The acronyms on an IRCC page and the jargon on a software page, explained once, without the circular definitions.
Written for practitioners and for firms choosing tools. General information, not legal advice.
Two vocabularies collide in this work. One comes from IRCC and the regulator, the other from software vendors. Both are full of three letter words that get used as if everybody already knows them.
Here is the short version of each. Where a term has a page of its own on this site, it is linked.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| RCIC | Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant. A licensee of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, authorised to give immigration advice and represent clients before IRCC for a fee. |
| CICC | The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, the national regulator for consultants. It sets the Code of Professional Conduct that governs files, retainers and records. |
| IRCC | Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the federal department that decides applications and publishes the forms, guides and program rules. |
| Authorised representative | Anyone paid to represent an applicant. In Canada that means an RCIC, a lawyer in good standing with a provincial law society, or a Quebec notary. Form IMM 5476 appoints them. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Express Entry | The federal system that manages applications for three economic programs. Candidates create a profile, receive a score, and wait to be invited in a round of invitations. |
| CRS | Comprehensive Ranking System. The points score that ranks a candidate in the Express Entry pool, out of 1,200 including bonus points. |
| Draw or round of invitations | When IRCC invites candidates from the pool. Each round has a date, a category, a number of invitations and a cutoff score. Ours are tracked free on the draw tracker. |
| ITA | Invitation to Apply. The invitation issued in a round, which starts a deadline to submit the full application. |
| PNP | Provincial Nominee Program. Each province and territory except Quebec and Nunavut runs streams that nominate candidates for permanent residence. |
| LMIA | Labour Market Impact Assessment. An assessment from Employment and Social Development Canada on whether hiring a foreign worker will affect the Canadian labour market. Some work permits need one and many are exempt. |
| PGWP | Post-Graduation Work Permit. An open work permit for eligible graduates of Canadian institutions. |
| TRV | Temporary Resident Visa, the visitor visa counterfoil placed in a passport. Applied for on IMM 5257. |
| eTA | Electronic Travel Authorization. The electronic entry requirement for visa exempt travellers flying to Canada. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| IMM form | The numbered IRCC application forms. IMM 0008 is the generic application for permanent residence, IMM 5257 the visitor visa, IMM 1295 the work permit from outside Canada. The full working list is in our IRCC forms guide. |
| Revision date | The date printed on an IRCC form. Submitting an old revision can have an application returned as incomplete, even when every answer is right. |
| Schedule | A numbered attachment to an application form, such as Schedule A background and declaration on IMM 5669. A schedule is part of the application, not an optional extra. |
| AOR | Acknowledgement of Receipt. The confirmation that IRCC has received a complete application and started processing it. |
| PPR | Passport request. The stage at which IRCC asks for the passport so a visa can be issued, usually a sign the decision has gone the right way. |
| Biometrics | Fingerprints and a photograph collected at a designated location, required for most temporary and permanent residence applications. |
| IME | Immigration Medical Examination, performed by an IRCC panel physician. |
| ECA | Educational Credential Assessment. A report from a designated organisation confirming that a foreign credential is equivalent to a Canadian one. |
| NOC | National Occupational Classification. The system that codes occupations, used to decide which work counts for which program. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| GCKey | The Government of Canada sign-in service used to reach many IRCC online accounts. |
| APR Portal | The Authorized Paid Representatives Portal, where representatives submit certain applications on behalf of clients. |
| PR Portal | The Permanent Residence Portal, used to submit permanent residence applications online. |
| Portal filling | Typing the case into a federal web form rather than a PDF. It is the second half of the typing in most practices, and it is what our AutoFile extension exists to remove. |
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Case management | Software that holds the whole matter: documents, notes, tasks, deadlines, invoices and messages against one client, rather than scattered across a drive and an inbox. |
| Client portal | A place a client signs in to upload documents and see what is outstanding, instead of emailing attachments. |
| E-signature | Signing a document electronically. What matters is whether the signed file carries a certificate of completion, whether anyone can verify it later, and whether you are charged per signature. |
| Certificate of completion | The audit record attached to a signed document: who signed, when, from where, and the integrity hash that proves the file has not changed since. |
| Audit log | A record of who did what and when inside the system. The useful question is whether you can export it. |
| Tenant isolation | Each firm data being walled off from every other firm on the same platform. |
| Data residency | Which country the records physically sit in. Canadian privacy law does not ban storage abroad, but it holds you responsible for the data wherever it goes. |
| PIPEDA | The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the private sector privacy law that applies to most Canadian practices. |
| Law 25 | Quebec private sector privacy law, which adds its own duties including a confidentiality incident register. |
| Sub-processor | A supplier your vendor uses that touches your data. Ask for the list. Ours is published. |
| DPA | Data Processing Addendum. The contract term that sets out how a vendor may handle personal information on your behalf. |
| SOC 2 | An independent audit report on a vendor controls. Useful, expensive, and worth asking about. We are not certified yet and we say so. |
| SLA | Service level agreement. The written promise about availability and support response, and what happens when it is missed. |
If a term you keep meeting is missing, tell us and we will add it.
Meridian is made inside a working Canadian practice.