Book Description

Active for more than twenty years, the Business Immigration Program has permitted close to 300,000 business immigrants and their families to land in Canada. Representations of this immigrant class in the media, public opinion, official statistics and academic assessments have emphasized as outcomes the objectives of the program: economic activity and wealth creation. However, in-depth interviews with two dozen households in Vancouver, the most popular destination of business immigrants, together with census data and tax filer returns, suggest a different conclusion of limited entrepreneurial activity and modest income generation in Canada. Many business immigrants find the economic culture in Canada, notably taxation levels, economic regulation, and the language and networks of commerce, creates an unfavourable regime for their own entrepreneurialism. Many are not engaged in active, full-time economic activity in Canada and have developed other strategies including off-shore employment, early retirement, and return migration. Among those who have entered business, many undergo long hours and marginal returns in the crowded ethnic enclave economy. A number of business immigrants express high levels of frustration and disappointment at their experience of limited economic opportunities, while nonetheless valuing British Columbia's quality of life.