Thank you.
This chart has attempted to outline some of the main nations that compete with the Canadian immigrant investor program. It tries to encapsulate some of the key characteristics that these programs have in terms of average process timelines, what you get when you apply and when you extend, what happens at the maturity of the investment, how much the investment is, and what the equivalencies are when you convert those dollars into Canadian dollars and factor in average exchange rates.
I'll give you the punchline of this chart. Essentially it shows that given that most nations provide a return.... They say you could invest your way into our nation, but in exchange we'll allow you to get a return on that investment. Canada, as you know, is $400,000 for five years--no interest. That's the nature of the program. The U.K., United States, Australia, and Hong Kong all provide a yield.
The yellow bar at the very bottom demonstrates that when you factor in the return you realize that the United States is roughly equivalent to $428,000 Canadian, whereas Australia is at $555,000 Canadian, and Hong Kong is at $650,000. I'll get to Canada in a minute. The United Kingdom is really in another stratosphere, at $1.5 million, which is maybe why they're attracting fewer than a hundred immigrants a year.
At $400,000, where the Canadian program is now, obviously this is why we're all so very busy. It's been a great program. It's eleven years old. This program has been in place since 1999.
I will conclude by saying it's time to reposition it. There are some bandwidths being discussed as to what could be a right amount for Canada, but clearly when you look at these comparisons, I would argue it's somewhere between $600,000 and $800,000.
In some respects we've been a victim of our own success. We've been very much the model of the world when it comes to this investor program. Those in the business know Canada is the reference point, so that's the good thing. We've managed this program very well over the last twelve years; the government has done very well in that regard. But now it's overly busy. Inventories have swelled up and we have a problem. We're now saying to clients that it's going to be three years, four years, five years, so they want to talk about other countries. It's way too long for any entrepreneur or investor to be told we'll get back to you in four years, for example.
The international comparison is an important one, and one that's always being upgraded. Countries are always amending their programs, so we can expect some further competition down the road.
One of the items that I think was also circulated, I hope, but if not, it's also in Mr. Audet's submission, is the overall inventories of the federal program. Without getting too scientific about it, you've got roughly 14,000 investor applications sitting in embassies worldwide, and simple math would suggest that if you're going to review 3,000 of them a year you're heading towards the five-year mark. Again, we're a victim of our own success. It's time to reposition the programs, slow that intake, raise the bar, and get more economic benefit at the investment level.
Mind you, I think Mr. Paradis has done a very good job in his report to outline that these immigrants, when they settle here, are big consumers. Living in Vancouver, I can tell you that more than 50% of our immigrant investors establish residency in that province. While Quebec has done a great job in also being a big participant in this program in terms of the investment, the real winners of this program are the areas that attract them. For the most part, that's been B.C. So the real ancillary benefits that the program brings, in terms of consumption, ancillary investments, business endeavours, their children in schools, and obviously their wealth, has been the success story of this program, as far as I'm concerned.
We have a number of recommendations, but I'll maybe leave that as part of the questions. I'm sure it will come up.
Thank you.