Wednesday 3 December 2014

“Slim pickings for China’s immigration industry in Canada’s new investor migration scheme”


“For years, Canada’s immigrant investor programme was the Chinese immigration industry’s cash cow. A money tree. A goose that popped out golden eggs like a tennis ball machine.
Big commissions (more on this below) and a seemingly endless supply of mainland millionaires covetous of Canadian passports made the scheme the Chinese consultants’ favourite. So when it was axed this year, all eyes were on the promised replacement – would it offer similarly rewarding opportunities?
The new scheme has not been formally unveiled yet – expect that in coming weeks – but sources familiar with the government’s plans are now giving a good idea of what to expect. And it’s fair to say that immigration minister Chris Alexander is being crossed off a lot of Christmas card lists in China.”
“Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the government was targeting total investments of C$120 million (HK$820 million) under the scheme, with each applicant contributing C$1 million to C$2 million. That implies an intake of 60 to 120.

Fifty, 60 or 120 – it matters not at all, compared to the vast scale of the old IIP, which brought about 37,000 rich immigrants to BC from 2005 to 2012. When it was formally scrapped in June, 60,000 would-be millionaire migrants in the years-long queue had their applications dumped too; about 40,000 of those were likely bound for Vancouver.

The new venture capital scheme looks like being so minuscule as to serve little more purpose than allowing the government to keep its promise to replace the IIP. It certainly won’t provide viable access to Canada for the bulk of the dumped IIP applicants.”

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