Vernon city council at the regular meeting Monday, March 11 (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

180 Applicants

Entrepreneur immigration pilot has only brought one business to Vernon, but still showing potential

Mar 14, 2024 | 5:00 AM

A provincial program launched five years ago to bring immigrant entrepreneurs to B.C. communities has only seen one successful applicant locally, but is still planned to continue into the future.

In March of 2019, the B.C. government launched the Provincial Nominee Program Entrepreneur Immigration Pilot, with the goal of bringing international entrepreneurs to communities throughout the province, including Vernon, and onto a path to establish permanent residency.

It was originally planned to be a two year pilot, but was extended an additional three years through to the end of March 2024.

At the regular city council meeting Monday, March 11, John Perrot, Vernon’s Manager of Economic Development and Partnerships, provided an update on the program’s local operations.

Since it’s launch, Vernon has received 180 applications, of whom 18 visited the community to learn if their proposed business would be suitable here. Fifteen of those applicants were referred to the province for the next steps, but only one business has opened through the program, Satoca Bike.

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Data on the local Provincial Nominee Program Entrepreneur lmmigration pilot (image courtesy of the City of Vernon)

There are several steps people need to navigate in order to be successful in their applications, including applying to a community then to the province, having a business plan evaluated and approved, moving to Canada, undergoing a provincial assessment of their business, and then applying for residency with the federal government.

All in, Perrot said these steps could take between three and six years before someone could start a business in B.C., and between four and seven years to earn their residency.

Upon receiving the report, Mayor Victor Cumming expressed concern with the value of the program.

“I’m a huge advocate of economic development and economic development opportunities, but this one looks a little thin. This looks like a lot of work and very low likelihood of impact,” Cumming stated.

“If you look at the 175 applications that we’ve looked at (between 2019 and 2023), and we’ve ended up with one business at the end of it over a five year period, or four and a half year period.”

The mayor added it appeared to be a very time-consuming venture, to which Perrot said about eight to 12 hours a month is spent on the program, which includes reviewing the applications and discussing them in committee meetings.

While he said that ratio of 180 applicants to one success appeared to be a challenging number, he expects that to change, as there were rising application rates in 2022 and 2023 from previous years.

“I think the impact of COVID and travel restrictions, as well as some unsureness of the two-year pilot then moving to [an additional ] three-year pilot project, reduced some of our intake, especially in those first few years,” Perrot told council.

“I think the broader part is this is a significant effort by those international entrepreneur immigrants coming into the community to move their family.”

Perrot added he is hopeful that some of the community visits will still bring some “innovative business ideas” to Vernon.

Cumming noted the success rate was much lower than that of the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot being run in the North Okanagan, which aims to bring immigrants to the area to work and gain residency, and while he said “I understand while going fishing is always a good idea,” he was still concerned with the entrepreneur program and “how many fish [it had brought into] the boat.”

Councillor Kari Gares had a different point of view from the mayor, stating the program allows for Vernon to explore some economic growth opportunities.

“The one thing just to keep in mind is that we had 15 [referrals] to the province, and from that we’ve received one,” Gares noted.

“So it may look like we’ve had 180 and our success rate is one out of 180, but it’s 180 applications that we’ve vetted, then you have to go through that process and then you’re sending those referrals off to the province, and out of that that was only 15. So the numbers look a little bit better than 180 to one.”

Terry Barton, Vernon’s director of planning and community services, told council the program is being continuously evaluated to determine its value, but believe that the city should “continue to go fishing, and to see how the program evolves,” adding that if results do not improve in the future, then the city could consider dropping the program or redistributing resources currently assigned to it.

The pilot will close on March 31, 2024, and become a full provincial program at a later date.

Vernon council voted to receive the report for information, and then to apply for the Provincial Nominee Program Entrepreneur Immigration when it becomes a full program.

Cumming noted he wished to see an update on the program in a year’s time to see if it should be continued from that point.