The Hongcouver | Exclusive: Chinese millionaires appear to be deserting Quebec's immigrant investor scheme

New developments in the Quebec Immigrant Investor Programme (QIIP) - long one of the world’s most popular wealth migration vehicles - suggest rich Chinese are deserting the scheme which has brought thousands of mainland millionaires to Canada, most of whom end up to living instead in faraway Vancouver via an immigration loophole.

An Asia-based immigration industry source said that the scheme, which had a 2014 quota of 1,750 applications (including up to 1,200 from China), had failed to hit that target - and by a wide margin.

This was despite the application window having been repeatedly extended and pushed back three times, before ultimately closing on March 20 this year. Initially slated to open only for 12 days last September, the traditional annual rush of Chinese millionaires who have dominated the scheme never happened, the source said. That was even after the application window was widened to two months.

In 2013, the window was open for only two weeks, and was flooded with 5,389 valid applications, including 4,676 from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan (nearly all were mainland Chinese); a lucky draw was held to extract 1,750 applications for processing. In 2012, the cap of 2,700 was hit in under a month.

A new, strict set of regulations and documentation benchmarks, intensified scrutiny of applicants' finances, and high application fees are being blamed for the apparent slump. Quebec’s authorities “might have to adjust their selection process”, the source said.

Although there is a huge pool of wealthy would-be emigrants in the mainland “my colleagues do not think that China currently has 1,200 cases of the quality that the Quebec government expects,” the source said. “Of course, there may be millions of rich people in China who wish to move to Quebec, but it seems that Quebec has raised the bar too high.”