Is Vancouver ready for 52,000 more wealthy new immigrants? (UPDATE!)
An investigation by a Hong-Kong-based newspaper into Canada's immigration program for millionaire investors "has revealed the extraordinary extent to which it has become devoted to a single outcome: Helping rich mainland Chinese settle in Vancouver." Sales of Vancouver houses like this rose dramatically in 2013.
Vancouver immigration lawyer-researcher Richard Kurland and an intrepid ethnic Chinese journalist have uncovered an amazing story about how more than 45,000 wealthy Chinese are on a waiting list to come to British Columbia through the country’s “investor” immigrant program.
The number of “investor” applications from wealthy Chinese is six times higher than that for all other English-speaking countries with investor programs combined, writes Ian Young, who is now based in Vancouver after serving as international editor for the South China Morning Post, which is based in Hong Kong.
Given that 95 per cent of all Chinese migrants to British Columbia end up in Metro Vancouver, Young writes that the upward impact of so many wealthy newcomers on the city’s housing prices could be devastating, making homes even more unaffordable for the young.
Here is the lead to SCMP’s exclusive story, headlined: “Vancouver facing an influx of 45,000 more rich Chinese:”
A South China Morning Post investigation into Canada’s immigration program for millionaire investors has revealed the extraordinary extent to which it has become devoted to a single outcome: Helping rich mainland Chinese settle in Vancouver.Immigration Department data obtained by the Post suggests there was a backlog of more than 45,000 rich Chinese waiting for approval of their applications to move to British Columbia as of January last year. They are estimated to have a minimum combined wealth of C$12.9 billion (HK$90 billion).
Immigration Department data obtain by Ian Young suggests there was a backlog of more than 45,000 rich Chinese waiting for approval of their applications to move to British Columbia.The Chinese queue for British Columbia under the scheme – which halted new applications to deal with the backlog in 2012 – is about six times the combined annual applications from all nationalities to the investor migrant programs run by the US, Britain and Australia.It also holds more than twice as many Chinese immigrants as have moved to the province under the federal investor visa scheme from 2008 to 2012. This suggests the queue could sustain the current pace of millionaire migration to the city for a decade to come, even if applications remain frozen.Ottawa has vowed that the applications will be processed and few are typically rejected.The queue of millionaires at Vancouver’s doorstep has major implications in a city where housing is rated the second-least affordable in the world, behind Hong Kong. Census data shows 96 per cent of all recent Chinese immigrants to British Columbia live in greater Vancouver and the proportion among the wealthy is even higher….
Ian Young’s far-reaching story is the latest in his informal series on immigration and housing prices in Metro Vancouver. He’s forging ahead on this crucial subject even as most realtors and journalists in Canada continue to write about housing with virtually no reference to the effects of immigration or foreign investors.
I am especially surprised that most real estate columnists and reporters at The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star continue to write about housing prices without linking them at all to immigration, even while 48 per cent of Metro Toronto residents are born outside the country. What explains this blind spot? Is the subject an unspoken taboo in Canada?
RELATED: Chinese millionaires unfazed by Canadian rejection: People’s Daily(Story refers to Canada as a “vast empty polar nation.” But 95 per cent of Chinese immigrants to B.C. move to Vancouver.)
This SCMP graphic shows that six times more rich Chinese have applied to immigrate to Canada than residents of all other countries combined.
Here are a few more facts on wealthy immigrant applicants from Ian Young:
Ottawa has pledged to process the backlog of federal applications. Under the scheme’s current rules, principal applicants worth a minimum of C$1.6 million must loan the Canadian government C$800,000, interest-free, for five years. They and family members can later apply for citizenship.The overall queue for federal investor visas included 57,308 applications lodged in Hong Kong and Beijing, according to an Immigration Department spreadsheet obtained by the Post, dated January 8, 2013. That is more than 75 per cent of the whole queue, and separate provincial arrival data indicates about 99 per cent of the applicants {from HK and Beijing} are mainland Chinese.…. Chinese immigrants planning to settle in British Columbia made up 65 per cent of all applications to the popular wealth migration scheme in 2011.
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