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Posted Sep 22, 2018, 4:44 AM
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retro_orange
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: East Van
Posts: 2,029
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Golden Visas: How some wealthy immigrants abuse Quebec's immigration program
Golden Visas: How some wealthy immigrants abuse Quebec's immigration program
Tonight on the National there was a scathing review of how the Quebec Immigration program is abused by %80 to as high as %95 of all immigrant investors. Even more surprising was the way the applicants are 'coached' in some cases to create a fake identity which can easily bring in criminals to Canada. It also notes Quebec's total apathetic interest in how BC has to pay for all the additional services these new people require while Quebec reaps all the economic benefit of the program. I want Quebec to stay part of Canada but WTF is this BS.
Please watch the 10min segment:
• Video Link
Quote:
Rich investors granted Canadian residency despite suspicions of fake documents and dubious assets
Special immigration track meant to lure wealthy to Quebec sees most end up in B.C., Ontario
Frédéric Zalac, Francis Plourde · Radio-Canada · Posted: Sep 20, 2018 5:00 AM ET | Last Updated: September 20
Quebec Immigration Minister David Heurtel says he's not fazed that most wealthy investors accepted under the province's special visa program don't actually end up living in Quebec. 'Even if an immigrant investor goes elsewhere in Canada, their money stays here,' he said. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)
Some rich foreigners seeking Canadian residency under a special Quebec program for wealthy investors couldn't point to the province on a map, while others submitted fake documents or disguised their assets — yet many of them were still accepted for immigration, former civil servants say.
The officials, charged with administering the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP), say they were sometimes pressured into ignoring signs that applicants' fortunes were founded on corruption or other ill-gotten gains.
"It's a program that has lots of gaps, that permits people with dubious or even illicit business to launder money through the program and to buy themselves citizenship inexpensively," said one former immigration officer.
Numerous current and former civil servants in Quebec spoke to Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête on condition of anonymity, revealing what they see as major flaws in an immigration program that has granted permanent residency to tens of thousands of people since it began in 1986.
QIIP applicants must have at least $2 million in assets and agree to loan $1.2 million of that to the Quebec government interest-free for five years. The government invests the money and uses the interest to provide grants to small- and medium-sized businesses.
"We were under a lot of pressure to approve applicants in order to meet annual financial targets," said one ex-bureaucrat.
Staff were overwhelmed
The federal government used to have a similar immigration track for rich investors seeking to settle in Canada, but shut it down in 2014 due to concerns about its effectiveness.
The Quebec version still accepts 1,900 people a year, plus their family members, with two-thirds coming from mainland China. Last year alone, more than 5,000 people obtained their permanent residency through the program.
All of the applications from China would've passed through Quebec's immigration office in Hong Kong, until it closed last year. The office was overwhelmed by the workload, with staff working 60 to 70 hours a week to keep up, according to the former officials who spoke to Enquête.
The provincial government allotted seven hours to screen each application — including verifying that applicants had come by their fortunes honestly. But as one former immigration officer said:"It takes time to do proper due diligence, and we didn't have it."
Officials' suspicions could be raised by any number of things, including copycat submissions.
"The applicants were all heads of sales, then became assistant managers," the ex-bureaucrat said. "The first time you have an applicant like that, you tell yourself, 'Why not.' Then you get 10, 20, 30 more from the same immigration consultant. It raises serious doubts about their back story."
In the early 2000s, the Quebec government hired an outside firm to help vet applications. It was found that more than 65 per cent of them contained forged documentation.
And according to data obtained under Quebec's access-to-information law, from 2013 to 2017, a total of 1,783 immigrant investor applications were rejected by the province's officers in Hong Kong due to faked documents.
'Really shocked me'
But even as dodgy candidates were flagged, immigration officers say they felt pressure to overlook many applications with apparent shortcomings.
One former bureaucrat recalled rejecting a candidate on suspicions their assets were corruptly obtained. His boss instructed him to be more lenient next time because corruption existed in Quebec too.We knew they weren't coming to Quebec and we also knew they weren't going to learn French.- Former immigration official Around the same time, the Charbonneau Commission was investigating corruption and collusion in Quebec's construction industry. "It really shocked me to hear that," he said.
