Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
who had been a college instructor for 20 years had his application sent to
the entrepreneur stream without his knowledge.
I had a lot of problems with the immigration consultants. Needless to say,
I spent a lot of unnecessary money. The application took a full year. Since
none of us spoke a word of English, the consultants wrote the proposal.
However, what we didn't know at the time was that the consultants put us into
the entrepreneur class. Since they were the experts, we left it up to them to
write the proposal. Moreover, we were never told about the conditions that we
had to meet. Essentially, we were forced into doing business.
Additional problems emerged with the application. The English-language
version submitted to Canadian authorities was different from the Chinese
version the family read.
After a year, the immigration papers came down so I decided not to press
forward with the issue. However, this corrupt and dishonest business practice
left me really disappointed. Needless to say, many people also suffered the
same fate. Many like me were gouged a large sum of money.
But at least this applicant's file moved smoothly through the review process.
This was the typical experience of the entrepreneurs, who found immigra-
tion assessment lengthy but not difficult. If they did nothing else, the con-
sultants did expedite passage to Canada.
The Calculating State
Once business migrants were on the ground in Canada they became, in a
sense, wards of the state. Though they showed considerable reticence about
economic prospects, their chosen route to citizenship required business
activity soon after landing. They entered a path mapped out for them by the
protocols of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Those in the investor
stream were obligated to invest a considerable sum - $400,000 by 2001 - in
a five-year Canadian fund, with outcomes for much of the period after 1986
depending on the vicissitudes of the market and not infrequently predatory
business partnerships.
The entrepreneurs faced a more rigorous regimen of governmentality.
They were required to establish a business that employed at least one Canadian
and undergo continuing performance assessment by immigration authori-
ties. As such, the programme represents a symptomatic form of the 'rights
plus responsibilities' model of contemporary self-sufficient citizenship
(Kymlicka and Norman 1994; Rose 1999). Expectations were set by officials
that immigrants in Vancouver would invest around $150,000 in the business
and they were encouraged toward manufacturing and away from real estate,
