A Tale of Two Economies...

[GRG55]

Re: Flying Down to Brazil

Do these truisms prevail under the present conditions when buying a second home is the option? I would think not.

...That has now reversed, of course, and with the crashing Northern Peso it has become quite expensive to vacation or even travel south of the border...

Property in the southern USA is still attractively priced compared to much of Canada (compare the cost of a Muskoka cottage in Ontario against some of the ocean access properties in Florida). What isn't attractively priced any more is the Loonie to Greenback exchange.

http://www.muskokacottagesforsale.co...20Listings.htm

[don]

Re: Flying Down to Brazil

Property in the southern USA is still attractively priced compared to much of Canada (compare the cost of a Muskoka cottage in Ontario against some of the ocean access properties in Florida). What isn't attractively priced any more is the Loonie to Greenback exchange.

http://www.muskokacottagesforsale.co...20Listings.htm

How long can Canadians stay in the US annually and not jeopardize their citizenship? The rub would seem to be we're talking about second home sales, not primary residences.

[don]

Thoughts on the Loonie

I am swallowing hard over the exchange rate, but plan to point the spinners south and head to Reno later this month for the National Championship Air Races. That might be my last excursion south of the border for a while, unless the Loonie recovers to some degree (I think it has further to fall).

Currency flows and flaws: Brenner

BY REUVEN BRENNER on SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

Much has been written on the “Dutch Disease” – how countries relying on their natural resources often fall on hard times, failing to develop. A Chinese observer, Laozi, in 81 BC had this to say: “A country is never as poor as when it seems filled with riches” (in Yan Tie Lun, A Discourse on Salt and Iron). Only these days, the natural riches are oil (in Canada, Norway, Russia, Middle East) and in Australia, iron ore.

It is possible too that the quote refers to the purchase of luxuries items in corrupt countries, $500K Mille watches or Prada items, that can either disguise corruption. Perhaps not surprisingly, Prada has not being doing well since its IPO, the main reason being China, where, not accidentally perhaps, part of the Communist party has declared fight against corruption. The decline in real estate and land prices has been related to deep seated corruption in China too – by now officially recognized. What is the link between China clapping down on corruption and resource rich countries?

The impact of the Chinese policies radiate around the world: Much of its domestic slowdown is real estate, impacting many sectors, resources and luxury being prominent. Australia and Canada have suffered since they have continued to rely on their resource sectors the last two decades. Canadian and Australian currencies in this floating world continued to be strongly correlated with commodity prices prices.

Below are excerpts from my March 8, 1999 Forbes article, “Currencies Don’t Lie,” on why this was and stayed so, though official statistics have been showing diminished roles to the natural resources in these countries.

“The value of the Canadian dollar (in U.S. dollar terms) correlates almost perfectly with commodity prices. During 1998, for example, the Commodity Research Bureau’s index of raw materials prices dropped from around 280 to 230, climbing recently to 240 before dropping back to 230.

The Canadian dollar followed, dropping from 71 cents to the U.S. dollar to the 65 cent area.

On first impression, this is surprising. Canada is a G7 country, not one with an economy based on natural resources. Canada’s federal and provincial governments are among the world’s top per capita spenders on education, which should boost the country up the value-added chain. One would expect that critical masses of educated Canadians would either add value to Canada’s exports or attract financial capital — thus pushing up the demand for Canadian dollars. Yet the currency’s correlation with the CRB index shows that global capital is flowing to Canada mainly for its natural resources and investments in companies with little pricing power.

… Returns on Canada’s vast investments in human capital are not showing up in Canada. They do not show up for two reasons. One: A significant number of Canada’s brightest, best-educated and most productive people have been moving to the U.S. and are not being replaced by people of similar caliber. In Canada’s relatively egalitarian universe, the fact that some individuals can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (as reflected in market values of companies when they quit, join or start up a company) is kept out of sight.

I recently asked several students graduating with degrees in computers and electronic engineering where they will pursue their careers. Not one said Canada. All said they received offers of far more interesting work in the U.S. and at double or triple Canadian salaries.

In other words, Canada invests in education, the U.S. collects the dividends. The 10% decline in real disposable incomes in Canada over the last ten years (in the U.S. they increased by 10% over this period) reflects the combination of high taxes and the departure of “the vital few.”

