Business Class Immigrants to Canada
For all that we Canadians complain about the weather, the taxes we pay or our economy, we are amazingly fortunate to live in Canada. And for those of us who run a small business, we have even more blessings. Yes, we have red tape and municipal governments and provincial governments and a federal government … and they all want a piece of us. Despite all of this, the World Bank ranks Canada as one of the best countries in the world for the ease of doing business. In fact we rank # 13 of 183 countries. And we are the third best place to start a business, after New Zealand and Australia.. The US ranks # 13. It looks like the main reason we did not rank higher overall was our really poor score in “Getting Electricity”. According to the World Bank, we rank # 156th in the world in that category…just ahead of Bosnia & Herzegovina and just behind Venezuela. Even Liberia ranks ahead of Canada! The evaluators didn’t have a very good business plan!
Our good standing in the business rankings helps to explain why so many immigrants want to come to Canada to start a business. Of those business immigrants, a great number are coming to BC, because our Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is one of the fastest paths to enter Canada as a business class immigrant. The restrictions are few. The business class immigrant has to invest a certain amount of money to create or purchase a business, increase employment and and have a professional quality business plan, prepared to very strict specifications.