'It’s in our interest to absorb them... because they’re already contributing,' says immigration minister
Manitoba is refocusing its Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) on temporary residents already in the province, as tighter federal limits on permanent residency reduce the number of skilled workers it can bring in from overseas.
Provincial Immigration Minister Malaya Marcelino says the shift is essential to prevent large numbers of international students and temporary foreign workers from being forced to leave both Canada and their Manitoba employers as their status expires.
“Otherwise, the province would have thousands of newcomers with temporary work permits leaving the country, and their employer,” Marcelino told CBC. “It’s in our interest to absorb them and make sure that they can actually be Canadian citizens, because they’re already here, they’re already contributing,” she said, according to the report.
In 2025, the Manitoba government introduced a temporary pathway to help more skilled international workers remain in the province, with a two-year extension option on work permits for eligible applicants under the Manitoba (PNP).
Fewer nomination spots, more temporary residents
According to CBC, Manitoba’s annual number of PNP nominations has fallen from about 9,500 to 6,400 in 2025, with 6,239 spots scheduled for 2026. Each nomination can cover not only the principal applicant but also their spouse and dependants.
At the same time, the province is home to roughly 80,000 temporary residents, including international students and temporary foreign workers. Manitoba has also set aside nomination spaces for partner employers and municipalities, reducing the pool available for others.
Marcelino told CBC she would like to devote more nominee slots to overseas skilled workers with existing ties to Manitoba, noting the retention rate for that group exceeds 90 per cent. However,
The federal government has previously announced its plan to cut immigration numbers and has made numerous changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in the past few years.
Partner employers gain advantage in pathways
Immigration lawyer Reis Pagtakhan, who serves on the premier’s business and jobs council, told CBC that the narrower focus of the PNP is creating “winners and losers.”
If a temporary worker is hired by a partner employer or lives in a partner municipality outside Winnipeg, they now have a clearer pathway to permanent residency. But for applicants without support from an employer, municipality or ethnocultural group, “it’s probably not going to work,” he said.
“The old days of, ‘I’ve got a job here, I’ve been working here, my employer wants to keep me here, but I have to apply on my own,’ that’s not working, at least not to the extent it used to."
Marcelino, meanwhile, is pressing Ottawa to exempt Manitoba from strict immigration limits and to again extend expiring work permits, said the CBC, as the federal government did in 2024 and 2025. So far, Ottawa has declined.
Recently, the Quebec government took decisive action to reduce both permanent and temporary immigration levels over the next four years.