There is a second reason the Canadian dollar does not reflect the country’s investment in human capital. Even when smart Canadians stay home, the country’s savage tax rates prevent them from realizing their potential. Depending on the province, marginal income tax rates in the 45% to 55% range (federal and provincial combined) are levied on incomes of just $40,000. Combine this with high capital gains taxes (in the 33%to 40% range), and what incentive is there for Canadians to work harder and smarter and finance more risks — especially when the U.S. has been pursuing fiscal policies conducive of entrepreneurial capitalism? (In the U.S. one stays in the 28% marginal income tax bracket until one’s income reaches $100,000, capital gains taxes are in the 20% range and there is the tax-exempt Roth Individual Retirement Account, as well.) …

… Unlike polls and statistics, currencies don’t lie. In the future look for even stronger correlation between commodity prices and the Canadian dollar, as Canada slips further into its high-taxed, bureaucratic stupor. Just add the price of water to the commodities index, political grandstanding on prohibiting its export notwithstanding.”

Though things have changed in the last 16 years that elapsed since I wrote the above, US and Canadian fiscal policies got closer, the fact remains that Canada is a resource-based country. True, taxes increased in the US and they were lowered a bit in Canada, and the 2008 crisis took its toll on the US. The expansion of Canada’s financial sector did not change matters significantly, since the loans were advanced to the natural resource sector or myriad of service and equipment companies backed by revenues from this same resource sector – as were the expanding government bureaucracies too. And the US, its increasing fiscal and monetary mistakes notwithstanding, continues to attract the “vital few” and capital from around the world. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed stays king.

China’s currency problem is different from Canada’s. Whereas China justifiably anchored its currency in the US dollar when pursuing its drastic transformation from central planning, assuming that the dollar would stay a stable anchor, that did not happen. The last few years, the dollar became a volatile, but overall strengthening currency. Whereas the US, having deep financial markets can deal with this, China, with a shallow capital market and virtually no debt market – faces a tough problem.

Reuven Brenner holds the Repap Chair at McGill University’s Desautels faculty of Management. The above draws on Brenner’s Force of Finance (2001).

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Flying Down to Brazil

How long can Canadians stay in the US annually and not jeopardize their citizenship? The rub would seem to be we're talking about second home sales, not primary residences.

120 days, which can be extended to 182 days with the proper paperwork

[Edit:] This link says 182 days outright. Things change - so always best to check. I think for most Canadians it's not about losing citizenship. It's about not filing U.S. taxes, or not losing your "free" Healthcare and having to re-qualify.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

There is a second reason the Canadian dollar does not reflect the country’s investment in human capital. Even when smart Canadians stay home, the country’s savage tax rates prevent them from realizing their potential. Depending on the province, marginal income tax rates in the 45% to 55% range (federal and provincial combined) are levied on incomes of just $40,000. Combine this with high capital gains taxes (in the 33%to 40% range), and what incentive is there for Canadians to work harder and smarter and finance more risks — especially when the U.S. has been pursuing fiscal policies conducive of entrepreneurial capitalism? (In the U.S. one stays in the 28% marginal income tax bracket until one’s income reaches $100,000, capital gains taxes are in the 20% range and there is the tax-exempt Roth Individual Retirement Account, as well.) …

Those numbers seem totally out of whack to me. Here's a link to calculate marginal and capital gains tax rates in Canada.

Here's a snap at $40K, $75K and $100K income. Not even close to the numbers quoted by the professor with the multiple degrees.

Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at Sat5 9.28AM.jpg Screen Shot 2015-09-05 at Sat5 9.25AM.jpgScreen Shot 2015-09-05 at Sat5 9.39AM.jpg

[GRG55]

Re: Flying Down to Brazil

120 days, which can be extended to 182 days with the proper paperwork

[Edit:] This link says 182 days outright. Things change - so always best to check. I think for most Canadians it's not about losing citizenship. It's about not filing U.S. taxes, or not losing your "free" Healthcare and having to re-qualify.

It is no longer that simple. The US now uses a portion of the days that a non-resident was in the country each of the previous two years, and adds these to the number of days accumulated in the current "year". I put "year" in quotations because the US also no longer bases the reset of the calculation on a calendar year. The clock for a "year" starts on arrival regardless of when in the year one enters the USA. This was done to eliminate the ability to stay continuously for "double" the allowed time by entering in the latter part of one calendar year and staying through the first half of the next calendar year.

