Canada (and all countries) have certain objectives with respect to immigration policy. Canada is lucky; many seek to immigrate here (as opposed to countries like North Korea, where many would seek to emigrate). Immigration works best when the objectives of the host country and the immigrant align, converge. Canada needs skilled individuals, proficient in English and/or French, that can contribute economically (and culturally). Most applicants under the economic class meet that criteria; despite some continuing challenges in underemployment they come to live in an advanced, open market, inclusive, and democratic country, truly one of the best countries in the world. Other objectives include providing refuge to asylum seekers and facilitating family reunification.
Other immigrants have a different goal and interests anathema to the public good. They see Canada as providing them with safe harbour (should they ever need it). They see Canada as a country where they can access subsidized and excellent education for their children, health care, and a place to stash their significant funds in "land banks". They see the residency obligation and needing to remain in Canada to fulfill that criteria as "immigration jail". Canada to them is more of a hotel, a place to stay and access benefits while giving nothing little or nothing back.
There are incredible costs associated with allowing such individuals access to Canada's generous benefits, intended for individuals that commit themselves to living and working in Canada. The immigration pie is only so big. For every one such immigrant, a genuine aspirant to the Canadian dream was denied.
Those with ready access to significant funds and sophisticated legal advice from local "facilitators" (like consultants, ghost or regulated -and lawyers of course) can exploit immigration streams that are meant to attract individuals that will make significant investment and contribution to Canada.
Canada shut down the Federal Investor scheme for good reason, but it still exists in Quebec and some Provinces allow business (or active investment) schemes. Some have called Quebec's investor program as simply cash for visa.
Many of these programs require an intention to live in the province after landing, but it seems Quebec is more interested in the money they get from these wealthy individuals than retaining them -allowing them to leave and access the provincial benefits of BC and Ontario (far more desirous places to live for individuals that barely speak English, let alone French). Indeed, the abhorrent Shafia patriarch utilized the Quebec program to bring his family here (and then murder his daughters and first wife for failing to comport to his dictates) and promptly moved and started living in Ontario.
There is little, to no justification for continuing these so-called (passive) investment-for-visa schemes. Canada would do far better by concentrating its fire on international students, temporary foreign workers, and skilled foreigners with job or labour market prospects rather than rich foreigners that have ulterior motives for seeking immigration to Canada.
However, a unique opportunity to explore the internal machinations of individuals seeking status in Canada was unmasked by an almost Shakespearean dispute between two warring wealthy Chinese families. Douglas Todd writes on "A shocking [case] that pitted two rich families from China ... provides grim revelations about the kind of migration, tax, and real-estate scams regularly occurring [in Canada]" The Fu's took the Zhu's to Court and in the process, spilled the beans on the sordid details of how to do an end run around Canadian immigration authorities.
It's not just investment-visa-for-cash schemes that are utilized: individuals also access Provincial Nominee Programs of Provinces like Manitoba or PEI and misrepresent their intention to actually live or work there (both Provinces require that intention -they want to retain immigrants and bolster their stagnant populations).
Naïve Provincial Nominee policy makers seem to think that wealthy, transnational minded individuals are likely candidates to settle permanently in sparsely populated backwater locales.
It was that naïveté that the parties relied upon in the Fu v. Zhu case:
[342] After the defendants obtained approval of their immigration application in the summer of 2012, D1 and D2 and their son came to Canada as landed immigrants in August 2012. They stayed in Winnipeg for around one week and then moved to Vancouver and lived at W. 19th.
Reform is urgently needed; perhaps a conditional permanent residency of 2 to 3 years so that immigration authorities can monitor whether they have remained in the province that nominated them for permanent residency.
The Court had no compunction in commenting on the mendacity employed:
[145] It was clear to me from the content of his evidence that P3 had no internal moral guideline to tell the truth, and absolutely no hesitation in lying when he thought it might help him or the Fu Family. I could not detect any sincerity in his evidence.
[146] Indeed, P3 was sophisticated in lying, including scheming to deceive Canadian immigration authorities in 2012 so that he could maintain permanent residency status without spending the necessary days residing in Canada. This scheme involved him pretending to rent accommodation in Vancouver by writing cheques for rent to D1; pretending to be employed by Jie Chen, the wife of the family’s realtor, Mr. Gu, who pretended to pay him employment income (all of which was paid back behind the scenes by payment from P2 to Mr. Gu); having someone use his credit card in Canada in his absence; and then in 2013 falsely reporting to police in China that he had lost his permanent residency card which would have noted when he truly was in Canada, so that he could falsely claim he was in Canada during the period he pretended to pay rent and to receive employment income.
While Mr. Todd is correct in calling the revelations "grim", none of these scams are actually revelations to anyone that has spent any amount of time in the immigration industry.
Immigration fraud also requires a "facilitator" -someone to guide those with "no internal guideline to tell the truth" and those that have "no hesitation in lying". Someone has to show them the way -how to falsely show that they are living here and falsely show that they are working here.
There is no shortage of these local guides that look to their own interests instead of the interests of their own country.
Todd reported in 2015 on the case of a Xun Wang, a resident of Richmond that "facilitated" inflating or creating false residency in Canada. Finding him guilty, the Judge found his goal:
...was to convince immigration authorities that more than 1,000 Mainland Chinese who did not live in Canada actually resided here, which made them eligible to become immigrants.
The only available inference is that Wang's clients were complicit in the fraud perpetrated on the Canadian immigration system. Many of those clients may find themselves confronting allegations of misrepresentation (although as Permanent Residents, they would have an appeal to the IAD, which can consider humanitarian and compassionate grounds).
Residency fraud is common; many with significant financial resources complain that living in Canada and complying with the residency requirement imposed on permanent residents to be "immigration jail" (I've heard this many times); that's exactly what one of the Plaintiffs in the Fu vs. Zhu case called it:
[210] P2 claimed that they planned to use the house for their residence on their eventual move to Canada. She understood that to keep permanent residency status, the plaintiffs would be required to spend a certain amount of time in Canada. She described the house as her “immigration jail”, a place for the family members to stay when fulfilling their residency requirements.
and
[403] It was around the same time as the purchase of Elm in P3’s name that the Fu Family was making efforts to create a false scenario of P3 living and working in Vancouver, so that it would appear he was in Canada for more days than he actually was, all with the aim of fraudulently maintaining immigration status as a permanent resident. As well, P2 made efforts to falsely document P3’s income in China, falsely inflating his annual income to $500,000 to support mortgage financing from HSBC in P3’s name in Canada for Elm.
The ball, as they say, is now in the hands of the CBSA tasked with upholding the integrity of the Canadian immigration system.
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