Immigrant investments in PEI firms for Canada citizenship

Canada, 10th May: Findings of recent report have highlighted discrepancies in a Prince Edward Island’s immigrant nominee program.

The report by students of journalist at the University of King’s College states several non-profit organizations were successful in creating new firms to meet the eligibility criteria of the PEI immigrant program for funding. But, these firms did not bother to include immigrant investors’ names in their board of directors.

Investments for Canada permanent residency—Immigrants willingly invested their money in PEI (Prince Edward Island) firms while knowing the fact that they won’t control these firms. And all these immigrants never got any return on their investments.

However, they were successful in becoming Canada permanent residents due to the immigrant partner program of PEI, maintains the report published in Chronicle-Herald and the Huffington Post.

During the period of 2006 to 2011, more than 3,000 foreigners came to PEI under the immigration program. Many had no knowledge about the procedure or the requirements of the program.

Consider, for instance, the case of Yue from Shanghai. She was attracted to Prince Edward Island and did not waste any time in applying for PEI’s provincial nominee program. The only thing she was aware was that she will have to sign some documents and pay $150,000.

She was informed that if she fulfilled federal and provincial requisites, she would become eligible for becoming Canada permanent resident. And after staying in PEI for a period of one year (and clear English language tests), she will get funds to the tune of $45,000 back.

PEI immigrants moved to other places--The immigrant program lured thousands of foreigners to come to PEI. Many of these immigrants hailed from the Middle East and China. They signed a heap of documents in English even without understanding them due to lack of English knowledge.

They don’t have any records of investments made by them in PEI firms or any legal copies of the signed documents with them.

After coming to PEI, a large number of such immigrants moved to other places in Canada.

Moreover, some immigrant investors never came here, says the reports. Out of 1,065 immigrant nominees, only 368 arrived in PEI in the year 2009.

And immigrants who did not stay in the PEI for one year lost their investments of $25,000. The report also highlighted that in some instances, non-profit organization made huge profits through creation of wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Such organizations did not have any eligibility for investments from the immigrant nominee program.