[GRG55]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

Currency flows and flaws: Brenner

BY REUVEN BRENNER on SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

Much has been written on the “Dutch Disease” – how countries relying on their natural resources often fall on hard times, failing to develop. A Chinese observer, Laozi, in 81 BC had this to say: “A country is never as poor as when it seems filled with riches” (in Yan Tie Lun, A Discourse on Salt and Iron). Only these days, the natural riches are oil (in Canada, Norway, Russia, Middle East) and in Australia, iron ore...


...Though things have changed in the last 16 years that elapsed since I wrote the above, US and Canadian fiscal policies got closer, the fact remains that Canada is a resource-based country...

Nah. This comment is so "last year" (when oil was $100). We have rapidly transformed ourselves away from resources to a much more advanced economy...condo flippers.

[jk]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

Nah. This comment is so "last year" (when oil was $100). We have rapidly transformed ourselves away from resources to a much more advanced economy...condo flippers.

do the canadian banks offer home equity lines of credit? and if so, are people drawing on them en masse, and thereby goosing consumption?


edit: just did a little exploring and as of q1 2015 could only find about cad$20billion in helocs, mostly at national bank of canada, a bit at cibc. and we can't assume those are all new. so not much in a us$1.8trillion economy.

[don]

Re: Flying Down to Brazil

In our 'gated South Florida community' there's about 420 units. I'm told about 40% are snowbirds, including Canadian Geese. As the original cohort is thinning through attrition - the complex is 25 years old - the new buyers to date have all been permanent dwellers, no snowbirds, regardless of age. In my micro snapshot, are snowbird 2nd home buyers flying off the RE radar?

[GRG55]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

do the canadian banks offer home equity lines of credit? and if so, are people drawing on them en masse, and thereby goosing consumption?


edit: just did a little exploring and as of q1 2015 could only find about cad$20billion in helocs, mostly at national bank of canada, a bit at cibc. and we can't assume those are all new. so not much in a us$1.8trillion economy.

HELOCs are offered by all the banks. They are a particularly popular way to fund renovations (gotta have that granitized kitchen, ya know). Because the funding mechanisms here are different from the US financial markets, HELOCs up here tend to be limited to a comparatively small %'age of the equity value in one's home. If one wants a HELOC for a larger amount it has to be done as a mortgage (often variable rate, which have become more popular in the last 20 years). So it is difficult to separate in the mortgage stats what is borrowing to purchase the property and what is borrowing against an existing property to fund other purchases (reno, starting a business, lending money to the kids for their down payment, etc.). The Chart 3 on Page 21 of this Bank of Canada report might shed some light on the topic (note the rapid rise of HELOCs circa 1999 to 2005), but it is a dated report:
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-conten...12-bailliu.pdf


Below is the only stat I could find in a short search, but this is 2012 data:

[jk]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

i'm trying to get some sense of how much a housing-bubble burst would hurt a canadian economy already wounded by lower commodity prices. any thoughts?

[GRG55]

Re: Thoughts on the Loonie

i'm trying to get some sense of how much a housing-bubble burst would hurt a canadian economy already wounded by lower commodity prices. any thoughts?

We had a very severe housing bust in the western part of Canada in the early 1980s, after the 1970s inflation resource boom busted. There was outmigration of people, with the populations of the cities of Calgary and Edmonton falling...unprecedented. Houses were being abandoned, sold for $1.00 so people could get out of the mortgage debt, and all of the same sorts of things we heard when the southern USA housing bust happened last decade. Vancouver, which was the export point for commodities, fell along with Alberta, but not the same severity.

The main banks refused to write or renew mortgages, foreclosures skyrocketed, and a few people with some courage subsequently made fortunes by buying distressed apartment blocks and fixing them up.

Will it be as bad this time? Probably not anything close. At that time Volcker and the other CBs including the Bank of Canada were raising interest rates. We don't have that problem today. The demographics of all these cities are quite different now. But there will be stress starting in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with their overdependence on hydrocarbons (although they both have large agricultural sectors that are doing well). The interior of British Columbia is already seeing serious stress, but Vancouver and the south coast seem to be steaming along just fine at the moment. The USA economy is doing well and Canada benefits from that proximity.

I think we will have more of a slow grind down, with those unable to maintain income having problems and those with skills in demand and still working continuing to pay their mortgages as life goes on.

