Exclusive | Vancouver’s high property prices not linked to Chinese investor migrants, says minister

Canada’s immigration minister has rejected the notion that tens of thousands of millionaire investor migrants, mostly Chinese, who converged on Vancouver in recent years were linked to the city’s sky-high property market.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Chris Alexander said the government had had “absolutely no concern” about the impact of the Immigrant Investor Programme on the westcoast city’s housing prices.

The 28-year-old visa scheme, which had a backlog of 65,000 applicants, was axed by Canada on Tuesday. That was less than a week after the Post revealed how the massive queue had been created in the Hong Kong consulate, which was inundated with applications from rich mainlanders.

The dumped applications will include those of an estimated 45,500 mainland Chinese queuing via Hong Kong, of whom 80 per cent were bound for British Columbia, according to the Post’s analysis of immigration department data. The axing of the scheme has led to fears that it could shake the housing market in Vancouver, where 96 per cent of recent Chinese immigrants to BC settle.

“We look at all factors but there was absolutely no concern,” Alexander said on Wednesday, when asked whether the government believed the axed scheme had boosted property prices in Vancouver. “We have only been admitting 5,000 or so people under this programme and our entrepreneur programme in recent years. These represented … less than 2 per cent of overall immigration.”