Permanent residents are selected based on economic, family, or refugee/humanitarian grounds. Economic class targets skilled workers; family class is for sponsored relatives; protected persons are refugees. This is the legal basis for Canada's three immigration streams.
(1)A foreign national may be selected as a member of the family class on the basis of their relationship as the spouse, common-law partner, child, parent or other prescribed family member of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
(2)A foreign national may be selected as a member of the economic class on the basis of their ability to become economically established in Canada.
(3)A foreign national, inside or outside Canada, may be selected as a person who under this Act is a Convention refugee or as a person in similar circumstances, taking into account Canada’s humanitarian tradition with respect to the displaced and the persecuted.