P.E.I.’s defunct immigrant investor program under new attack by Chinese citizens

Canada's immigrant investor programs seem like a win-win, at least on the surface.

The Canadian economy, especially in areas outside immigrant hubs like Toronto and Vancouver, gets an infusion of capital while foreigners can use their money to help establish themselves here.

But the devil's in the details, they say, and the shambolic immigrant investor programs in Atlantic Canada seem to prove that.

The latest example is the anger among Chinese citizens who committed money under a program run by Prince Edward Island, only to see the federal government reject their visa applications.

Which is fine, except that they've been waiting two years to have their money refunded, The Canadian Press reports.

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Qiu Chuanbo said he invested $91,000 through the provincial program and the delayed refund has hurt him financially.

"After going through this, I became very angry," he told The Canadian Press from his home in Dalian, China. "The government is too slow, too unreasonable. I think my money should have been refunded long ago."

The provincial government wouldn't comment on Qiu's case or others, but said there is a trust fund to refund some of each applicant's money.

However, Qiu said he's become distrustful of Canadian officials after the lack of response from the province and from immigration consultants.

He said Canadian relatives and friends of rejected applicants may stage a protest in Charlottetown later this month to pressure the government to return their money.

Qiu said he handed over a total of $152,500 in 2008 that was supposed to be invested in a P.E.I. business. He expected to get shares and permission to immigrate to Canada.

But in 2010, Citizenship and Immigration Canada rejected his application, saying his documentation wasn't good enough. He received back two deposits and some fees paid to a Chinese consultant but said he's still owed $90,975, The Canadian Press said.

Another man who was accepted under P.E.I.'s nominee program in 2008, only to be rejected by Ottawa two years later, has been refunded only $45,000 of the $150,000 he invested, his brother in Toronto, Andy Hu, told The Canadian Press.

P.E.I.'s immigration director, Jamie Aiken, said rejected applications may eventually get payments of about $55,000 from a $9-million trust fund, but the province first needs to ensure the money's there.

"We want to make sure there is sufficient coverage (in the fund)," Aiken said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

But he added the money won't be freed up until Ottawa has completed processing a backlog of some 2,627 applications from would-be immigrants accepted under the program between 2007 and 2008.

A spokeswoman for federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the department warned the province in 2008 that there would be lengthy delays because of the unusually large number of applicants.

"P.E.I's mismanagement of the provincial nominee program affected the integrity of Canada's immigration system," said Alexis Pavlich.

"But hopefully it hasn't caused irreparable damage to Canada's reputation overseas for prospective immigrants."

Qiu and Hu say they should get back the balance of their investment, not just $55,000. But Aiken said any refunds above that amount depend on private agreements set up between each immigrant and the intermediary companies they dealt with.

The National Post reported last December that more than $500 million had flowed into P.E.I. businesses, immigration consultants, lawyers and government coffers by the time the program ended in 2008.

But critics alleged the program was rife with fraud and mismanagement, which diluted its impact on the economy, the Post said.

P.E.I.'s program wasn't the only one in trouble. Last fall, the New Brunswick government called in the RCMP to investigate its Chinese immigrant investor program, which shut down in 2010 amid a flurry of lawsuits, the Post said.

And Nova Scotia settled a $30-million class-action lawsuit last year over its immigrant investor program, which shut down in 2006.

The Conservative government has touted the provincial nominee program, launched in 1998, as one of the best to encourage immigrants, both skilled workers and investors, to locate outside Canada's major cities.

But while it's been successful in some provinces, such as Manitoba, it's been a failure in the three Maritime provinces, the Post reported.

The federal government last month announced online consultations to improve its immigrant investor program.