At least 1,300 millionaires from mainland China have decided to sue the Canadian immigration authorities after the country decided to terminate its immigrant investor program for which the complainants had applied.
Each of the complainants is asking for CAD5m (around USD4.57m) in compensation should the Canadian government continue to refuse to assess their cases.
The Chinese mainlanders paid around USD1.7m as application deposit when they applied for immigration under Canada's 25-year-old Immigrant Investor Program (IIP).
Tim Leahy, the Canada-based lawyer representing the claimants, said the 1,335 wealthy Chinese citizens submitted their immigration applications in Hong Kong but immigration authorities in Canada slowed the processing before eventually suspended the IIP program last February. The IIP had allowed foreigners to migrate to Canada provided that they had a net worth of CAD1.6m (USD1.5).
The South China Morning Post said Tim Leahy, the Toronto lawyer behind the Federal Court case that goes before Justice Mary Gleason, is seeking C$5million (HK$35.7 million) in compensation for each applicant and their dependents unless the government agrees to assess their cases.
Leahy said 1,335 of his 1,446 clients had lodged their applications for the federal Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP]) in Hong Kong. Virtually all of the Hong Kong applicants are mainland Chinese.
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