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Minister plugs Canada’s immigration plans
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CANADA’S Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander visited China last week to promote his country as a destination for businessmen, students and tourists.
He also used the opportunity to try to allay the fears of local people following Ottawa’s decision to terminate its “Immigrant Investor” and “Entrepreneur” programs.
Speaking on Saturday in Shanghai, Alexander said the main reason for discontinuing the immigration programs was the huge backlog, which meant people were having to wait for up to 10 years to have their applications processed.
“We think these programs, which are 20 or 30 years old, are not necessarily the right ones for today,” he said.
China remains the largest market for Canadian immigration programs, which was the reason Alexander choose it as his first destination after becoming citizenship minister, he said.
Since the government came to power in Canada eight years ago it has sought to restructure its immigration programs to build a faster and smarter system that will enable it to recruit the people it really needs, he said.
While several of the outdated schemes will be withdrawn, several new ones will be introduced, he said.
These include the immigrant investor venture capital pilot, which will require larger investments — of more than double the previous program’s C$800,000 (US$713,000) — in selected projects, he said.
Anyone that are currently waiting for their application for the investor or entrepreneur applicants to be processed will be allowed to transfer to one of the new schemes as soon as they are launched.
Would-be immigrants also have other options, such as the provincial nominee programs and Quebec investor program, which accepts 1,750 applications a year, with a maximum of 1,200 from any one country, Alexander said.
Also, from next year, all immigration applications will be processed within six months, which is much faster than at present, he said.
A total of 34,000 Chinese people became permanent Canadian residents last year, and the minister said he hopes the faster processing system will attract even more in the future.
Despite Alexander’s optimism, many people in China are skeptical about the changes. According to some reports, of the 66,000 applications set to be terminated because of the system changes, 57,000 are from Chinese people.
Owen Hu, chief executive of Majorline Consulting Group China, which helps people seeking to relocate overseas, said although some clients have expressed disappointment about the Canadian policy changes, the revisions were not unexpected.
Higher threshold
“Fewer and fewer clients are choosing Canada as a destination for immigration as it has been tightening its immigration policy for years,” he said.
In 2010, Ottawa doubled its minimum requirement for investor applicants to C$800,000 and the federal investor program has actually been suspended since 2012, when a large number of applications from skilled workers were deleted in a bid to reduce the backlog, he said.
“The threshold to become a permanent resident or citizen is getting higher, and that has discouraged people,” Hu said.
Wang Yang, 36, a financial professional from Shanghai, said he applied for the Manitoba provincial nominee program when he inquired about moving to Canada with his wife and 4-year-old daughter.
“I think the cost of immigrating will go up, so I decided to do it now,” he said, adding that he has prepared all of the necessary documents and will submit his application next month.
But applying for a program is no guarantee of success.
Zhao Changyun, a 38-year-old manager of a real estate firm in Nanjing, said she was devastated when her application was shelved last year.
After becoming pregnant at the start of last year, Zhao and her husband applied for the Brunswick nominee program because of its straightforward procedures and low financial requirements. But after preparing all of the paperwork, she was told in November that the program had been halted.
Zhao said she and her husband have not yet decided whether to give up on the idea of immigration or seek an alternative program.
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