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After six years of working to attain permanent residency in Canada, a London, Ont., man says his hopes have been dashed by a sudden Ontario government decision.
Ankit Patel, 28, came to Canada in 2019 on a student visa after qualifying as an engineer in his native India.
Patel studied engineering and supply chain management at Fanshawe College in London and then secured a three-year work permit.
He worked as a computer numerical control (CNC) operator for manufacturing companies including Gnutti Carlo, Penta Equipment and Element 5 Inc.
In October 2024 and with three months left on his work permit, Patel applied to Ontario’s Immigrant Nominee Program (ONIP) for permanent residency status. A partnership with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the program provides a fast-track to permanent residency status for workers and international students with skills in specific areas seen as a benefit to the overall Canadian economy.
Patel applied under the “skilled trades” category, one of the program’s nine entry streams.
Although the system has become much more competitive in recent years, Patel is certain the ONIP nomination would be enough for him to become a permanent resident and return to work in Ontario.
His application was listed as “in status” in January 2025, when Patel had to stop working because his work visa had expired.
“Nomination in this program was my last hope,” he said.
That last hope was snuffed out on Friday when the provincial government, in an update posted an on the ONIP web page, announced the suspension of the program’s skilled trades stream due to fraudulent applications in the system.
“As currently structured, the skilled trades stream is vulnerable to systemic misrepresentation and/or fraud,” the post reads. “This vulnerability undermines the skilled trades stream’s ability to meet the immediate labour market needs of the province.”
The post said those who’ve submitted applications will have their fees refunded. CBC News reached out to Ontario’s Ministry of Labour for further comment but did not receive a response on Monday.
A group of about 150 gathered outside a provincial government office in Toronto on Monday, opposing the suspension of a provincial referral program for permanent residency. (Submitted by Ankit Patel)
The province’s decision prompted Patel and about 150 others who’ve been affected to stage a protest outside the ONIP’s office in Toronto on Monday.
Patel said that instead of suspending the skilled trades stream, the province should root out and cancel any applications found to be fraudulent.
“I have burned out all my savings in this waiting period,” he said. “Now they’ve ended the whole stream without checking who is genuine and who is not.”
According to numbers the province posted in July, 21,500 people were accepted into the ONIP program in 2024. A total of 4,101 of those participants came through the skilled trades stream.
Consultant says program needs a cleanup
Immigration consultant Manan Gupta says the province had to do something to address fraud in Ontario’s referral system for permanent residence applications. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)
Manan Gupta, a regulated immigration consultant who heads Skylake Immigration in Brampton, said the Ontario government had to do something to address widespread fraud in the program. He said there were applications with falsified work records and fudged credentials.
“Fraud in this program has been happening across the country, from coast to coast,” he said.
Gupta pointed to the federal government’s plan announced last year to reduce the number of provincial nominee applications accepted by about half, making it a more difficult path to attain permanent residency status.
“It’s becoming challenging not just for people in Ontario, but for everywhere else too,” said Gupta. “There are more than one million applicants — the pool is too big.”
Gupta said it’s unfortunate legitimate applicants are getting squeezed in what’s become a numbers game.
Now low on money and with no clear path to working legally in Canada, Patel believes he’ll likely have no other choice but to give up and return to India.
“Right now I have no options. They don’t have work permit extensions,” he said. “I might have to leave the country as soon as possible.”
