[加拿大新聞] Chris Alexander says Canada's doors still open to rich Chinese Chinese, Chris

Quest

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ ... h-chinese-1.2537826

Even though the Conservative government froze and then cancelled the Immigrant Investor Program, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander is still wooing Chinese millionaires.

Alexander used an interview with the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong earlier this week to invite wealthy Chinese to find new ways to enter Canada in the wake of the cancellation.

"What we are saying to them is that all of our other immigration programs are available to you. Find the one that fits best for your situation," the English-language newspaper quoted him as saying.

The controversial IIP offered visas to business people with a net worth of at least $1.6 million who were willing to lend $800,000 to the Canadian government — for investment across Canada — for a term of five years.

Alexander said there was a backlog of eight or nine years in applications, about 59,000 when the government froze applications worldwide in 2012.

The majority of these were from wealthy mainland Chinese business people, according to the SCMP.

No surprise

Alexander said the scheme had been open to fraud, including the practice of applying for a Canadian passport by people who had no intention of living in Canada.

"No one should be surprised that we took this action. It reflects our approach to immigration as a whole … we want to tackle abuse and fraud wherever we find it," he was quoted as saying.

But Alexander told the paper he did not want wealthy Chinese to feel unwelcome.

He invited them to apply under a new Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Fund plan or a business skills option the government plans to launch later this year.

Both were announced in Tuesday’s federal budget, the same document that cancelled the IIP.

fibbi

Not that I "agree" wealthy mainlanders "flooded" to Canada but I don't really like the idea of stopping the program. Instead they can increase the investment amount. In the end, Canada does benefit from those $$. As regards to those people who invest and don't like to stay and pay tax. After all, Canada already benefit from the investment $, why do they need to care about the immigrant not paying tax and such, as long as they don't take the benefit? I guess just need to have rules that investment immigrant can't get benefit for certain years then I don't see any loss for us.

And I don't really "agree" the govt raise the English requirement for the citizenship test either. They should have screened the people during application stage. There is interview during application and if at that time the English is not good enough just reject them from immigrating to Canada. Why allowing them to come and then raise the English requirement later on? And need to take the citizenship test up to the age of 64? Come on, if I ask people over 60 to learn a new language, it would be really tough. Don't forget that they are people immigrating to Canada by family reunion and they may not know English well enough to begin with.

4boybun

They actually are tightening the rules rather than stopping all investment program.  On top of increasing the amount,  new rules require an applicant to come up with action plans in doing business and etc.   I think this is a wise move to the goodness of Canada as a whole.

布小熊

I think the new program will hopefully attract more new immigrate who really want to invest, stay and be Canadians.