A member received a Notice of Interest based on an Ontario Tech Draw, with an Express Entry profile eligible for both CEC and FSW, and asked which stream to register under with OINP.
What the thread clarified:- CEC is generally the preferred/first-priority stream when you're eligible for it. Members were direct: if your profile qualifies under CEC, choose that over FSW when registering with OINP.
- CEC eligibility is tied to accumulating a full year of qualifying Canadian work experience — if your NOI arrived just before you technically completed that year, there's genuine ambiguity about which stream you're actually eligible to register under at that specific moment, and this wasn't fully resolved in the thread.
- Running a PNP (non-Express Entry) process and a CEC process simultaneously was raised as a question but not conclusively answered — if this applies to you, verify directly rather than assuming either way.
The practical takeaway: when eligible for both, register under CEC over FSW with OINP — but if your qualifying year of Canadian work experience completes right around the time of your NOI, double-check your actual eligibility timing before registering, since this specific edge case wasn't clearly resolved.