Hong Kong applications for Canada’s special permanent residency scheme jump by 70% to more than 800 in August compared with July

Applications for Canada’s “lifeboat” emigration programme for Hong Kong have hit an all-time monthly high since its government axed permanent residency educational requirements for people who have worked in the country for a year.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said it had received 805 applications from the city under the Hong Kong Pathway in August, when the educational component was dropped, compared with 473 in July – an increase of 70 per cent.

About 4,290 Hongkongers have applied for permanent residency through the special “work-to-emigrate” route launched in 2021, and almost 2,000 of them have been approved.

More than 5,200 Hongkongers have been granted permanent residency via the pathway which consists of “work-to-emigrate” and “study-to-emigrate” routes.

The significant surge in August came after the Canadian government announced in July that Hongkongers could, from August 15, apply for permanent residency after a year of employment without the previously required education to degree standard.

Experience gained through Canada’s working holiday scheme also counts toward the 12 month period.

Only Hongkongers with the required academic qualifications were eligible to apply in the past five years under the previous rules.

Willis Fu Yiu-wai, the immigration programme director at city consultants Goldmax Associates, said the increase was because Hongkongers in Canada had satisfied the working requirement long before the qualifications restriction was dropped, including some who had earlier planned to use other immigration methods.

“This is the easiest way to secure permanent residency when compared to other immigration pathways … applicants do not need to improve their English level or worry if they are too old to apply in this bespoke scheme,” he explained.

Margaret Szeto, the founder of migration consultation company Aura Global, said the applicants in Canada had all satisfied the one-year working requirement, some maybe because they had stayed and worked in Canada during pandemic travel restrictions.

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Connie Chan, 29, a 2016 university graduate, set up a concern group with graduates in 2016 and 2017 to lobby the Canadian government and lawmakers to extend eligibility to older graduates by ending the five-year maximum from leaving higher education.

Chan said she was one of the applicants in August as she had enough working experience in Canada and did not want to lose the opportunity.

“Some people were sitting in front of the computer at midnight of August 14 to wait for the website to file the application that started on August 15, they then found out they could only file the application in the morning next day,” she added.

Chan said she believed about 300 of the August applications came from members of her group as they all told each other after they had put in the application.

She predicted the number of applications would go up in the future as more people satisfy the working requirements.

Aileen Calverley, the co-founder of the British-based advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, who lobbied the Canadian government in 2020 to provide Hongkongers a pathway, said the number was not surprising as many graduates with sufficient work experience in the country had waited for a long time to apply for permanent residency.

But she said expected the government would not extend the open work permit scheme if the number of applications remained low.

“The pathway may then end on its scheduled date in 2026,” she said.

Canada announced in February it would allow graduates from eligible postsecondary educational institutions in the past 10 years to apply for an open work permit, which will allow holders to go to the country without having secured a job and seek permanent residency in the country later. The earlier threshold was five years.

But the changed rules did not generate an overwhelming response.

IRCC figures showed that the number of open work permit applications peaked in November 2022, when more than 2,200 applications were filed.

But the number has nosedived since, with fewer than 100 applications for open work permits each month from March to August.

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About 27,000 open work permits applications, alongside around 1,000 extended permits applications, have been filed since the launch of the pathway and nearly 25,000 applications have been approved.

Fu and Szeto agreed that people who wanted to move to Canada had applied for open work permits in 2021 and 2022, so the relaxed measures would not boost application numbers under the programme.

The IRCC said around 2,600 applications for open work permits had been rejected since the scheme was launched in 2021.

Fu said he believed there would be another peak in 2025, as people rushed to qualify a year before the scheme is scheduled to end.

The IRCC also revealed that more than 5,600 Hong Kong graduates from Canadian tertiary institutions had applied for permanent residence through the bespoke pathway and around 3,300 applications had been approved.

Applicants through the “study-to-emigrate” scheme have had to graduate from a designated postsecondary institution in Canada in the three years before application,

Diploma, degree and postgraduate courses are all eligible.

But Canada has the lowest barrier to entry and targets younger people, recent graduates and those who have already studied in the country.