By admin
Manitoba Receives Boost in Immigration Allocation
The Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program has successfully lobbied the Federal government to raise its immigration nomination allocation in 2025. About 1,498 nomination slots were added to the current immigration nomination slots of Manitoba thereby bringing the total of this year as of 10th October 2025 to 6,239 nomination slots. With this rise in nomination slots, Manitoba will now be able to nominate close to 1,500 additional candidates to gain PR and settle in the province before the end of 2025.
How This Change Affects the MPNP?
With the restoration of 6,239 nomination slots, the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program has now recovered 65% of its 2024 nomination allocation of 9,500 spots. Even though Manitoba has not revealed the streams affected by this increase in nomination spots though it did say that increase in MPNP nomination slots is going to address provincial labour market needs and deliver on Manitoba’s strategic priorities.
Throughout 2025, the MPNP has primarily focused on two streams namely:
- The Skilled Worker in Manitoba stream
- The Skilled Worker Overseas stream
Through the Skilled Worker Overseas stream, Manitoba has emphasized the invitation of candidates through its “strategic recruitment initiatives”. Strategic Recruitment Initiatives allows employers or communities in Manitoba to recruit foreign workers with skills that are currently lacking in the province. These initiatives support local employers in addressing ongoing labour shortages while offering foreign workers a pathway to PR.
The skilled worker overseas stream is an enhanced or Express-Entry aligned stream, thereby allowing Manitoba to pick up individuals with valid Express Entry Profiles. Nominated candidates with enhanced pathways can benefit from faster application times for their PR applications.
For participation, the employers must meet specific eligibility conditions for their open positions and complete Manitoba’s ABC Recruitment Process. Once approved, they can submit the details of international candidates to Manitoba’s Employer Services. The employers on the other hand also need to meet eligibility requirements such as Age, Language Skills, Relevant Work Experience and Education – along with the criteria for the particular stream under which they are being considered.
If a candidate has studied or lived or has ties in any other province of Canada then he or she might be tagged as a retention risk by Manitoba and his or her candidature could be refused by Manitoba’s Employer Services or the MPNP.
An Additional Increment in a Broader Trend?
Manitoba joins several other Canadian provinces and territories including Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Northwest Territories in seeing a rise in its nomination allocation.
This increase in nomination follows a cut in nomination in the beginning of 2025, with all provinces seeing their allocation being cut to 50% of their 2024 levels.
Due to Housing Shortages and Affordability issues, Canada pledged in October 2024 to scale back permanent immigration and to decrease the number of allocations to provinces. As a part of this plan laid out in Canada’s Immigration Level Plan in 2024 the overall admissions level to Canada’s provincial programs was cut in half at the start of 2025.