A long-simmering controversy over an immigrant investment program in Prince Edward Island has proved to be the scandal that will not die, flaring up repeatedly with allegations of corruption that local observers believe will be laid to rest only with a formal investigation.
Political tensions about conflicts of interest in a program that essentially auctioned off preferential immigration treatment ran high and occasionally boiled over.
Opposition Conservative MLA Mike Currie was charged in September with assaulting a heckler on the steps of the legislature that was the birthplace of Confederation. Liberal Premier Robert Ghiz lashed out in October at Mr. Currie, who suggested conflict of interest in the hiring of a bureaucrat's wife, by accusing him of being chauvinistic. And this month, the government derided as “inappropriate” an after-hours attempt by Opposition Leader Olive Crane to get information from a senior bureaucrat.
The long-running program gave preferential access to would-be immigrants who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in local businesses. Ottawa believed the province was wrong to let immigrants act as passive investors, and signalled the rules would be tightened in September, 2008. The province launched a recruitment blitz before the deadline, leading to new federal concerns about the sort of businesses – start-ups, for example – that were getting money.
Since then, a trickle of revelations has fed the growing belief that the program has had serious problems since the middle of the decade.
Provincial Auditor-General Colin Younker found improprieties, reporting that the provincial nominee program (PNP) had long lacked proper oversight and he identified conflict of interest by senior bureaucrats in the current and former governments. He also reported that some sitting politicians had accessed funds, but a government-dominated legislative committee voted in November to prevent him from naming them on the grounds that the conflict of interest commissioner had cleared politicians whose businesses obtained investments.
The bi-partisan nature of the problems offers limited solace to the government of Premier Ghiz, which replaced the Conservatives in June, 2007. Ottawa moved to tighten the rules on the Ghiz government's watch. And it was the Liberals' decision to expand the program so dramatically last year.
The provincial government approved businesses for participation but will not identify them, arguing that the investment was a private transaction between an immigrant and a company.
A local firm acting as an intermediary matched businesses with immigrant investors, Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning Allan Campbell said, adding that government would “rely on the integrity of the intermediaries” to prevent favouritism.
“I can talk about oversight … but there are aspects of the program, basically, that were handled by other agencies,” he said. “Whether it be intermediaries or whether it be the immigration agents or what have you.”
The province received 1,877 immigrant applications in the final six months under the old rules, more than double the entire previous year. Each had to be willing to put up $200,000 – prompting critics to call this a $400-million scandal.
That's approximately one-quarter the size of the budget tabled in Charlottetown this spring.
Amounts varied, but the program required approximately one-quarter of the money to be invested locally. This was called a “unit,” and businesses could receive several. A slightly larger amount went to the agents who found the immigrants, and the intermediaries, companies that have played this role since before the Ghiz government took office. The remaining money was put in trust, eventually to be returned to the immigrant.
The talk in island barbershops and coffee houses is about the sense, borne out by the auditor's findings, that the well-connected got the money.
