On May 9th, 2016, the Province of Ontario announced that it has received “the sufficient number of applications” to meet their Immigrant Nominee Programs targets for 2016.

Ontario also confirmed that they stopped issuing Notifications of Interest for their Human Capital Priorities (Express Entry) Steam on February 16th, 2016. They stated that they expect to receive their new allocation of nominations from the Federal Government in November of 2016. They further stated that they may be able to accept new applications for certain stream in six months time. They did not confirm which streams this would include.

The other streams which are now closed, effective May 9th, 2016 are as follows:

• Employer Pre-screen
• International Student – Masters Graduate stream
• International Student – PhD Graduate stream

Ontario has confirmed that those applications submitted under the above mentioned programs after 5:00 PM EDT on May 9th will have their applications returned to them with their unprocessed applications fees.

While there is a pause on the above mentioned steams, applications under the following streams are still being accepted:

• Foreign Worker and International Student with a Job Offer which has been approved through the Employer Pre-Screen application process.
• French Speaking Skilled Worker Stream
• Corporate Stream
• Expressions of Interest for the Entrepreneur Stream

At this stage this a temporary closure of these programs and they are expected to re-open once the Province has been issued with their new allocation of nominations.