Canada’s future Municipal Nominee Program

Canada is planning to introduce the Municipal Nominee Program so as to promote economic development across Canada.

After each federal election in Canada, cabinet ministers are given mandate letters to fulfill by the Prime Minister. These mandate letters state the priorities of each minister.

Marco Mendicino became the immigration minister of Canada after the October 2019 election. One of his priorities outlined by the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was to launch a new Municipal Nominee Program (MNP).

Before the emergence of the pandemic, Minister Mendicino had said that Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had already begun organizing consultations with the public on the MNP. However, the coronavirus crisis has now slowed down the plans.

What will happen?

The MNP will launch in the near future. Mendicino’s mandate letter dictates that there should be at least 5,000 immigration spots available under the program. It is possible that the MNP will be introduced as a pilot program, resembling other IRCC programs that have been rolled out in recent years. In that case, IRCC might be gearing up to accept up to 2,750 principal applicants every year under this pilot. The other 2,250 spots could be taken up by spouses and dependents of the principal applicants.

Municipality selection

When designing the program, it will be important to focus on the methodology that IRCC will use to choose the participating municipalities. Most of them will receive an economic boost if they have higher immigration.

According to the 2016 Census, Canada has 117 census agglomerations (CA) and 35 census metropolitan areas (CMA) which means that choosing the municipalities will take some time. A CMA has a minimum population of 100,000 people, and a CA has a minimum population of 10,000 people.