[don]

Janet Levitates

Not Everyone Is Buying 3.7% U.S. GDP in 2Q; “Only the Chinese Numbers Are More Suspect”

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 8, 2015

Janet Yellen, Chair of the Federal Reserve, Taking the Oath at Her Senate Confirmation Hearing


When the revision to second quarter Gross Domestic Product was released by the Commerce Department on August 27, boosting GDP to 3.7 percent, it had a lot of people scratching their heads. Consumer Metrics Institute came right out with it, writing: “Once again we wonder how much we should trust numbers that bounce all over the place from revision to revision. One might expect better from a huge (and expensive) bureaucracy operating in the 21st century. Among major economies, only the Chinese numbers are more suspect.” Ouch.

Jeffrey Sparshott and Jon Hilsenrath, economic writers at the Wall Street Journal, were more subtle in their assessment, suggesting that “How fast the economy grew depends on how you measure it. An alternative measure, gross domestic income, advanced at a much slower 0.6% pace last quarter. Both GDP and GDI measure overall economic activity but tap different source data: GDP uses expenditures and GDI uses incomes. While they should move in the same direction, there are often short-term discrepancies.”

The difference between 0.6 percent growth and 3.7 percent growth might be viewed by some as more than a “discrepancy.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but 3.7 is more than 6 times the rate of growth as measured by Gross Domestic Income for the second quarter.

There is also the concern that this exuberant 3.7 percent growth in GDP came when both earnings and revenues on the Standard and Poor’s 500 (the largest companies in the U.S.) contracted. On August 25, Bloomberg Business wrote that “Profits reported by S&P 500 companies in the second quarter fell 2 percent from a year ago and are projected to slip 5.5 percent in the current period.” (FactSet says the decline was 0.7 percent in the second quarter.) Of equal alarm, revenue growth fell by 3.4 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ.

If the largest corporations in the U.S. are experiencing a slowdown why isn’t the overall U.S. economy?

According to the second quarter data released by the Commerce Department on August 27, exports contributed .65 to the percent change. (See Table 2 here.) That’s another oddity. Based on 2014 exports, Canada was the largest export market for the U.S. Its growth contracted in the second quarter. Both Mexico and China, our two other largest export markets, are showing slowing growth.

Also adding to the boost in second quarter GDP was “local and state government consumption expenditures and gross investment.” That clocked in at 0.46. That reading must be contrasted against the prior 15 quarters when that figure was a negative drag in 10 of those quarters and contributed just .116 on average in the five quarters it registered positive.

Having an accurate assessment of how strongly the U.S. economy is growing is critical to decision making by businesses and keeping America competitive. If businesses boost production on the basis of a more robust consumer than actually exists or in anticipation of an upturn in export demand that doesn’t materialize, profits could take a hit as unsold goods require dumping at fire sale prices.

Of equal concern, the Federal Reserve will make a decision next week on whether or not to hike short term interest rates based on whether the economy is strong enough to withstand what is effectively a credit tightening by the Fed.

This is not at all the best time to have market economists scratching their heads about peculiarities in the GDP numbers.

[don]

Visas, Get Your Red Hot Visas

Merging, on paper, the affluent midtown neighborhood and the struggling one uptown placed Hudson Yards in a community with an overall high unemployment rate, positioning developer Related Cos. to gain low-cost financing from foreigners seeking green cards.

The program through which that happens, known as EB-5, enables foreign nationals to obtain U.S. permanent-resident status by putting up money for new business ventures that create American jobs. It gives ventures in high-unemployment and rural areas a special status to encourage investment. But as the program’s popularity has soared in recent years, the bulk of immigrant investment is going to projects that are located, like $20 billion Hudson Yards, in prosperous urban neighborhoods.

At least 80% of EB-5 money is going to projects that wouldn’t qualify as being in Targeted Employment Areas without “some form of gerrymandering,” estimates Michael Gibson, managing director of USAdvisors.org, which evaluates projects for foreign investors.

Increasingly, the money appears to be flowing to the flashiest projects, which the investors often see as safest, EB-5 professionals say. Among those getting EB-5 money are an office building set to host Facebook Inc. near Amazon.com Inc.’s Seattle headquarters, a boutique hotel in high-end Miami Beach, and a slim Four Seasons condo-hotel in lower Manhattan that sports a penthouse with an asking price above $60 million. In all of them, geographic districts were crafted to include higher-unemployment areas.

