New Canada Immigrant Investor Program Re-Opens on December 1st, 2010

• Posted on Nov 15, 2010
• In Canada

New Canadian federal Immigrant Investor Program will bring to Canada more resources to fund economic development and job creation initiatives.

Earlier today, Canada Gazette, the official newspaper of the Government of Canada announced the re-opening of the New Canadian Immigrant Investor Program, effective on December 1st, 2010. Citizenship and Immigration Canada will once again start accepting applications under the Federal Immigrant Investor Program but this time under the new regulations.

Under the new Canadian Investor Immigration Program criteria, clients must:

• have a personal net worth of CAD $1,600,000, up from CAD $800,000 under the old criteria,
• make an investment of CAD $800,000, up from CAD $400,000 as previously required.

According to Minister Kenney, these changes were necessary as the requirements had not been increased in more than a decade and were not in pace with the changing economy.

Canada’s old immigrant investor criteria were the lowest when compared to other countries with similar programs, as a consequence, application intake has almost tripled since 2007 and application inventories have increased significantly. The new criteria will now position Canada inline with other immigrant investor receiving countries.

Benefits of the new criteria

• Attract experienced businesspeople who can make a more substantial contribution to the economy
• Higher personal net worth criteria mean the program is now better positioned to attract investors with valuable business links and the resources to make secondary investments in the Canadian economy
• Higher investment amounts mean provinces and territories will receive more investment capital to put toward job creation and economic development projects

The Canada Immigrant investor program was suspended in June, in part because the high volume of applications was leading to wait times that were too long. By stopping applications between June 26, 2010, and December of this year, the government prevented further delays.

Applications received on or after December 1 will be subject to the new criteria and will be processed alongside the old ones in a 2:1 case-processing ratio of inventory applications to new applications received since the regulatory change.

Canada’s Immigrant Investor Program offers several benefits to international investors, including permanent resident status up front and guaranteed repayment of the investment.

Canada Immigrant Investor Program compared to others

Canada’s old IIP criteria had not changed since 1999 and had become underpriced on the international market when compared to other countries with similar programs (see below).

The new criteria will position Canada’s program more inline with other immigrant investor receiving countries, while still offering investors the competitive advantages of up-front permanent resident status and guaranteed repayment of their investment.

For further comparison of the Immigrant Investor Programs we offer, see our Immigrant Investor Comparison Matrix.

Quebec Immigrant Investor Program

Quebec announced its own moratorium on investor applications on October 13th, and like the federal moratorium, this suspension is expected to be lifted on December 1st, to harmonize the two programs as required by the Canada-Quebec Accord. An official announcement from the MICC is expected in the coming days.

Ready to submit new files

Our teams around the world are carefully studying the updated procedures and preparing the new forms. We know that there are many clients ready to invest under the new federal program, so we would like to ensure all our consultants that we will be ready to prepare files for submission as early as next week. We will also have all the forms and procedures ready for already submitted client files, who wish to be switched to the new program.

Furthermore, the new financing and commission levels will be finalized and announced. We will be contacting each of our partners to arrange the signing of new agreements to ensure that Arton Capital and PWM Capital maintain and extend our relationships with all our partners and their clients and continue to meet and exceed your expected standards of excellence, while supporting you with the finest package to the benefit of all.

More information

For more information, please contact our team at the geographic location closest to you.