By Global News |
Quebec just made it a little harder for wealthy immigrants to walk through a back door into Vancouver and Toronto real estate.
By Global News |
Quebec just made it a little harder for wealthy immigrants to walk through a back door into Vancouver and Toronto real estate.
On Wednesday, the provincial government announced changes that make it a touch harder to qualify for the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP), a program that offers permanent residency in exchange for making an investment in the province.
The program once required applicants to hold net assets of $1.6 million and make an interest-free investment of $800,000 that would be returned to them after five years.
Those requirements have been tweaked, according to the Gazette Officielle du Quebec, which announces new laws and regulations.
The Gazette states that applicants must now have net worth of $2 million and make an interest-free investment of $1.2 million — which is still returned to them five years later.
Other requirements — that applicants must intend to reside in Quebec, that they must have management experience, that they be 18 years old and qualify to immigrate to the province under its points system — stay the same.
If applicants meet these qualifications, they may receive a Quebec Selection Certificate (CSQ), and then obtain permanent residency from the federal government.
But these are just the latest tweaks to a program that has come under fire for creating a “trampoline effect” that has seen wealthy immigrants arrive in Quebec, obtain permanent residency and then move to other parts of the country, mainly Vancouver and Toronto. More than 46,000 applicants have already taken this route to these cities, and their housing markets.