Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations

Marginal note:Class

• 87.1 (1) For the purposes of subsection 12(2) of the Act, the Canadian experience class is prescribed as a class of persons who may become permanent residents on the basis of their experience in Canada and who intend to reside in a province other than the Province of Quebec.

• Marginal note:Member of the class

  (2) A foreign national is a member of the Canadian experience class if

  • (a) they

    • (i) have acquired in Canada within the 24 months before the day on which their application for permanent residence is made at least 12 months of full-time work experience, or the equivalent in part-time work experience, in one or more occupations that are listed in Skill Type 0 Management Occupations or Skill Level A or B of the National Occupational Classification matrix, and have acquired that work experience after having obtained

      • (A) a diploma, degree or trade or apprenticeship credential issued on the completion of a program of full-time study or training of at least two years’ duration at a public, provincially recognized post-secondary educational or training institution in Canada,

      • (B) a diploma or trade or apprenticeship credential issued on the completion of a program of full-time study or training of at least two years’ duration at a private, Quebec post-secondary institution that operates under the same rules and regulations as public Quebec post-secondary institutions and that receives at least 50 per cent of its financing for its overall operations from government grants, subsidies or other assistance,

      • (C) a degree from a private, provincially recognized post-secondary educational institution in Canada issued on the completion of a program of full-time study of at least two years’ duration, or

      • (D) a graduate degree from a provincially recognized post-secondary educational institution in Canada issued on the completion of a program of full-time study of at least one year’s duration and within two years after obtaining a degree or diploma from an institution referred to in clause (A) or (C), or

    • (ii) have acquired in Canada within the 36 months before the day on which their application for permanent residence is made at least 24 months of full-time work experience, or the equivalent in part-time work experience, in one or more occupations that are listed in Skill Type 0 Management Occupations or Skill Level A or B of the National Occupational Classification matrix; and

  • (b) they have had their proficiency in the English or French language assessed by an organization or institution designated under subsection (4) and have obtained proficiencies for their abilities to speak, listen, read and write that correspond to benchmarks, as referred to in Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000 for the English language and Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens 2006 for the French language, of

    • (i) in the case of a foreign national who has acquired work experience in one or more occupations that are listed in Skill Type 0 Management Occupations or Skill Level A of the National Occupational Classification matrix,

      • (A) 7 or higher for each of those abilities, or

      • (B) 6 for any one of those abilities, 7 or higher for any other two of those abilities and 8 or higher for the remaining ability, and

    • (ii) in the case of a foreign national who has acquired work experience in one or more occupations that are listed in Skill Level B of the National Occupational Classification matrix,

      • (A) 5 or higher for each of those abilities, or

      • (B) 4 for any one of those abilities, 5 or higher for any other two of those abilities and 6 or higher for the remaining ability.

• Marginal note:Application

  (3) For the purposes of subsection (2),

  • (a) full-time work is equivalent to at least 37.5 hours of work per week;

  • (b) any period of self-employment or unauthorized work shall not be included in calculating a period of work experience;

  • (c) the foreign national must have had temporary resident status during their period of work experience and any period of full-time study or training;

  • (d) the foreign national must have been physically present in Canada for at least two years of their full-time study or training;

  • (e) any period during which the foreign national was engaged in a full-time program of study or training in English or French as a second language — and any period of full-time study or training in respect of which study or training in English or French as a second language amounted to most of the full-time study or training — shall not be included in calculating the period of full-time study or training;

  • (f) any period of study or training during which the foreign national was a recipient of a Government of Canada scholarship or bursary, or participated in an exchange program sponsored by the Government of Canada, a purpose or condition of which was that the foreign national return to their country of origin or nationality on completion of their studies or training shall not be included in calculating the period of full-time study or training; and

  • (g) in the case of a foreign national whose work experience is referred to in both subparagraphs (2)(b)(i) and (ii), the foreign national must obtain a proficiency in the English or French language that corresponds to the benchmarks required for the skill type, as set out in subparagraph (2)(b)(i) or (ii), in which the foreign national has acquired most of their work experience.

• Marginal note:Designated organization

  (4) The Minister may designate organizations or institutions to assess language proficiency for the purposes of this section and shall, for the purpose of correlating the results of such an assessment by a particular designated organization or institution with the benchmarks referred to in subsection (2), establish the minimum test result required to be awarded for each ability and each level of proficiency in the course of an assessment of language proficiency by that organization or institution in order to meet those benchmarks.

• Marginal note:Conclusive evidence

  (5) The results of an assessment of the language proficiency of a foreign national by a designated organization or institution and the correlation of those results with the benchmarks in accordance with subsection (4) are conclusive evidence of the foreign national’s proficiency in an official language of Canada for the purposes of this section.