PE: Report reveals province raked in millions from PNP

[CHARLOTTETOWN, PE] — Financial details about the Provincial Nominee Program released last week show the government corporation that administered the PNP brought in over $295 million in gross earnings for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. That’s more than double the amount earned the year before.

Island Investment Development Inc. (IIDI)’s 2008-2009 annual report was released Thursday, and it reveals the details about government’s gains from the controversial PNP.

The Provincial Nominee Program offered expedited Canadian visas to immigrants who invested $200,000 on P.E.I., some of which went into an Island company. It was established to encourage immigration to the province.

The province ramped it up in 2008 and pushed through as many PNP applications as it could after the federal government announced it was changing its rules to disallow the way P.E.I. was investing its immigrant monies. Over 1,800 applications were processed between April and September 2, 2008. That is more than double the total amount processed in all of 2007.

It was a profitable move for IIDI. Revenue doubled for the corporation in numerous areas due to multi-millions charged in PNP processing fees.

The Crown corporation made over $5 million in business processing fees compared with $780,000 the year before. The businesses in turn received about $55,000 per PNP investment, known as a unit.

Over $3.4 million in fees was also collected for PNP interviews conducted in the summer of 2008 when IIDI sent teams of employees to Hong Kong and Dubai to conduct PNP interviews. Previously, immigrants were required to travel to P.E.I. for these interviews, but obtaining a travel visa was a lengthy process and P.E.I. was trying nominate as many immigrants as possible before its September 2 deadline. IIDI charged the immigrants $2,500 each for these overseas interviews — and made over $3 million in doing so.

Profits were also made from defaults on the $25,000 good faith and $20,000 language deposits charged to immigrants in addition to their PNP investments. These deposits were supposed to be returned to the immigrants after a year if they met certain requirements.

For the good faith deposits, newcomers had to prove they had lived in P.E.I. for one year.

Language deposits were charged to those who could not speak English and were promised back if the immigrants passed certain language requirements within a year of landing on the Island. A number of immigrants apparently did not meet those requirements last year. IIDI took in over $4.6 million in default PNP deposits.

But revenues were not the only numbers that went up in 2008-2009 at IIDI.

Expenses also went up. Employees got a salary boost of 80 per cent over the previous year and office expenses went up $224,000. Consulting fees were over $371,000 compared with $38,000 in the 2007-2008 fiscal year. The IIDI travel budget was also boosted to a whopping $490,000 compared to $55,000 the year before.

Innovation Minister Allan Campbell was not available for comment Friday, but will sit down for an interview with The Guardian this week to discuss the details of this report.