PEQ: Open under old rules

After a hectic week at Immigration Quebec, we seem to be back to square one as Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette announced that the PEQ program is now reopened under the old rules.

Last week's announcements sent students and foreign works in Quebec in a state of panic as the new PEQ rules were limiting their access to permanent residency. Following the general protest and backlash from students, workers and professional associations, the Immigration Minister finally decided to cancel his new reform and revise it at a later time.

Therefore, as of November 1st, 2019, Quebec graduates and Quebec workers are eligible to submit a PEQ application, as long as they qualify for it. There are no more areas of training lists or regions that may affect your PEQ application.

Furthermore, Quebec graduates from diplomas holding 900 hours to 1799 hours (less than 1800 hours), who submitted a PEQ application from November 1st, 2019 until November 13th , will have their applications evaluated under the selection conditions that prevailed on November 1st, 2019. This category of applicants were not previously eligible to apply under the old PEQ rules.

What about french requirements for spouses?

As of now, it seems like the previously announced requirements for spouses to speak French at intermediate-advanced level (B2) is not effective.

What about the regular skilled workers program (ARRIMA) ?

We saw that the area of training or "domaine de formation" list for the regular stream of the Quebec Skilled Workers program was also updated on November 1st. 2019. Many degrees such as residential & commercial drafting and computer sciences techniques (AEC) had their points value lower from 9 to 6. We do not have any news on this area of training list since it was changed on November 1st, 2019.

What about the Quebec values test?

It seems like the Quebec values still is still in place to be mandatory for all on January 1st, 2020. We will find out