Immigrant with money spending increased time in B.C.

British Columbia (B.C.) gained nearly 1,000 immigrants having money to invest from other Canadian provinces while the number of economically active immigrants lost by B.C. to other nations is just a small fraction of the total 17,000 immigrants coming here initially.

And, the number of immigrants coming to the B.C. under family class visas seems to be moving to other Canadian provinces in greater numbers than those coming from other provinces to B.C.

These findings have been revealed under Access to Information by Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer.

The report maintains that retention rate for a total of 1.6 million immigrants arriving in B.C., Ontario, Alberta and Quebec between 2000 and 2006 ranged from 79 percent to 91 percent. Meanwhile, the retention rate for immigrants arrived in other Canadian provinces, namely, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Maritimes during the same period was only between 43 to 68 percent.

B.C. and Alberta were the Canadian provinces showing a positive inflow of immigrants as per the information revealed by tax records regarding destinations of immigrants leaving their province of arrival.

Between the year 2000 and 2006, total number of skilled workers originally coming to the B.C. was 68,000. And B.C. lost around 8,000 skilled immigrants to Ontario and nearly 3,000 to Alberta. The number of immigrants gained by B.C from other Canadian provinces including Quebec, Ontario and Alberta was 14,000.

The official figures show that out of the total 17,000 business immigrants or economically active immigrants coming to B.C. during the last five years, just seven percent move to other Canadian province. The number of immigrants arriving to B.C. from other Canadian provinces for the same period was around 5,000(or around three immigrants
every day).  

Canada investor class visas are issued to potential immigrants who are ready to invest more than $800,000 in Canada and their net worth must be more than $1.6 million or to entrepreneurs having a net worth of $300,000 along with business experience of two years.