How rich Chinese migrants to British Columbia get away with destination deception
Applicants state preference for one province, 'change minds' on arrival in another and right to freedom of movement means it's hard to stop them
Immigration experts have described the ease with which thousands of rich arrivals have been deceiving Canadian authorities about the province in which they intend to live, with enforcement of destination pledges being trumped by constitutional rights to freedom of movement.
The scale of deception has been revealed by a South China Morning Post investigation into the troubled Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), the federal version of which was shut down in June, although Quebec's provincial version continues to operate.
The Post found that 53 per cent of the 29,764 investor immigrants from the mainland, Hong Kong or Taiwan who activated their permanent residency in British Columbia (BC) from 2005 to 2012 did so after telling authorities they would live in a different province. It has cost BC access to more than C$2 billion (HK$14 billion) in no-interest loans, which are made by investor immigrants to Canada and are divided among the provinces according to immigrants' stated destination, not their actual destination.
Vancouver immigration lawyer Peter Larlee said those on all sides of the industry - including government officials - were aware of the deception, although he expressed surprise at the scale.
He said that in addition to missing out on loans from rich immigrants, BC was shouldering costs associated with their settlement without appropriate federal funding. "This second aspect is that the federal government has settlement programmes and those settlement funds for ESL [English as a second language] schooling and grants to aid agencies are based on declared province of destination," he said.