Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
scale of these funds in interviews, and more reliable sources were financial
institutions that managed offshore deposits. A Citibank official in Hong
Kong told Mitchell (2004) that only 10 percent of funds were typically
transferred to Canada at the point of emigration but other globally diversi-
fied assets could follow business families later as needed. These overseas
deposits were active, for business immigrants often maintained economic
interests in Asia Pacific after they had landed in Canada. A significant share
of the funds generated by these business activities is deposited offshore,
although family members in Canada also benefit from them. The extent of
astronaut travel to offshore business ventures is one indicator of the volume
of such overseas financial resources. A study by the Chinese-Canadian
Historical Society of British Columbia includes the startling estimate that
two-thirds of males of Hong-Kong origin, and between the ages of 25 and
44, live and work outside Canada (Cernetig 2007). An earlier survey con-
ducted by SUCCESS in 1991 in the ethnoburb of Richmond, adjacent to
the Vancouver International Airport, revealed that 40 percent of Hong Kong
Chinese lived in transnational family arrangements (Man 2007).
The political economy underlying Canada's Asia Pacific strategy presup-
posed incorporation of the wealth of immigrants within the nation's bor-
ders. To ascertain the size of this wealth and confirm the tax payable from
it, the state showed a willingness to play the globalization game, extending
its reach beyond conventional jurisdictional territory. For undeclared over-
seas income belonging to Canadian residents could be illegally shielded
from national taxation. Tax evasion and avoidance are not of course limited
to immigrants from East Asia but are widely practised by wealthy residents
who have transferred funds to overseas tax havens. Indeed tax avoidance by
Canadians in Ontario (in particular), employing Caribbean refuges, was the
primary irritant that prompted attempts by the state to enforce its jurisdic-
tion to the global assets of residents. Public resistance to this globalising
sortie by government revenue-seekers was not, however, concentrated
among Bay Street lawyers representing WASP executives in Ontario, but
instead was led by the advocates of millionaire migrants in Vancouver.
Foreign assets disclosure legislation was announced in the 1995 federal
budget as a means of identifying more completely the global income of
Canadian residents, but implementation was repeatedly postponed until
1999 due to persistent public opposition. The new rules required Canadian
residents to declare in their annual tax return offshore assets including
shares, trusts, real estate and other holdings whose original cost exceeded
$100,000. Details of foreign bank accounts must be disclosed, but personal
use and business property are exempted (McCarthy and Gibbon 1998).
Announcement of the tax changes stimulated a barrage of protests, a pro-
longed round of 'citizenship games',
27
and clearly revealed the interests ben-
efiting from existing non-disclosure. In the judgement of CIC officials it is
