Incoming! Premier appoints new immigration task force

VICTORIA – Premier Christy Clark announced the creation of the B.C. Immigration Task Force to review key government programs in order to increase the number of skilled immigrants and investors in British Columbia.

If you don't think Clark and her government are very worried about the sustainability of BC's recent construction boom, you're not paying attention.

@chip:

I have never seen that number before. Link?

@jesse:

B.C. Immigration Task Force mandate

The Task Force will examine the current system of economic immigration to Canada and B.C., including programs such as:

Federal Immigrant Investor Program (FIIP): Seeks to attract experienced business people any Chinese people with lots of cash to invest in Canada's economy buy citizenship and park their money in real estate. Investors must have sufficient business experience an interest in buying real estate and a minimum net worth of $1.6 million that was obtained legally somehow and are required to make a minimum investment of $800,000 pay $130,000 at the door.

Fixed

@VanRant: Like the tens of thousands of Canadian citizens that are currently living in Lebanon and was critizing the government for not promptly evacuating them when Isreal invaded a few years ago? Who incidently took the first flight back after Isreal withdraw?

@Best place on meth: It's the normal thing, BC wants to attract business-friendly investment and supply skilled workers; when investors come to BC they find the environment is slow, burdened with regulations, and generally expensive. It's clear to me the government is in denial what BC really is and how leviathan a task it is to measurably change it.

Thinking that bringing in investors and skilled workers will boost overall wages is something to debate.

From a guest article on zerohedge website:

"For a number of years, mainland Chinese buyers have accounted for nearly all new apartment sales in Melbourne and Sydney. On numbers I've seen, they have been investing between A$2 billion and $3 billion a year.

An increasing number of mainland Chinese are establishing permanent residency and sending their child(ren) to school and university in Australia. And Simon recently reported that from an offshore strategies conference in Shanghai that the room was packed full of Chinese people learning how to diversify abroad."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-one-alar…

@chip: Yeah the makeup of the task force is rather telling. I anticipate they will report a few months before the advent of the election, and cry bloody murder when they're told what they want isn't within their purview. Hey, other parts of the country want the world's "best and brightest" too you know!

Bold economic-focused vision, but an inability to act on it; a great setup for absolving any responsibility for internal economic failure. I wonder if the electorate might decide that Pmr Clark has basically given up on the province's ability to bootstrap itself without relying on some "outside help".

@Makaya: And how is it working out for RE values in those two cities??? A little foreshadowing of Vancouver? Perhaps…only time will tell.