Ontario held a draw on six streams

On December 7, the province of Ontario sent out 1,186 invitations to be nominated by the province under the provincial immigration program. Selections were made in several categories at once: foreign professionals, foreign graduates from Ontario universities, in-demand professionals and the regional immigration pilot.

Invitations and passing grades in the "Expression of Interest" system were distributed as follows:

• foreign professionals — 470 invitations, passing score 37;
• foreign graduates — 583 invitations, passing score 62;
• in-demand professionals — 53 invitations, no passing grades required.

For each of the streams, additional candidates were invited under the regional immigration pilot, which allows permanent residence in one of three municipalities: Chatham-Kent, Cornwall, and Quinte West/Belleville. Passing grades are not required for participants in the regional pilot and invitations are distributed as follows:

• foreign specialists — 33 invitations;
• foreign graduates — 37 invitations;
• demanded specialists — 10 invitations.

All invited applicants must have had a job offer from an Ontario employer.

Additional requirements were imposed on the participants of the in-demand specialist flow. They had to have a profession in health care, agriculture or manufacturing. Candidates with the following professions could get a job offer in any locality in the province:

• nurse assistants, orderlies;
• sitting;
• farm workers;
• workers in nurseries and greenhouses;
• harvesters;
• industrial butchers.

Candidates with a number of other occupations were only considered if they received a job offer outside of Toronto:

• operators of metalworking machines;
• machining and forging machine operators;
• Mechanical machine operators;
• other metalworking machine operators;
• operators in chemical production;
• Plastics processing machine operators;
• woodworking machine operators;
• operators of industrial sewing machines;
• food and beverage processing operators;
• assemblers, fabricators, electronics testers;
• machine assemblers and inspectors;
• industrial painters;
• assemblers and finishers.

To increase your chances of receiving an invitation from Ontario, keep an eye on history of immigration selections.