Chinese calling Manitoba home
Many attracted by nominee program
By: Bill Redekop / Open Road
26/04/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
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PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA �Sunny� Sun and his family left China two years ago, eventually settling in Manitou, where they operate a local hotel.
MANITOU -- Ask Yumi Sun what growing up in rural Manitoba is like compared with China and expect some interesting answers.
In Beijing, she was one of 60 kids in her high school class and among 80 kids in her elementary class. At Nellie McClung Collegiate in Manitou, her entire grade totals 23 students.
In Beijing, students had to stand whenever the teacher entered the room and they weren't allowed to address the teacher by name. Here, kids greet teacher Al Thorleifson by his nickname, Thor.
Yumi Sun and her family are part of an influx of Chinese families to Manitoba, including rural areas, who are entering under the business class of the immigration nominee program.
The nominee program has been deliriously successful at attracting immigrants and transforming Manitoba into a "growth" province. Less heralded is the business side of the program.
Under the program, foreign business people can be eligible to immigrate to Manitoba if they have three years business experience, $350,000 in net assets and spend $150,000 to set up a new business or invest in an existing business. That's a relatively low threshold compared with a province such as British Columbia, where a minimum $800,000 must be invested.
Last year, Chinese families made up the largest business group entering Manitoba -- 39 business people from China started or invested in companies in Manitoba, or 30 per cent of the 134 people that landed under the immigrant nominee program.
That's how Yumi's father, 'Sunny' Sun, arrived two years ago. He ran a solar energy company in a city near Beijing. However, electricity is too cheap in Manitoba to run a similar company here.
So Sunny-- -- his first name is Huaishuang but that's too difficult for most Canadians to say -- bought the Manitou Motor Inn in Manitou, about 145 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.
He chose rural life because "in Winnipeg, many, many Chinese people always together so can't learn English. I wanted to learn English."
It's common for Chinese newcomers to invest in pizza restaurants in Winnipeg. Other investments include a children's clothing warehouse and businesses in furniture, scrap metal, freight forwarding, biotechnology, real estate development and renovation companies.
The Sun family isn't the only one taking the plunge into rural life. Several Chinese newcomers have opened Chinese restaurants in rural Manitoba in the last decade in Winkler, Morden, and Pine Falls, and the Lion's Cafe in Ste. Rose du Lac, said Eva Luk, an immigration lawyer specializing in Chinese immigration. Recently, Robert Jin, another business nominee from China, announced he is building a hemp processing plant in Gilbert Plains with the help of $5 million from Ottawa.
"I think the government is seeing huge potential (from Chinese business people). There's a real opportunity for increasing the tax base and economic development," Luk said.
The business community in China now knows about Manitoba, too, she said. "We're not under the radar anymore."
Business people in a communist country? In the 1980s, Yumi explained (because her English is better than that of her parents), her grandfather ran a government business. But in 1983, the government loosened its grip, allowing people to own a private business. In 1996, her father started his business.
The Sun family runs a cheery hotel, restaurant and bar, in Manitou, population 750. Sunny, 46, plans to refurbish the hotel this summer, renovating all 16 rooms, adding a new roof and putting in new carpeting. "I want people to remember the Manitou Inn," he said.
Sunny said oil pipeline workers will be filling up hotels across Manitoba for the next two years. The Manitou Inn also gets skiers from nearby Holiday Mountain. It's frequented by American hunters in the fall. The hard-working family landed first in Winnipeg, and Yumi and her brother, Lei, took jobs as Free Press carriers.
But they are happy to be living in Manitou.
"I think it's more friendly than in China," Yumi said.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Source:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...-92074064.html