New Canadian federal Immigrant Investor Program will bring to Canada more resources to fund economic development and job creation initiatives.

Earlier today, Canada Gazette, the official newspaper of the Government of Canada announced the re-opening of the New Canadian Immigrant Investor Program, effective on December 1st, 2010. Citizenship and Immigration Canada will once again start accepting applications under the Federal Immigrant Investor Program but this time under the new regulations.

Under the new Canadian Investor Immigration Program criteria, clients must:

• have a personal net worth of CAD $1,600,000, up from CAD $800,000 under the old criteria,
• make an investment of CAD $800,000, up from CAD $400,000 as previously required.

According to Minister Kenney, these changes were necessary as the requirements had not been increased in more than a decade and were not in pace with the changing economy.

Canada's old immigrant investor criteria were the lowest when compared to other countries with similar programs, as a consequence, application intake has almost tripled since 2007 and application inventories have increased significantly. The new criteria will now position Canada inline with other immigrant investor receiving countries.