Millionaires left out due to Canada immigration backlog

Canada, 8th October: Canada immigration officials admit around 22,500 international millionaires are left out of Canada due to long immigration backlogs.

These international potential immigrants could have helped Canadian economy by providing around $9 million into the nation, the immigration officials maintained.

Foreign investors face long Canada immigration backlogs—As a result of long waiting periods in Canada immigration processing, around 22,491 millionaire foreign investors have no option but to wait for getting Canada visa, stated a federal immigration program manager at Canadian consulate in Hong Kong, Jim Versteegh.

And these international millionaires are going to bring along 77,800 family members in Canada.

However, Canada still needs some plan to help them come to Canada, he quipped. He informed that in Hong Kong alone, around 16,400 millionaires await the opportunity to move to Canada due to long immigration backlogs.

As per the information obtained by advocate Richard Kurland under the request for Access to Information, it’s going to take another 12 years before such a long immigration backlog of foreign investors can be cleared.

Huge immigration backlogs mean losing millionaires to other nations--Every year, Canada immigration department processes just 2,000 applications under the Canada investor visa program each year. And the number of Canada investor visa applications awaiting approval is 16,400.

Losing millionaires who are going to bring $9 billion cash for Canadian economy is a big loss, Kurland stated, keeping in view the fact that Canada is facing a tough competition from neighboring nations trying to allure foreign investors.

Since, many foreigner millionaires are not willing to keep waiting for such a long time before getting Canada visas, so, they are opting to move to other nations like the US, Australia or some other European nations, Kurland maintained.

Every foreign investor coming to Canada has to bring $400,000 in cash for getting Canada visa for his family members subject to their clearing of background and medical checks, Kurland informed.

Such hard cash brought in by immigrant investors could help in cutting back deficit and creating new jobs in Canada, Kurland informed. But, the predicament of Canada immigration officials is that they cannot process more than 2,000 Canada immigration applications in a year due to time involved in verifying the source of funds.