Health-care workers permanent residence pathway: Who can apply

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Who can apply

We’re no longer accepting applications. The deadline to apply was August 31, 2021.

To be eligible to apply:

If you’re the spouse or common-law partner of an eligible refugee claimant who worked in Canada’s health-care sector and died from COVID-19, you can apply for permanent residence under this process if

If you’ve already applied for humanitarian and compassionate considerations, you can ask us to assess your application under this process instead if

Who you can include in your application

You can include family members in your application if

You can’t include family members living outside Canada in your application. Instead, you must

To sponsor family members living outside Canada, you must declare them on your permanent residence application. If you don’t declare them, you won’t be able to sponsor them later.

The work experience you need

To be eligible for this process, you must have the required experience working in specific jobs in Canada’s health-care sector.

You can submit your application before you have the total work experience you need. You have until August 31, 2021, to apply and get the required total work experience.

Depending on where you want to live, your work experience will be reviewed by

If you want to live outside Quebec

If you plan to live outside Quebec, you must have a specific type of work experience in Canada’s health-care sector for a specific amount of time to qualify.

Type of jobs (work experience)Footnote *

Your work experience must meet all of the following requirements.

Amount of time in a qualifying jobFootnote *

While working at a qualifying job, you must meet 2 requirements:

  1. Between March 13 and August 14, 2020, you worked for at least 120 hours.
  2. Before August 31, 2021, you have a total work experience of either
    • full-time work: 30 hours a week for 6 months
    • part-time work: 750 part-time hours

How to calculate your work experienceFootnote *

Include all the hours you worked up to August 31, 2021, in your total work experience.

You don’t need to have worked your hours consecutively (in one period). Your hours will count even if

If you want to live in Quebec

The Quebec ministry in charge of immigration is called the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration du Québec (MIFI). It has its own process to assess your work experience.

If you’re eligible, we’ll

If you meet Quebec’s work experience requirement, they’ll issue you a CSQ and inform us of their decision.

After we get MIFI’s decision, we’ll process your application.

Learn more about Quebec’s process.

If you don’t have the total work experience

If you don’t have the total work experience yet, you can still apply. You have until August 31, 2021, to get all the work experience you need.

Who cannot apply

You’re not eligible under this process if your refugee claim was

If your refugee claim was refused, you can still apply for this process if you meet the eligibility criteria.

See the instruction guide (PDF, 1.16 MB) for detailed eligibility criteria.

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