Popular 10-year visas open to abuse by `satellite families'
A minority of people are abusing a program that otherwise does a lot of good for Canada
One of the two downsides of the 10-year visas — which Canada is giving out at a rate of more than 1.3 million a year — is they can be abused by wealthy offshore families trying to shift their assets to Canada as a financial haven.
Canada has given out more than nine million 10-year visitor visas since the program began, with by far the largest bulk of recipients coming from China and India, followed by people from Brazil and Mexico.
The super-popular multiple-entry visas are generally a benefit to Canada's economy, say immigration lawyers. But they caution the 10-year, multiple-entry visas can be abused by “shadow investors” to avoid paying property and income taxes in Canada — and as a dubious means by which to claim asylum.
Samuel Hyman, a Vancouver immigration lawyer, says citizens from nations that “have a history of non-compliance” with Canadian migration, labour and tax laws can obtain the 10-year visas to stay in this country for up to six months at a time. That's unlike citizens from visa-exempt countries like Germany, Japan, Britain and Taiwan, who enjoy the right to almost freely come and go to and from Canada.
Since the 10-year visa program began nine years ago, Canada has issued 2.89 million of them to Chinese nationals. It's also provided 1.774 million to citizens of India, followed by 423,000 to Brazilians, 346,000 to Mexicans, 337,000 to Filipinos, 201,000 to Iranians, 160,000 to Colombians, 148,000 to Vietnamese, 132,000 to Pakistanis and 129,000 to Nigerians.
Both Hyman and George Lee, a Burnaby immigration lawyer who was born in China, believe the 10-year visas are good for Canada in the large majority of cases.
They say the visas provide long-term assurance of relatively hassle-free border crossings for tourists who will stimulate the Canadian economy, for relatives who are able to visit close relatives for months at a time and for professionals, business people and scholars on long-term assignments in Canada.
But one of the two downsides of the 10-year visas — which Canada is giving out at a rate of more than 1.3 million a year — is they can be abused by wealthy offshore families trying to shift their assets to Canada as a financial haven.
The 10-year visas make it relatively easy, say Hyman and Lee, for so-called “satellite families” to avoid paying income taxes and capital gains taxes in Canada even while they are investing much of their wealth here, most frequently in real estate.
Satellite families are transnational migrants in which the breadwinners sponsor their spouse and children to immigrate to Canada, but end up returning to their country of origin to earn money. Meanwhile their dependents settle in Canada, applying for permanent resident status, attending schools and drawing on government health and social services.
“I'm going to tell you how this scheme works,” said Lee.
“The family comes over here to Canada and the breadwinner, usually a male, goes back to his home country, either somewhere in India or China. The breadwinner exports his money and other assets to Canada, while his wife and children stay here.”
“The purpose is two-fold. One, his children are able to receive free public education in Canada and go to university here. Two, the spouses keep permanent resident status. But the breadwinner can go back and forth to Canada on a 10-year visa and in that case doesn't have to pay taxes to Canada, because he can act as if he's not a resident for tax purposes.”
Even though B.C.'S NDP government is attempting through the speculation and vacancy tax and other measures to track foreign investors who buy often-luxury property through proxies so they act as if they are not tax residents of Canada, Hyman said Ottawa's Immigration and Revenue departments have not co-operated with Victoria to share crucial monitoring information.
One of the easiest ways to track people who take advantage of 10-year multiple entry visas to avoid paying taxes in Canada would be to investigate people who are “relinquishing” or “renouncing” their permanent resident status in Canada, say Lee and Hyman. But the federal government is not co-operating with such monitoring.
Relinquishing one's permanent resident status makes it possible for breadwinners to instead employ a 10-year visa. as if they were tourists, to regularly see their spouse and children in Canada, said Lee. Meanwhile, their family members, who often appear on title as the legal owner of the Canadian properties, can continue on the road to becoming permanent residents and eventually citizens.
The relinquishment scheme involving 10-year visas often comes with a crucial wrinkle, say Lee and Hyman.
“When the breadwinner retires, he still has ties in Canada, including a spouse here. That's when the spouse can sponsor the husband to come over to Canada to become a permanent resident. I've seen a lot of this happen. I don't have a percentage for this phenomenon, but it's very common. Very common,” Lee said.
In 2018, roughly 10,000 people a year were relinquishing, for a variety of reasons, their permanent resident status in Canada. But data is not available on how many then turned around to apply for a 10-year visitor's visa.
There are ways to stop potential abuse of the relinquishment program, said Hyman. “The time has come to look at barring the re-sponsorship of ( breadwinners) by their dependents after they voluntarily renounce their permanent residence. Canada prohibits other sponsorships of convenience to maintain program integrity in our immigration system.”
There is one other quite different way for potential abuse of Canada's in-demand 10-year visas.
That is how, even while an applicant must undergo a degree of vetting before obtaining a 10-year multiple entry visa, Lee and Hyman say they can still be used as a way to land on Canadian soil and then try to obtain asylum, in an irregular way, as a victim of persecution in one's homeland.
Each year more than 60,000 people in total claim refugee status in Canada. Last year 7,345 of them were from India, 6,345 were from Mexico, 5,620 were from Iran, 4,150 were from Nigeria and 3,395 were from Colombia. The Immigration Department, however, doesn't provide data on how many of the would-be refugees arrived on 10-year visas.
“I think 10-year visas are generally good, but everything can be abused,” said Lee. “We need to come up with a policy to prevent people from abusing the system, including by coming over as visitors and then applying for refugee status.”