Business Development Bank of Canada and BDC Capital

investment: It was meant to attract rich immigrants willing to make a non-guaranteed investment of $2 million up front to be held for 15 years in a fund managed principally by BDC Capital, the investment arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, in return for permanent residency, according to Huffington Post Canada. They also had to prove they had even more money in the bank. The Immigrant Investor Venture Capital program, a revamped version of a program critics once denounced as "cash for citizenship," was launched under the former Conservative government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the World Economic Forum. But a year after it was launched, the pilot program has yielded just seven applications from potential international investors and no permanent resident visas. "The demand for this pilot program has been low," said Nancy Caron a spokeswoman with the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in an email to CBC News this week. A year later, Canada is still waiting to welcome its first new millionaire immigrant investor. "A total of seven applications are in process," said the departmental spokeswoman this week, adding that as of Dec. 30, 2015, four applications had passed a first-stage review and three had passed a second-stage review and were "in process." Only when an application reaches the second-stage is it then given a "pass or fail," Caron explained. High hopes dashed The previous Conservative government thought it would result in hundreds of applications from rich immigrant investors. "The program will be open for applications from Jan. 28 to Feb. 11, 2015, or until a maximum of 500 applications are received," the previous government announced around this time last year. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.