Canada to streamline immigrant investor program

Canada, 16th April: Canada is going to introduce reforms to its immigrant investor program shortly.

This has been revealed by Canada immigration minister Jason Kenney. Giving details about the plans, Kenney said that the popular immigrant investor program is out-of-date and needs immediate reforms. He was speaking addressing financiers at a roundtable conference in Vancouver Friday.

Revamp of Canada immigrant investor program—A law will be introduced by Canada to make changes to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This will equip Kenney with greater powers to make changes to special immigrant programs in accordance with their success rates and their current demand.

Among these will include luring more foreign investors to come to Canada under Canada immigrant investor program, Kenney clarified. For this, nationwide consultations will begin with territorial and provincial colleagues as well as stakeholders(businesses) to bring desired changes to Canada immigrant investor program, Kenney affirmed.

Market needs of an economy keep changing calling for need to change its immigration programs accordingly. Canada cannot accept its role of a passive player in the international competition for investment and global talent. So, it must accept the need for immediate reforms to Canada immigration rules to chalk out dynamic immigration schemes that benefit Canadian economy, he asserted.

Canada must increase income threshold--The nation needs to increase its investment thresholds for allowing fast-track Canada permanent residency. Currently, any foreigner wanting to come to Canada under Canada immigrant investor program need to invest $800,000 as compared to other nations where prospective immigrant investors need to make investments to the tune of nearly $1.6 million.

Only then can it assure valuable contributions of the immigrant investor program to Canadian economy. As of now, Canada immigrant investor program is attracting large number of foreign investors resulting in higher immigration backlogs.

Moreover, some of Canadian provinces cannot use the cash obtained as foreign investments in the best possible manner since they have to repay the cash back to federal government after five years.

Canada immigrant investor program is highly popular among foreign investors and attracts wealthy investors from far and wide including those from London, Hong Kong, Damascus, Seoul and Taipei.

This is despite the fact that Canada increased the minimum investment limit to $1.6 million annually from the earlier $400,000.