Exclusive | Exclusive: How mainland Chinese millionaires overwhelmed Canada's visa scheme

Applications by tens of thousands of mainland millionaires flooded Canada's consulate in Hong Kong and overwhelmed the country's investor immigrant programme, an investigation by the South China Morning Post has revealed.

Canadian immigration department spreadsheets obtained by the Post show how the huge number of applications forced the government in Ottawa to freeze the world's most popular wealth-based migration scheme. One document, dated January 8 last year, showed there was a backlog of 53,580 Hong Kong-based applications for Canadian federal investor visas.

That represented more than 70 per cent of the global backlog.

And attempts by Ottawa in 2010 to tighten access to the coveted visas by doubling the wealth criteria had the effect of increasing Chinese domination.

In 2011, applications sent to the Hong Kong consulate made up 86 per cent of the global total.

Analysis of arrival data suggests that about 99 per cent of applications in Hong Kong were lodged by mainlanders. Under the scheme's current limits, applicants worth at least C$1.6 million (HK$11.2 million) receive residency if they "invest" C$800,000 in the form of a five-year interest-free loan to Canada.