columbia has pushed back the registration deadline for its Temporary Rural/Remote Health Support Initiative (TRHSI) from August 31, 2026 to 11:59 pm on October 7, 2026, according to an August 13, 2026 notice on the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) news page, which offered a single line of explanation: "This extension is being made to account for any wildfire-related impacts." The stream, open for registration since June 15, 2026, targets foreign nationals working in cleaning and security roles in rural or remote parts of the province for one of B.C.'s eight public health authorities, and can nominate up to 250 people for permanent residence (PR) — but only one draw has been held to date, on July 23, 2026, issuing 60 invitations to apply (ITAs) at a cut-off of 50 points, the lowest score of any BC PNP category so far in 2026 and a sign that roughly 190 nominations remain unallocated. The extension lands as B.C. operates under a provincewide state of emergency declared August 8 over the Bald Range wildfire in the South Okanagan, which has forced more than 20,000 people from their homes, and at a moment when the province's federal nomination allocation has been sharply cut while rural health support roles remain chronically hard to staff — making the next seven weeks, in the view of immigration practitioners, the decisive window for whether this rare time-limited PR pathway for lower-skilled work fills its quota.

British Columbia held a new round of entrepreneur immigration invitations on July 28, 2026, issuing 10 invitations to apply through the Base Stream of the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) Entrepreneur Immigration category, with a minimum score of 117; those invited may apply for a provincial nomination and, in turn, for Canadian permanent residence at the federal level. It was the province's eighth Base Stream round of 2026 and one of only three rounds this year to invite Base candidates exclusively, bringing the year's entrepreneur invitations to at least 88 and the province's combined total with Skills Immigration to at least 3,824. Notably, through a period of federal tightening — BC's nomination allocation was cut from 8,000 in 2024 to 4,000 at the start of 2025, and set at 5,254 for 2026 — the entrepreneur category has kept a steady cadence of roughly one round per month, in sharp contrast to Skills Immigration, which was paused and then restructured around three pillars, Care, Build and Innovate. With the federal Start-up Visa (SUV) having stopped accepting new applications at the end of 2025 and details of the replacement pilot still unpublished, provincial business immigration routes such as the BC PNP are becoming one of the few stable options for foreign nationals who want to start a business in Canada. The draw also came days after the province launched its first Temporary Rural / Remote Health Support Initiative round on July 23, illustrating how BC is rationing a limited allocation across competing priority groups.

British Columbia held a new provincial nomination draw on July 23, 2026, issuing 60 invitations to apply (ITAs) for permanent residence (PR) under the Temporary Rural/Remote Health Support Initiative, a points-based stream within the BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) Skills Immigration category, with a minimum score of 50. It was the first draw held under the pathway since registration opened on June 15, 2026, and the 50-point cutoff is the lowest of any B.C. draw so far in 2026 — well below the 96 points required in the Health category on July 9 and the 132 points required in the High Economic Impact category on July 16. Despite the reference to health support in its name, the initiative is open to only three National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes covering security guards, light-duty cleaners, and janitors, caretakers and heavy-duty cleaners, meaning it targets support and facilities roles at health authorities rather than clinical positions such as physicians and nurses. The province has designated the program a one-time, temporary measure capped at 250 nominations in total, with registration closing at 11:59 p.m. on August 31, 2026, so the 60 invitations issued in this draw already account for close to a quarter of the cap. Taken together, this narrow, low-threshold targeted draw is B.C.'s latest move to channel a shrinking pool of nominations toward specific labour gaps after Ottawa sharply reduced provincial nomination allocations.

On July 16, 2026, the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island (PEI) issued invitations to apply to 195 candidates through its Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) — the largest single round the province has held this year. The invitations went out under the Labour Impact category and PEI Express Entry, with priority given to international graduates of the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Holland College and Collège de l'Île, the province's three post-secondary institutions. With this round, PEI has now issued 853 invitations in 2026, continuing its established approach of monthly draws focused on workers already employed in local in-demand industries. Against a backdrop of steep federal cuts to provincial nomination allocations — and with PEI still yet to publish its total allocation for the year — the province's steady, transparent draw cadence has drawn particular attention from applicants.

British Columbia held a round of occupation-based targeted invitations on July 9, 2026, issuing at least 343 invitations to apply for a provincial nomination to highly skilled workers in in-demand sectors such as healthcare and construction through the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BCPNP). This was the province's eighth Skills Immigration (SI) draw of 2026 and its fifteenth selection round of all types for the year. The round covered four occupational categories, focused on the "Care" and "Build" pillars of the province's recalibrated three core objectives. Priority construction occupations received the most invitations at 136, with a minimum score of 97; childcare, healthcare, and veterinary care received 91, 116, and fewer than 5 invitations respectively, with minimum scores of 108, 96, and 88. This was also the province's third SI draw of 2026 to use "specific occupations" as the selection basis. As of July 9, B.C. had issued at least 3,107 provincial nomination invitations under the SI category so far this year, while as of July 7 there were still 8,683 registrations in the registration pool awaiting selection.