American edtech company Duolingo lobbied Ottawa for approval as an official language test provider for immigration applications, but was ultimately unsuccessful in its attempts. <\/p>\n
Lobbying records show that Duolingo, which offers popular online language courses, was trying to get its online-only English test accepted by the federal immigration department as one of the approved language tests for the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot, or EMPP, an immigration stream that grants permanent residency to high-skilled international refugees. <\/p>\n
Federal approval of a digital language test could potentially help scores of prospective migrants from war-torn regions with no access to physical language test centres to complete their immigration applications, which require proof of English or French competency. <\/p>\n
Immigration department halts skilled refugee jobs program, leaving employers in limbo<\/a><\/p>\n Current rules around language tests at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada do not allow for remote online testing, and decree that applicants need to perform a test in person at designated testing centres across the world. There are three English tests and two French tests currently accepted by IRCC, including the International English Language Testing System, or IELTS, test. <\/p>\n Federal lobbying records show that representatives of Duolingo met with IRCC officials five times between August and December, 2025, to discuss \u201cimprovements\u201d to the EMPP program, including the merits of digital language testing options. The lobbying records also stated that Duolingo had discussions with IRCC about English testing for federal immigration programs more broadly. <\/p>\n Two sources close to Duolingo said that government officials were concerned about the integrity of Duolingo\u2019s online tests, specifically how to ensure that the person performing the online test was actually the applicant themselves. The sources spoke to The Globe on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by their employers to speak about internal lobbying efforts.<\/p>\n Ottawa shakes up immigration system to bring in military recruits<\/a><\/p>\n Duolingo language courses and tests soared in popularity during the pandemic, when most countries were under strict lockdown and remote learning became the norm. The Duolingo English Test (DET) eventually became widely accepted by many colleges and universities in Canada, Britain and the U.S. as a language proficiency test for international students. In 2021, Ireland began accepting the DET as part of study visa applications. <\/p>\n In an e-mail, Duolingo\u2019s Canada spokesperson Marlene Olsavsky said that the company was no longer in conversation with IRCC, and declined to elaborate on whether its lobbying efforts might resume. <\/p>\n For Hamdan Albuhaisi, a Palestinian citizen residing in the Gaza Strip, IRCC\u2019s requirement that language tests have to be performed in person at a designated testing centre has affected his application for the EMPP program \u2013 and now become the subject of a judicial review in federal court. <\/p>\n Launched in 2018, the EMPP program was specifically designed to attract skilled immigrants who are designated as displaced persons or refugees by the UN Refugee Agency. Recently, Ottawa temporarily suspended the program, along with a number of other immigration streams, owing to mounting application backlogs. The EMPP stopped accepting applications<\/a> at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n Mr. Albuhaisi is a UNRWA-registered refugee with a master\u2019s degree in computing systems from Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He applied for Canadian permanent residency through the EMPP program in June, 2025, when it was still accepting applications. But he was ultimately rejected because he was unable to submit an accepted English language test, according to submissions made by his lawyer in federal court last year. He launched a judicial review of IRCC\u2019s decision late last year, and also filed an appeal directly to IRCC on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. <\/p>\n Mr. Albuhaisi, who is fluent in English and has worked for the United Nations for more than a decade, took the online Duolingo English Test and submitted its results to IRCC, court documents state, because no IRCC-approved English tests were available in Gaza. His DET score, when measured against the Canadian Language Benchmark, or CLB \u2013 a yardstick IRCC uses to determine language competency \u2013 far surpassed IRCC\u2019s minimum standards for qualification. <\/p>\n