The British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program

The British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) accelerates the Permanent Resident application process for skilled and/or experienced workers, experienced business persons and their family members who want to settle in BC permanently.  It allows nominees to apply for Permanent Resident status through Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) under the fast-tracked Provincial Nominee stream – which can be faster than applying through many federal immigration streams.

Who administers the BC PNP?

The program is administered on behalf of the Province of BC by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development in collaboration with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) - the federal government department responsible for Canadian immigration.

Applying to the BC PNP

If you choose to immigrate to British Columbia as a provincial nominee, the requirements you must meet and the application forms you use vary according to which component of the BC PNP you are applying under: Strategic Occupations or Business Immigrants.

Strategic Occupations

The Strategic Occupations component of the Provincial Nominee Program helps BC employers recruit or retain qualified foreign workers to help meet current and future labour needs. Nominee applicants under the Strategic Occupations component must either have a job offer of indeterminate length from a BC employer or have completed a masters or doctorate degree at a BC post-secondary institution in either the natural, applied or health sciences.

For applications where a job offer is required, the employer and the nominee applicant (potential employee) submit a joint application to the BC PNP. The need to employ foreign workers in an occupation is assessed based upon current and projected labour market conditions and economic benefit to the province.

The Strategic Occupations component has five areas of focus:

• skilled workers
• recent international graduates from eligible Canadian post-secondary institutions
• recent masters and doctorate graduates from a BC post-secondary institution in the natural, applied or health sciences (for this category only no job offer is required)
• designated health professionals
• entry-level or semi-skilled workers in select occupations

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If you are a potential immigrant looking for employment opportunities in BC consider checking these sources first.

Business Immigration

The Business Immigrants component of BC’s PNP considers applications from experienced business entrepreneurs who plan to invest in and actively manage an eligible business in BC 

Business Immigrants fall into one of three categories:

• business skills
• regional business
• strategic projects

Each of these categories has different requirements for the minimum personal net worth of the applicant, the amount of investment, the geographic location within BC and the number of Canadian employees in the proposed business.

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