– From the Wall Street Journal article: How a U.S. Visa-for-Cash Plan Funds Luxury Apartment Buildings

Another day, another story highlighting just how completely corrupt and sleazy the U.S. economy has become.

I’ve covered the issue of EB-5 visas before, and how a program that was initially supposed to help high unemployment neighborhoods attract investment, has become another scheme to further enrich America’s crony capitalist class.

Before we get into the meat of this post, here are a few excerpts from last year’s piece, How NYC’s Biggest Real Estate Project in a Generation is Being Financed by Selling Green Cards to the Chinese:

Developer Related Cos. says it has raised roughly $600 million from the families to build the foundation for three skyscrapers at the West Side project, a 17-million-square-foot colossus of office, retail and residential space set to open over the next decade.

To finance the concrete-steel platform, Related tapped a little-known and at times controversial federal visa program known as EB-5, which offers green cards to foreign families who invest at least $500,000 in U.S. projects that create at least 10 jobs per investor.

At times the program has invited scrutiny. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year warned of “fraudulent securities offerings” related to the EB-5 program, in which investors put money into nonexistent projects. The program also has come under fire because it can be difficult for investors overseas to discern safe investments from risky ones, and if the investment fails to create the required jobs, they don’t get a green card. In addition, claims of jobs created are difficult to verify and the program administrator has been criticized for not having an effective system for doing so.

Developers are embracing the program largely because it provides low-cost capital. Money borrowed through the EB-5 program carries much lower interest rates, sometimes half of what companies typically pay, executives said. That is because investors are primarily seeking green cards, not a profit, and generally are willing to accept low returns, EB-5 advisers said.

While that article explained the recent explosion in EB-5 visa popularity, it failed to highlight the fact that this money was supposed to disproportionately help struggling areas. In reality, it’s all being funneled to luxury construction. Here’s how.
Also from the Wall Street Journal:

NEW YORK—The cluster of luxury apartment buildings and office towers rising in a development west of midtown called Hudson Yards seems a world apart from the low-income housing projects of upper Manhattan.

But for purposes of an immigration program that helps finance Hudson Yards, it and Harlem’s Manhattanville public-housing towers are in the same district: a stringy one connected by three Census tracts that run along the Hudson River.

Merging, on paper, the affluent midtown neighborhood and the struggling one uptown placed Hudson Yards in a community with an overall high unemployment rate, positioning developer Related Cos. to gain low-cost financing from foreigners seeking green cards.

The program through which that happens, known as EB-5, enables foreign nationals to obtain U.S. permanent-resident status by putting up money for new business ventures that create American jobs. It gives ventures in high-unemployment and rural areas a special status to encourage investment. But as the program’s popularity has soared in recent years, the bulk of immigrant investment is going to projects that are located, like $20 billion Hudson Yards, in prosperous urban neighborhoods.

A primary concern is that the use of EB-5 financing for high-price condo and office towers sops up the program’s capacity and leaves poorer communities out in the cold. No more than 10,000 visas that lead to permanent-resident status can be given out each year under the program. It hit the limit in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2014.

Though statistics aren’t made public on individual projects, a recent paper by two New York University professors tracked 25 large business startups that have turned to the EB-5 program to raise a total of more than $4.5 billion in financing. Twenty-two were urban real-estate projects, including 14 in prime Manhattan neighborhoods and others in Seattle and on the Las Vegas Strip.

Related is the single largest user of EB-5 financing. By its own measure, it accounts for about 20% of the dollars being raised through the program today. The closely held company used the program to raise $600 million for a first phase of Hudson Yards last year and is in the process of raising another $600 million for a new office tower and a retail hub.

The coming debate in Congress stands to bring the program its greatest scrutiny since it was created in 1990.
Things began to change in 2009, amid two shifts. The agency overseeing the program—the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unit of the Department of Homeland Security—let the job-creation tally count more construction jobs if they last at least two years. And banks all but shut off credit for construction projects amid the economic slump.

Real-estate developers discovered EB-5. Money from foreign investors, primarily Chinese, began to pour into major developments around the U.S., typically supplementing more-senior debt. A hotel and apartment project in Washington raised more than $40 million through the program. A W hotel in Hollywood raised $20 million. A planned 16-tower apartment project connected to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center basketball arena took in $229 million.

