We did some digging when we were writing that article. We requested a couple of ATIPs. From what I saw in an ATIP from 2024, there was an IRCC ministerial instruction to halt all STEM draws sometime in 2024. I believe it said that there were no STEM draws that should have been conducted past the summer, but there was no justification provided in that ATIP. I can go back and look to see if I can find more data, but there was no information provided there.
This doesn't even begin to cover the entire issue, because the bigger part is that 19 core STEM occupations were also removed from the category, which is.... When we talk about Canada becoming a competitive nation compared to the United States in topics such as artificial development and building data centres or becoming a leading nation in terms of technology, how are we doing that if we have removed every single occupation that is related to that direction from the STEM category? IRCC has not provided a single documented fact regarding why they are choosing to pause STEM. I genuinely have no clue. I'd be lying to you if I told you that I knew.