By Staff Reporter, The Province | Link to Article
Canada is reportedly only willing to accept 50 applicants a year in a drastically reduced immigrant investor program, reports the South China Morning Post.
By Staff Reporter, The Province | Link to Article
Canada is reportedly only willing to accept 50 applicants a year in a drastically reduced immigrant investor program, reports the South China Morning Post.
Quoting two unnamed immigration sources, the paper wrote, “Canada looks set to replace its immigrant investor program with a tiny new scheme approving just a few dozen applicants per year, … dashing the hopes of thousands of Chinese millionaires whose applications were scrapped when the IIP was halted in June.”
The program was long seen as a way of encouraging foreign investors to bolster Canada’s economy, but was also controversial — critics charged that the program allowed wealthy foreigners to buy their way into Canada.
“The IIP … had become the world’s most popular means of wealth migration, allowing tens of thousands of rich Hongkongers and mainlanders into Canada over its 28-year history,” reported the influential Hong Kong-based news organization. “But it recently attracted far more applications than could be processed, and Ottawa announced it would be axed in February’s federal budget.
“When it was finally scrapped in summer, about 60,000 rich applicants and dependents, including some 45,000 mainland Chinese, were dumped from the queue. A replacement scheme was promised by the government in the budget.”
The newspaper said sources revealed the replacement program “would be insignificant in comparison to the IIP.”
The paper quoted one unnamed source identifying the target immigrant goal as only about four dozen.
“What I was told was that this was a pilot project for 50 spots. The only reason they are rolling it out at all is because it was mentioned in the budget that they would, so they had to go ahead with it,” said one source.
“I think it’s being done out of a sense of obligation.”
The second unnamed source also put the immigrant investor target at just 50.
“Fifty seems like just kind of an experiment … you achieve the political outcome of being seen to do something, but you do it in such a small way that it cannot cause a huge embarrassment.”
Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland told the paper that wealthy citizens still have other options if they are determined to emigrate to Canada.
“The reality is, if you have English-language skills and you are a successful business person with a lot of capital, you can likely find your way into Canada, with some sound professional advice,” Kurland said.
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