Lenders have since returned to real estate, but developers are attracted by another aspect of EB-5 financing: low cost. Because the foreign investors are after a green card, they have been willing to accept very low interest rates on money they lend, typically for four or five years. Developers save even though they face other costs to use the program.

Many of such projects could easily have been financed on the private market, according to Gary Friedland, who wrote the NYU paper with fellow professor Jeanne Calderon. “It’s a profit enhancement,” he said. “The original argument was more of a ‘but for’ argument,” in which EB-5 was meant to spur projects that wouldn’t otherwise have happened. “That focus has been lost.”

At least 80% of EB-5 money is going to projects that wouldn’t qualify as being in Targeted Employment Areas without “some form of gerrymandering,” estimates Michael Gibson, managing director of USAdvisors.org, which evaluates projects for foreign investors.

Increasingly, the money appears to be flowing to the flashiest projects, which the investors often see as safest, EB-5 professionals say. Among those getting EB-5 money are an office building set to host Facebook Inc. near Amazon.com Inc.’s Seattle headquarters, a boutique hotel in high-end Miami Beach, and a slim Four Seasons condo-hotel in lower Manhattan that sports a penthouse with an asking price above $60 million. In all of them, geographic districts were crafted to include higher-unemployment areas.

Meanwhile, some wanting to raise money for projects in rural areas and low-income parts of cities say they find it increasingly hard to compete. Evan Daniels has been trying for four years to raise about $40 million through the EB-5 program for a door-manufacturing plant in the rural southwestern Missouri town of Lamar.

“The harder we worked on this, the more we found the money was going to L.A. and New York,” he said.

In China, one pitch is speed in obtaining green-card approvals from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Related’s main broker has advertised that EB-5 investors receive initial approvals 11 months faster than the standard wait. That would mark a big advantage, because the average wait is about 14 months. It is unclear how its applications would be processed so quickly. USCIS declined to comment on Related’s applications.

So the U.S. government is subsidizing the wealthiest developers to build projects for the wealthiest Americans. Someone must have taken a class taught by the Federal Reserve.

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/09/11/more-american-cronyism-u-s-government-selling-visas-to-fund-luxury-apartment-buildings/

[GRG55]

Re: Visas, Get Your Red Hot Visas

Not to be left behind:



Quebec Immigrant Investor Program Now Accepting Applications

Last Updated: September 10 2015

September 3, 2015 – The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP) is now accepting applications. The QIIP facilitates immigration to Canada for qualified investors who undertake to settle in Quebec and make a passive investment in Quebec via an authorized financial intermediary. The program is well suited to investors with business management experience seeking an avenue to apply for permanent residence in Canada. Applications may be made until January 29, 2016.

Who Qualifies?

In order to be eligible for the program, applicants must:
• have, alone or with an accompanying spouse, net assets of at least CAD $1,600,000
• have experience in managing or owning a business or professional firm for two of the last five years
• intend to settle in Quebec and sign an agreement to invest CAD $800,000 with an authorized financial intermediary


Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Pilot Program

The Immigrant Investor Venture Capital (IIVC) Pilot Program has reopened.
CIC will accept applications from May 25 to December 30, 2015, and will process the first 60 complete applications. CIC will also accept up to 60 additional applications that will be placed on a waiting list.

You must meet all of the requirements listed below to be eligible to apply under the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Pilot Program. You must also plan to live outside the province of Quebec.

You must have a personal net worth of CDN $10 million or more. Your net worth must have been acquired through lawful, private sector business or investment activities.


You must be willing and able to make an at-risk investment (non-guaranteed) of CDN $2 million in the Immigrant Investor Venture Capital (IIVC) Fund.
If you are one of the immigrant investors approved under this program, you will be required to enter into an agreement with CIC committing a sum of CDN $2 million to the IIVC Fund for approximately 15 years.
As with any venture capital investment, you could receive proceeds over time or at the end of the investment term. Proceeds will depend on the fund's performance and will be based on its gains or losses, including expenses and fees incurred to manage it.
However, this would be an at-risk investment. This means that there is no guarantee of a return and it is possible that you could lose some or all of your investment.


You must have:

• a completed Canadian post-secondary degree, diploma or certificate of at least one year
  OR
  
• a foreign equivalent, as validated by an original Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) report from a CIC-designated organization. The ECA report must indicate that your completed foreign education credential is equal to a completed Canadian post-secondary education credential of at least one year...