Immigration lawyer Qasim Ali says things are in limbo until the new rules are put in place
As Queen’s Park works its way through updating the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), immigration lawyers and their clients are facing a lack of certainty when it comes to the new rules.
“It honestly puts us in limbo,” says Qasim Ali, principal lawyer and founder of Nihang Law Professional Corporation, which has offices in Brampton and Scarborough. “These aren’t just numbers. These are actual lives that we have to deal with on a daily basis. Some of them have kids, some of them, like students, have spent thousands of dollars to come here, and now, a lot of their options [to gain permanent residency] are closing down in front of them.”
Ali acknowledges that the program, which was designed to hasten the immigration of skilled workers to address the province’s labour gaps, required updating and revision, but that, without specific details about the new system, there’s a limit to the advice he and his firm can currently provide.
“We’re expecting to see changes. We know there’ll be new categories [to classify workers], but we don’t have any information yet. We get calls day after day after day from the same clients… We just tell them to wait for the time being because we don’t have the information.”
For now, he has posted a comprehensive summary on his website explaining to clients what they can expect based on where they are in the process of applying to work in Ontario.
The program that Ali and his clients were familiar with offered a list of separate categories under which potential immigrants could apply to work in Ontario and take the first steps towards possibly obtaining citizenship, but these have now been revoked. Prior to the change, these categories included:
Employer Job Offer: Foreign Worker stream
Employer Job Offer: International Student stream
Employer Job Offer: In-Demand Skills stream
Masters Graduate stream
PhD Graduate stream
Human Capital Priorities stream (Express Entry program)
Skilled Trades stream (Express Entry program)
French-Speaking Skilled Worker stream (Express Entry program)
Entrepreneur
Regional Immigration Pilot
According to Ali, the process to update the system really kicked into gear in December 2025 when the province opened a stakeholder consultation period. This followed an earlier update to Bill 30, Working for Workers Seven Act, 2025, which included the following alteration to the Ontario Immigration Act, 2015 under Schedule 5: “The regulation-making powers are also amended to permit certain regulation-making powers to be delegated from the Lieutenant Governor in Council to the Minister.” It was this amendment that granted the minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development – and, by extension, the OINP director – the ability to make changes to the program through bureaucratic processes rather than legislation.
Then, on March 16, 2026, the government took the step to allow the minister to “redesign the OINP by creating or removing selection streams,” amidst other changes such as “preparing the regulation to launch new streams, including simplifying the OIA Director’s application processing steps” and “updating program streams to better target provincial labour needs, including clarifying the process the OINP Director undertakes when determining draws.” These changes officially came into force on May 30.
That’s when Ali says the existing streams were eliminated. The catch is, their replacements were not announced at the same time.
“There are a lot of moving parts right now, but no actual information. The OINP website is still showing the old stuff – the old documentation, the old requirements. The new stuff is still not there.”
There also haven’t been any draws since the new rules came into force. Between January and the end of May, the province ran a number of draws for people (who have sufficiently high qualifying scores that take into account factors such as education, skills, official languages proficiency, age, etc.) to receive invitations to apply (ITAs) under the previous categories, which is one of the official steps immigrants must go through before being permitted to work in the province under the OINP.
While there is no official timeline for when the new rules will be announced, Ali says he and other colleagues who are also members of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association expect this to happen sometime within the next two or three weeks, “but let’s see.”
Until the government makes its announcement, Ali and his clients are dealing with uncertainty. “There’s zero predictability for the time being, especially for recent graduates. They’re going to be asking a lot of questions: ‘We spent $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 for this master’s or PhD, and now that the program is scrapped, how do we fit ourselves into the new categories?’”
Ali says he can speculate about some of the upcoming changes. For example, he expects to see four new categories to replace the retired ones including a “unified employer job offer stream that’s going to be divided into specific tiers,” a “priority healthcare stream, which is going to be mainly focusing on healthcare for Canada’s aging population,” an “exceptional talent stream, where you’ll have high achievers across academia, research, technology, innovation, and the creative sectors,” and an entrepreneur stream.
Ali also expects employers to pre-register before being allowed to make job offers, which he sees as a positive change that will help reduce scams and predatory employment situations.
And while he says that allowing the OINP director to make changes to the program will enable the province to move more quickly to address its labour shortages, he is concerned about giving so much decision-making power to one bureaucrat when it comes to selecting who is admitted to the program.
Still, he’s happy that the federal government allotted Ontario 14,119 nominations for 2026, up substantially from 2025, when the province was allowed to bring in 10,750 workers.
