Blog Post

New Update release

August 14, 2024—Church Point, Nova Scotia—Francophone immigration plays a crucial role in strengthening our national identity. This is why Canada is redoubling its efforts to welcome French-speaking newcomers who will enrich the linguistic, social, cultural and economic fabric of Francophone minority communities (FMCs).

Today, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced that the new Francophone Minority Communities Student Pilot (FMCSP) program will be launched on August 26, 2024, in partnership with designated French-language and bilingual post-secondary learning institutions (DLIs). Minister Miller also announced the addition of 10 communities to the Welcoming Francophone Communities (WFC) initiative. The Minister made these announcements on the occasion of the Acadian World Congress, in Nova Scotia.

 Francophone Minority Communities Pilot program

The Francophone Minority Communities Student Pilot (FMCSP) is a way for French-speaking students from select countries to get a study permit. It offers a path for participants to stay in a Francophone minority community (outside Quebec) after they graduate.

As a participant in the pilot, you

• would have access to settlement services during your studies
• may be eligible for permanent residence after you graduate

The pilot program is a flagship measure of the Policy on Francophone Immigration announced earlier this year and will benefit FMCs by helping them attract and retain international students. To improve the approval rate, students and their families will be exempted from having to demonstrate that they will leave Canada at the end of their temporary stay. In addition, the required financial threshold will be adjusted to reflect 75% of the low-income cut-off associated with the municipality where the institution's main campus is located. The maximum number of study permit applications that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will accept under the pilot program is 2,300 for the first year. A cap for the second year of the pilot program will be set by August 2025.

Ten additional Welcoming Francophone Communities

On January 16, 2024, IRCC announced a series of ambitious and historic measures to encourage francophone immigration to FMCs. Among these measures is the renewal and expansion of the WFC Initiative. The new WFCs were selected after a community consensus-building process under the leadership of the Francophone Immigration Networks and the Association francophone des municipalités du Nouveau-Brunswick, supported by the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada.

With these new communities, a total of 24 WFCs across Canada will be well equipped to extend a helpful and warm welcome to French-speaking newcomers and to support their integration process in their new living environment.

The new communities are as follows:

Quick facts

• The participants in the FMCSP program are not bound to provide a provincial attestation letter or territorial attestation letter with their study permit application. They will have to present a letter of acceptance from a participating post-secondary DLI that confirms they may participate in the pilot program. A maximum of 2,300 applications will be accepted for processing in the first year of the pilot program.

• The spouses or common-law partners of the principal applicants may also come to Canada under the pilot program and eventually apply for permanent residence.

• The FMCSP page will reflect agreements with participating learning institutions, which will be added as they become available.

• Regarding the WFC initiative, the 10 new communities are Nanaimo (British Columbia), Red River (Manitoba), Chéticamp (Nova Scotia), Belle-Baie, Caraquet and Restigouche West Region (New Brunswick), Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) and Cornwall, as well as Cochrane District (Highway 11 corridor) and London (Ontario).

Call/Whatsapp: +91-96581-96581, +91-98759-01624

Email: p.singh@makestudy.com, admission@makestudy.com