Maaari kang bumili ng iyong paraan sa Canada?

Citizenship at Immigration Canada may not put it exactly this way, but the fed­eral Immigrant Investor Program, which was reopened to prospec­tive immi­grants this month, Essen-tially a fast(siya) track to Canadian per-nanay-nent res-i-kuping Sta-tus if you don’t have a Canadian job lined up.

It just takes money.

To apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dent sta­tus as an Immigrant Investor in Canada, you now have to have a net worth of at least CAD$1.6 mil­lion AND be will­ing to make an invest­ment of CAD$800,000.

You’re basi­cally mak­ing a no-​​interest loan of $800,000 to the Canadian gov­ern­ment for five years.

Talaga, you have to have busi­ness expe­ri­ence as well as money — either by own­ing (or part-​​owning) a busi­ness for at least two years or by man­ag­ing at least five full-​​time employ­ees for a sim­i­lar period.

And you still have to have at least 35 points (out of a pos­si­ble 100) mula sa immi­grant investor selec­tion cri­te­ria, which include:

• edu-ca-tion
• gumana ang expe-ri-ence
• edad (you get the most points if you’re between the ages of 21 and 49)
• English– and/​or French-​​language ability
• "adapt­abil­ity,” which means that you’ve either made a “busi­ness explo­ration” trip to Canada or par­tic­i­pated in joint fed­eral – provin­cial busi­ness immi­gra­tion initiatives.

Under the pre­vi­ous Immigrant Investor pro­gram, you needed to have a min­i­mum net worth of CAD$800,000 and make an invest­ment of CAD $400,000.

Gayunman, the pro­gram became so back­logged with appli­ca­tions that the gov­ern­ment has dou­bled the finan­cial require­ments, effec­tive December 2010.

Ang pro­cess­ing times for investor appli­ca­tions are still quite lengthy — about two years for appli­cants from Taiwan, the UK, and South Korea; roughly three years for appli­cants from the US, Alemanya, Hong Kong, and China; and even longer times for appli­cants from other parts of the world.

Pa rin, if you’ve got the money, it offers a way to open the door to your new home in Canada.

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Did you qual­ify for Canadian per­ma­nent res­i­dent sta­tus under the Investor pro­gram? Or do you have advice for oth­ers hop­ing to fol­low that route?

Please leave a com­ment at ipaalam sa amin.

Permanent Resident Card photo ©Alan Albert