Another civil servant said they were told by a senior official at Quebec's Immigration Ministry not to dig too deep into each applicant's background. Some immigration staff bowed to those pressures and accepted more applicants, the people interviewed by Enquête said, while others refused.
Government claims credit for job creation
In a statement, Quebec's Immigration Ministry said its vetting process is effective at maintaining the integrity of the immigrant-investor program. It said applicants and their assets are examined multiple times: by financial institutions that help recruit them, by governmental financial analysts, and by immigration personnel.
The province also says the program has had important economic benefits, allowing for $695 million in grants to small- and medium-sized businesses since 2000 — which it says has translated into tens of thousands of jobs.
But those numbers may be overly rosy.
Grants from the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program are limited to a maximum of 10 per cent of a business's expansion or modernization project. Nevertheless, Investment Quebec, the provincial agency that administers the grants, counts all the jobs created or saved by the expansion projects it supports — meaning the employment gains seem to be inflated by a factor of 10.
Investment Quebec maintains it's a standard method of calculating and it doesn't deem every one of those jobs to stem from its grants.
Westward bound
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of QIIP is that while it's meant to draw wealthy investors to la belle province, the vast majority who have taken up residency in Canada under the program settle in other provinces.
As part of the process, applicants have to sign two forms declaring their intention to reside in Quebec.
But once in Canada, the law allows anyone to move freely. Data reported earlier this year by Global News shows that 85 per cent of Quebec's immigrant investors — since the program began in 1986 — have ended up in British Columbia and Ontario. Only 10 per cent remained in Quebec.The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program is a scam from start to finish. I think that everyone who's involved in the program knows that.- Ian Young, newspaper columnist "We're way off our immigration targets under this program," said Suzanne Ethier, who served as Quebec's associate deputy minister of immigration from 2005 to 2006.
"We knew they weren't coming to Quebec and we also knew they weren't going to learn French," said one of the former bureaucrats who helped run the program.
Quebec Immigration Minister David Heurtel told reporters in March that he wasn't fazed by this tendency. "Even if an immigrant investor goes elsewhere in Canada, their money stays here," he said.
Other provinces aren't so keen to welcome Quebec's immigrants, though, and to bear the costs of providing health care and education. Freedom-of-information records obtained by Enquête show the B.C. government complained to Quebec several times in 2015 and 2016
Former federal immigration minister Chris Alexander, who served in Stephen Harper's last government, said he brought up the issue with his Quebec counterparts, and while they "recognized there were problems, they weren't ready to move forward with any changes."
Quebec has since taken steps to retain more of its immigrant investors, Heurtel said, including prioritizing applicants from francophone countries and sending out videos and brochures promoting living in Quebec.
But that hasn't been enough to alter how the program's critics see things.
"The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program is a scam from start to finish. I think that everyone who's involved in the program knows that," said Ian Young, the Vancouver correspondent for Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper and a seasoned observer of immigration patterns from China to Canada.
"I think that includes policy-makers, the people who facilitate it and the immigrants themselves."
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Quote:
Wealthy would-be immigrants told to lie about their assets, intentions — even their identity
Hidden cameras capture advisers giving out questionable guidance to people seeking Canadian visas
Frédéric Zalac, Francis Plourde · Radio-Canada · Posted: Sep 21, 2018 5:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 11 hours ago
An immigration consultant in Hong Kong said on hidden camera that 'it's normal' to disregard the residency requirements and not declare all assets when applying to the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program. (Radio-Canada)
Rich foreigners seeking to gain Canadian residency through a controversial Quebec program are being advised to hide questionable assets, lie about their intention to settle in the province and even adopt a new identity, according to a hidden-camera investigation by Radio-Canada.
The investigation revealed that immigration advisers have counselled clients to do things such as change their name, shift funds to accounts in the Caribbean and not declare them to tax authorities or immigration agents.
"We have a lot of clients who have a lot of assets who do this," said one consultant at one of the biggest firms in the industry in a conversation captured on hidden camera.
The revelations pose troubling questions for the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP), a special immigration track under which foreigners with at least $2 million in assets can get Canadian residency for themselves and their family if they agree to loan $1.2 million to the Quebec government.
