Wealthy Chinese migrant hopefuls to sue Canada

Over 1,300 Chinese millionaire applicants for Ottawa’s immigration investor programme are to sue Canada’s immigration authority after the programme was abruptly cancelled.

According to a report in the South China Morning Post, each of the millionaires in the class action is demanding compensation of CA$4.57 million. The amount represents 2.5 times the amount of investment guaranteeing a residence visa .

Should the government agree to continue assessing their applications, the suit will be withdrawn, according to their lawyer, Toronto-based Tim Leahy. All the litigants are residents on the Chinese mainland, and all had already submitted their applications before the programme was closed without notice.

The long-running immigrant investor programme allowed wealthy foreigners to effectively purchase rights to Canada’s health plan and education systems as permanent residents. The initial cost was a three-year loan to the provincial government of CA$800,000, plus a proveable net worth of CA1.6 million or more.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs are claiming that immigration officials deliberately slowed down their assessments for some two years before the programme was cancelled in order to restrict the number of approvals. Over 60,000 would-be immigrant investors were trapped in the massive backlog as a result of the slowdown, with Chinese applicants making up 80 per cent of the number.

Many of the unsuccessful applicants had already purchased luxury homes in Canada for themselves and their families. When the news of the cancellation of the programme broke, local real estate agents protested that they’d been left with many uncompleted sales and worthless contracts.