COVID decline, border opening and other news of the week

For the week of June 7-13, Canada was again pleased with positive news.

Immigration news

In the past week, Canada has pleased with 5 immigration selections:

in two major Express Entry selections invited 6,000 candidates with Canadian experience and 940 participants in provincial immigration programs;
Manitoba selected 142 people from the skilled professional and graduate categories;
in British Columbia's selection, luck smiled on 373 candidates;
Alberta shared the results of a drawing in which she sent 191 invites.

Many say it is almost unrealistic to immigrate to Canada during a pandemic. Closed borders do make things difficult, but there are ways that work. I talked about ways to immigrate that are relevant for summer 2021, and did a breakdown of one of my subscribers' resumes.

By the way, there is a free immigration chance assessment on my website. It requires just one questionnaire, but sometimes people make mistakes in it, so the algorithm produces incorrect results. So I made a video about how the chance assessment works, and broke down popular mistakes in the questionnaire.

Pandemic

The news last week was once again positive. The incidence of COVID-19 in Canada fell to a record high not seen since the second wave of the pandemic. And one region was free of the virus.

The restrictions are gradually being lifted. It has become known that vaccinated Canadian citizens and residents who fly in from abroad will not stay for a 3-day hotel quarantine and observe self-isolation for 14 days. In addition, the government is considering staging the opening for tourists and opening the border with the United States.

Schoolchildren in Quebec until the end of the school year can be in classrooms without masks. The provincial authorities took such a decision because of the hot weather.

Manitoba has decided to try to motivate residents to get vaccinated. The government will draw prizes of $100,000 CAD between those who have been vaccinated. Incidentally, Manitoba was the first province to introduce immunization cards to verify that a person is vaccinated.

Because of the pandemic, airlines around the world cancelled flights, including Air Canada. The company launched a refund program in April, but because fewer than half of passengers applied for refunds, the deadline was extended by a month.

But the situation is not improving everywhere. The study found that immigrants died from COVID-19 about twice as often as native Canadians during the pandemic. This is due to the conditions in which newcomers live.

Life and work

Despite good trends regarding the pandemic, the effects still remain. In May, thousands of Canadians lost their jobs. Experts say there will be a severe labour shortage in the country this summer because of this.

IT professionals in B.C., on the other hand, are in luck, because thanks to a new program launched by the province, they will be able to earn more. Women, people with disabilities and minorities will especially benefit from this program.

Canada has developed a new eco-initiative as part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The government is investing in the production of electric buses and other "green" forms of public transport. Environmentalists are also cheering the cancellation of an oil pipeline between Canada and the US — even though the economy would lose more than a billion dollars because of it.