If half of the people who got the invitation have a spouse:
[ 2,500 (ppl) x $1,365 (processing fee + RPRF) ] + [ 5,000 (ppl) x $1,365 (processing fee + RPRF) ] = $10,237,500
Not a bad trade for the government. Of course, there are still many on the waiting list...
That's a lot of money for sure but those who have done a bit of finance are familiar with a concept called "CLV", customer lifetime value. Meaning all the economic value of a costumer over the whole engagement period. Here it could be called immigrant lifetime value
)) see...the point is that as long as a potential immigrant is out of country they have all interest in bringing them in as soon as possible as they bring lots of money initially with themselves which application fees are peanuts in comparison. We all have an idea how much money we brough from home and spent here. The requirement of "previous Canadian experience" ( a mere joke ) for new commers to find jobs has been designed exactly to keep the new comer unemployed as much as tolerable since they will spend their savings here in Canadian economy before they become a tax payer.
For those who come in without PR however, the magic is to keep them in limbo as long as possible, for same reason. Lola or Lily shared a very eye opening article around last week which I recommend reading. Withing the article there was a link to a page describing how many temporary residents ( worker/student) become PR and after how long. That was very astonishing to see only 30% of them become PR withing 10 years of first coming to Canada !!! Yes you read that right ...10 years. The same graph shows about 15% or so become PR withing first 5 years ! There we go ! And this stat belongs to pre-pandemic era.
So in short, priority is to bring in as much as NEW MONEY as possible, and as soon as possible.