For the first time in Canadian history hard quotas have been imposed. CIC has always used processing targets in controlling immigration levels, however, restrictions were not imposed for filing an application. Canada always had a broad criteria for skilled workers. The conservative federal government of Canada pushed to afford the federal minister responsible for citizenship and immigration more powers in shaping immigration policies and controlling new applications intake. The result was an amendment to the Immigration and Refugee protection Act of Canada which included new provisions giving the minister the authority to issue instructions to the department on processing of immigration applications.

The second set of instructions is a step further towards reducing the number of applications received in the main economic immigration stream to Canada. For the first time a cap is imposed on new applications. A total of 20,000 application with no more than 1,000 per occupation on a priority list now consisting of only 29 occupations. The inventory of new FSW application will continue to shrink.