MONTREAL -- Foreign businesspeople interested in investing in Quebec will need to be patient. They’ll now have to wait until April 2021 before hearing the new rules the Legault government will set out governing how overseas investors can do business in Quebec.
At the end of October, following reports exposing failures in this area, provincial Minister of Immigration Simon Jolin-Barrette decided to suspend applications filed within a program intended for foreign investors, giving his department until July 2020 to correct the situation and do a major reform.
But it looks like that reform could be even more substantial than expected, since a new ministerial decree, published Wednesday in the provincial government gazette, shows that this deadline has been pushed to April 2021.
The announcement didn’t suggest, however, what justifies the change of plans. The minister's office did not have much to say on the matter on Wednesday, declining to comment on the nature of the changes under discussion.
Each year, Quebec has welcomed a total of up to 1,900 successful investors. Over the past decade, most have been from China.
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on May 20, 2020.
