Q&A with Chris Alexander, Canadian Minister for Citizenship and Immigration

What were the main reasons for scrapping the immigrant investment visa?

First, it was a programme that wasn’t meeting its objectives. In 1986 when it was established, it did serve some of the purposes for which it was designed and we’re very proud of the investors that actually did come to Canada, resided in Canada, have became Canadian citizens and have contributed strongly.

Secondly, there have been a large number of people, who qualified under the programme, who didn’t reside in Canada. And that really wasn’t an issue so much in Hong Kong and for Hong Kong applicants as it was for mainland applicants and some from elsewhere in the world.

That meant that when we measured the results of our progress because we follow up on immigrants that come to Canada. We look at how they’re doing in terms of education, employment. The results weren’t good compared to our other economic immigration programmes and finally we also thought it had serious shortcomings in terms of the impact the so-called investment was having. It wasn’t really an investment. It was a loan, strictly speaking, to the government of Canada, which was then distributed among the provinces.

And last time we did the numbers, only about half of the resources distributed to the provinces had been actually invested in productive projects. So the amount was small. The investment performance was weak. We think there are much better ways of attracting investors to Canada and putting their resources to work.

I guess I’d add a fourth reason why it was not a great programme. There was a long backlog. It was going to take a minimum of six to seven years, for some people nine to 10 years, to come through the programme. For busy people with investments, with projects, with careers on the go, and often at the most intense points in their careers, that wasn’t fair.

What were the programme objectives were and how long had they not been met?