Last year alone, more than 5,000 people obtained permanent residency through the program. Typically, two-thirds of those accepted each year come from mainland China. However, most successful applicants through the Quebec program don't actually settle in the province.
'Mr. Chen'
Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête went undercover at the offices of five immigration consultancies and law firms in Hong Kong, the city where, up until last year, all Chinese QIIP applications were handled. Four other firms were called by phone. All these firms help candidates with their applications before they send them to the government.
A Hong Kong chef was hired to pose as "Mr. Chen," a supposed businessman whose $10-million fortune came from suspicious sources. Mr. Chen told the firms he made his money operating a plastic-bag factory, but some of the paperwork to prove this had been destroyed in a fire. He also said he ran a pawnshop that dealt only in cash and charged high interest rates and that he hadn't declared a chunk of his assets to Chinese tax authorities.
"We've helped clients with even greyer areas," said an agent at Globevisa, one of the biggest immigrant-investor consultancies in the world.
"We have seven passports. These are all legal. Two are European identities, others are Caribbean — there are five. Those are simply to get an identity in case you have to flee or if you want to hide your assets," said the consultant, who didn't know she was being recorded.
"You change your name to Bruce Lee. You can use this Bruce Lee identity to hold this. They won't be able to check," the agent said.
She claimed clients could use this scheme if they failed background checks.
In a subsequent statement, Globevisa said there was "practically no chance that your 'Mr. Chen' would have been taken on" as a client.
"No ... consultant wants to take on a case which is problematic and which has a high risk of failure," the firm said.
'This is bad'
At another firm, the Hong Kong offices of Harvey Law Group, founded by Canadian Jean-François Harvey, a representative tells Mr. Chen that "it's normal" to not declare all assets.
"You want to disclose the minimum possible, right? Right. OK, yes, it's possible," she said on hidden camera.
"We have a lot of clients like that. It's actually really normal."
She suggested acquiring status in a Caribbean jurisdiction so that Mr. Chen could camouflage part of his wealth — not only from Quebec's immigration officers but also from Chinese tax authorities.
"[The] Caribbean passport also gives him a new TIN number — so a tax identity number. So that could be useful for him, too," she said on hidden camera.
"One of the Caribbean [countries] does not have a treaty with China. So you get a new tax identity, but you don't need to declare to [the] Chinese government all those assets."
When Radio-Canada showed the footage of his employee explaining ways to get around the rules to Harvey, he expressed shock and dismay.
Lawyer Jean-François Harvey expressed dismay at hidden-camera footage showing one of his employees advising a potential immigration applicant to use false identities if he wanted to hide assets of dubious origin. (Radio-Canada)
"This is bad.... You've opened my eyes," he told Enquête. "There's things being said here that shouldn't be."
But Harvey said that any potential client would have met with a lawyer after initially dealing with the employee. The lawyer would catch the problems with Mr. Chen's file at that point, he said.
After seeing the hidden-camera footage, Harvey fired the employee caught on video, she told Radio-Canada.
Integrity concerns
Several firms approached by Mr. Chen advised him not to declare some assets of questionable origin.
But that goes against the rules of the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program, which requires applicants to list all their assets — and ostensibly rejects candidates whose wealth may not be legitimately sourced.
Nor did it seem to matter to most of the Hong Kong-based advisers that Mr. Chen said he had no intention to actually take up residence in Quebec. Any permanent resident or citizen of Canada has the constitutional right to move anywhere in the country, but it is a requirement of the immigrant investor program that candidates declare a firm intention to settle in Quebec.
"If they ask you, it's best if you don't answer so honestly. Don't tell them so plainly you don't plan to stay there," the Globevisa consultant advised.
All but one of the consultants told Mr. Chen he could settle elsewhere in Canada, but that he should not disclose this intention to Canadian immigration authorities.
Quebec immigration lawyer Hugue Langlais said Radio-Canada's hidden-camera footage shows the Quebec government should end the QIIP.
"I'm a little uncomfortable to see that we have a program with major shortcomings that are known in the industry," he said.
"I think the federal government did the right thing in 2014 in shutting down its program. I think the Quebec government should think about doing the same thing."
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Full stories plus additional videos
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebe...ants-1.4830231
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebe...mera-1.4832245
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