Canada's new millionaire visa scheme 'will only accept 50 applicants per year'
Tiny scheme would thwart 45,000 rich Chinese who were dumped from investor immigration queue
Canada looks set to replace its immigrant investor programme with a tiny new scheme approving just a few dozen applicants per year, immigration industry sources said, dashing the hopes of thousands of Chinese millionaires whose applications were scrapped when the IIP was halted in June.
Two sources said they were consulted by Canada’s immigration ministry in recent months and were told the new scheme would only accept 50 applicants plus dependents annually.
The IIP - which required applicants worth a minimum of C$1.6 million to loan Canada C$800,000 interest free for five years - had become the world’s most popular means of wealth migration, allowing tens of thousands of rich Hongkongers and mainlanders into Canada over its 28-year history. But it recently attracted far more applications than could be processed, and Ottawa announced it would be axed in February’s federal budget.
When it was finally scrapped in summer, about 60,000 rich applicants and dependents, including some 45,000 mainland Chinese, were dumped from the queue. A replacement scheme was promised by the government in the budget.
But sources said the new scheme, widely expected to be unveiled in the next few weeks, would be insignificant in comparison to the IIP.
Both sources said they had the impression the scheme was only being rolled out to allow the government to keep its promise that the IIP would be replaced.