Internal IRCC Documents Raise Questions About Express Entry Categories

Rethinking How Occupation Categories Work

The internal notes dig into how category-based selection rounds are structured. From the ATIP documents, the discussion appears to be early-stage and informal, rather than policy direction. However, it points to gaps in how the current system is working.

One concern is that sorting occupations into broad sector categories may not work as well as IRCC hoped. Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) scores can vary significantly between different occupations in the same category. But the current system doesn’t weigh how much demand exists for each specific occupation. Instead, it only looks at broad occupation categories.

The IRCC documents note that this design assumes occupations with high demand also tend to have high CRS scores. They flagged that this assumption may not necessarily hold up.

To address this, one internal proposal floated the idea of excluding occupations that became significantly overrepresented in an early draw from later draws within the same year. This could spread invitations more evenly across occupations rather than letting the same few dominate every round.

For example, hypothetically if carpenters (NOC 72310) made up a significant portion of a trades draw, IRCC could exclude them from other trades draws that year. This could allow for a larger diversity of trades occupations to receive invitations.

The documents note that doing this in a meaningful way would require a high level of assurance that invited candidates actually work in the occupation they were invited under. The whole point of the adjustment would be to better match invitations to where labour shortages exist. However, this is easier said than done. Previous StatCan studies have revealed that only 53 percent of recent immigrants have jobs in fields that match their foreign post-secondary education.

Another pattern that has emerged is that once the categories for selection become public, applicants adjust. People naturally pursue the occupations, work experience, or qualifications most likely to improve their chances. The IRCC documentation also suggested this behaviour should continue to be tracked as the system evolves.

Cameroon’s Outsized Role in Francophone Admissions

Another internal document looks at Francophone immigration, which exists to support French-speaking minority communities outside Quebec. According to 2025 documents, Cameroon was by far the largest source country for Francophone admissions in 2024. Cameroonians accounted for roughly 52 percent of all Francophone admissions through the Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) program and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) that year.

That share stands out given that Cameroonian candidates make up only about 3.5 percent of the overall Express Entry pool. However, they account for 50 percent of candidates with French-language bonus points. The IRCC documents flagged this concentration as a trend to watch, both for policy reasons and program integrity. At the time, IRCC offices had identified fraudulent documents among Cameroonian Francophone applications, leading to more verification work and slower processing times.