British Columbia held four draws under its Provincial Nominee Program on August 17.

British Columbia invited over 435 immigration candidates through four Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws held on August 17, 2021.

Since February, British Columbia has been conducting two separate rounds of invitations for its PNP program each month. The province holds a general draw and a second draw targeting retail and wholesale retail managers as well as restaurant and foodservice managers. The second draw is due to a high number of people registered in the BC PNP Skills Immigration Registration System (SIRS) with these two occupations, the province said in a news release. By holding these additional draws, B.C. aims to balance the needs in all sectors of the provincial labour market.

Candidates from the Skills Immigration (SI) and Express Entry BC (EEBC) streams of the British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) received invitations in the general draw. More specifically, Invitations were issued to those from the Skilled Worker, International Graduate as well as Entry Level and Semi-Skilled sub-categories of SI and EEBC streams. The minimum scores for that draw ranged between 73 and 91 points. A total of 363 candidates were invited.

The separate draw was also conducted under SI and EEBC categories and targeted candidates whose occupation falls under NOC 0621 or NOC 0631. The draw resulted in 64 invitations with scores of 106. B.C. also issued eight invitations through its Entrepreneur Immigration Base Category and less than five invitations through the Entrepreneur Immigration Regional Pilot category. So far this year, B.C. has issued more than 7527 invitations through various BC PNP streams.