Ottawa has launched an aggressive package to lure and retain internationally trained physicians at a time when hospitals across the country are scrambling for staff. Effective immediately, physicians who have been nominated by a province or territory under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) qualify for two-week processing of their work-permit applications. At the same time, IRCC has created a dedicated Express Entry category that invites doctors with at least one year of recent Canadian work experience to become permanent residents on scores far below the general cut-offs. The operational details, released on 10 September and reiterated in an IRCC news brief on 4 October, paint a clear roadmap. The 14-day processing promise is available to specialists in clinical medicine, surgery and family practice (NOC 31100-31102) who hold a full-time, non-seasonal job offer and a support letter from the province or territory that nominated them. On the permanent-residence side, the first physicians-only Express Entry draw of the autumn invited 229 doctors at a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score of 198—more than 300 points lower than the season’s general draws. In addition, Ottawa has set aside 5,000 federal immigration spaces for doctors nominated through PNP streams, freeing provinces to run health-care-specific selection rounds without eating into their usual quota. The measures respond to stark data: one in four Canadian health-care workers is an immigrant, and 31 % of family doctors were trained abroad. By slashing processing times and CRS thresholds, the government hopes to shorten recruitment lead-times for rural hospitals and urban clinics alike. For hospital HR teams and relocation providers, the message is clear: obtain a provincial nomination letter and the right NOC code, and a physician can be on the ground in as little as two weeks while the PR file moves forward in parallel. Licensing remains a provincial prerogative, but immigration speed will no longer be the bottleneck.
Source: IRCC.com
