Further to our Newsletter of last week, please note that all the new forms for the Federal Immigrant Investor Program and the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program are available on our website.

Although we had already discussed some procedural changes in both the Federal and Quebec Investor Programs, we wanted to reiterate certain key points.

1. The consequences of an applicant re-filing with a material change in the legally obtained net worth disclosed in their previous application.

Applicants are required to disclose all of their assets and liabilities, not simply sufficient to meet the requirements of the personal net worth. While it is important to meet the minimum, "legally obtained" net worth ($1,600,000 as of December 1st) it is both an eligibility requirement under the Regulations to meet the definition and an essential part of the admissibility determination under IRPA.

As previous files, whether withdrawn or not, are not returned to an applicant, any significant change in an individual's net worth will be readily apparent to a visa officer and will likely raise questions as to the veracity of the information provided previously and will, at the very least, result in an increased level of scrutiny as to the bona fides of the information provided. While increases in an individual's net worth may reasonably appear over time, a doubling of the disclosed personal net worth within a year or so of the previous application calls into question the legitimacy of any new application. As noted, this is not simply about verifying whether the applicants meets the required minimum net worth, but rather speaks to source of funds concerns.

Moreover, a large number of second (full) applications will be counterproductive in that it will just result in a new queue for applicants and exacerbate existing storage capacity problems - particularly in large scale offices such as Hong Kong. If large numbers of applicants in the current inventory are being encouraged to reapply in the expectation of priority processing, they will very likely be simply exchanging one queue for another.

Most clients will have gained very little or no processing advantage by making the higher investment.

2. New requirements effective December 1st, 2010

Although we have already addressed this in our previous Newsletter, we think it is worthwhile to reiterate, there is a revised Schedule 6 for Investor applicants.

Applicants must also provide the new Subscription Agreement (coming soon) and the new Investor's Acknowledgement form, identifying the Facilitator, and countersigned by an authorized representative of the Facilitator, in order to be paid a commission. CIC will only pay a commission if the Facilitator of record at the outset is the same Facilitator used in making the investment.

1. Application submitted prior to December 1, 2010 and would like to switch their application under the New Regulations

Immigration applications which were filed with the MICC prior to December 1, 2010 can request that their applications be switched to the new program, prior to December 1, 2011, if no final decision was rendered (accepted, refused, rejected, closed/cancelled) on the said application. No additional application fees will be requested if the applicant switches over his application to the New Program before November 30, 2011.

If an application was submitted prior to December 1, 2010, and the MICC has indicated their intention to reject the said application, the applicant must firstly respond to the MICC's request prior to switching to the New Program.

Procedure

First, the applicant must first write to the MICC indicating his intention to withdraw his application that was submitted prior to December 1, 2010 and resubmit it under the New Regulation.

• If the applicant's declared net worth declared was less than CAD $1.6 million in his application submitted prior to December 1, 2010, the application will automatically be returned to the applicant. The applicant can, if he chooses, will therefore have to resubmit a complete application if he chooses to.
• If the net worth of the applicant is more than CAD $1.6 million, the application could be kept at the MICC and the applicant will then have to submit the following documents:
• Application for Selection Certificate
• Investor's Agreement
• Statement by the dealer or trust company with respect to the verification of the identity and to the steps to be taken to verify the source and origin of the assets of the investor applicant
• Power of Attorney
• The narrative form and other documents requested under the checklist
• In the above scenario, the new forms submitted by the applicant will be added to his/her initial application.

Please note, that once the initial application is withdrawn from the MICC and resubmitted under the new Regulation, they will only be examined under that Regulation.

The above interim measures do not apply to files that are currently under an administrative appeal.

2. New requirements effective December 1st, 2010

As stated in our previous Newsletter we think it is worthwhile to reiterate, there is a revised Industrial Alliance Securities Inc. Investment Agreement and a new Power of Attorney.

Applicants must also provide the New Application for Selection Certificate as indicated in the New Document Checklist.

I hope this helps to clarify the situation. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.