The Global Talent Stream in Canada

Category A is the referral route. An employer qualifies where a designated referral partner has referred them and they are hiring an individual with unique and specialized talent to help the business scale up and grow. ESDC publishes the list of designated referral partners.

Category B is the list route. An employer qualifies where the position is an in-demand occupation on the global talent occupations list, and ESDC states plainly that a referral is not required for it.

The two are not a choice where they overlap. ESDC states that if the requested occupation is included on the global talent occupations list, the application will be processed as a Category B application and must meet Category B requirements. A referral does not keep an application in Category A when the occupation is on the list.

That matters because the wage rules differ between them, so an employer who planned against Category A figures can find the application assessed against Category B ones.

The prevailing wage, which ESDC defines as the highest of several figures rather than any one of them. The regional median hourly wage posted on Job Bank. The wage within the range already paid to current employees in the same job and work location with the same skills and years of experience. And then the category floor.

Under Category A, for the first two unique and specialized positions requested by an employer and approved by the programme in a calendar year, at least $38.46 an hour amounting to a base salary of no less than $80,000 a year. For any additional such positions approved in that calendar year, at least $72.11 an hour amounting to no less than $150,000.

The calendar year qualifier is the part usually left out. The higher floor is not triggered by the third hire in the life of the business, but by the third approved in the same year.

Under Category B, for occupations that carry wage floors, the employer offers the hourly rate at minimum. ESDC notes that the annual figures published alongside those hourly rates are illustrative only, so the hourly rate is the one that binds.

Two clocks, run in sequence, and only the first belongs to this stream.

ESDC applies a service standard of 10 business days to a Global Talent Stream assessment, counted from the business day after Service Canada receives the application, and states that the standard is expected to be met 80 per cent of the time. Eighty per cent is the published expectation, and the standard can be suspended where the employer contact is unavailable to answer questions.

The work permit is a separate application to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which publishes two weeks for work permits under the Global Skills Strategy. That two week figure covers jobs needing an assessment and jobs exempt from one.

So the honest answer to how long the stream takes is the two added together, plus the time it takes to build the benefits plan before anything is filed.

Required for every hire. The employer works with ESDC to develop a plan showing a commitment to activities with lasting, positive effects on the Canadian labour market, and the commitments in it are divided into mandatory and complementary benefits.

It does not end at the assessment. ESDC conducts progress reviews of the plan annually to assess how well the commitments are being met, and states that those reviews are separate and distinct from all compliance activities carried out under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

An employer who treats the plan as paperwork for the application has misunderstood what was signed. It is a multi-year undertaking reviewed on its own schedule, and it is reviewed whether or not a compliance inspection ever happens.

A recruitment campaign. ESDC states there is no minimum recruitment requirement for the Global Talent Stream, though employers are encouraged to recruit Canadians and permanent residents first and are asked to describe any efforts made as part of the application.

That is the clearest practical difference from the ordinary streams, where advertising is the long pole. It is worth putting beside the low-wage stream, which the work permit page on this site covers.

It does not remove the rest of the programme. The employer still pays $1,000 per position requested, still meets the conditions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations, and is still subject to the compliance measures the programme applies to every employer.

Two narrow exemptions sit alongside the stream, and they are the answer for a short visit rather than a hire.

A highly skilled worker may work in Canada for 15 consecutive days once every six months, or up to 30 consecutive days once every twelve months, without a work permit.

A researcher may work for one period of 120 days once every twelve months, where the research is at a Canadian publicly funded degree-granting institution or an affiliated research institution.

The word consecutive does work in both. These are single blocks rather than allowances to be spent a few days at a time, and eligibility has to be proven to the officer at the border.