The corporation and its mandate

Establishment of the corporation

The Ontario Immigrant Investor Corporation (OIIC) was incorporated as an operating agency of the Ontario government on April 30, 1999. On June 22, 1999, the corporation was accepted by the federal government as an approved fund, as defined by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), for the purpose of receiving and investing monies from the immigrant investor program (IIP).

Primary purpose

The OIIC was established to act as the government of Ontario’s vehicle for receiving and investing Ontario’s share of immigrant investor funds, as required by the federal government under the federal IIP. The OIIC’s principal responsibility is to receive and invest Ontario’s share of funds from immigrant investors and to pay back immigrant investors upon the maturity of their investment in five years.

The broad goal of the OIIC is to create or sustain employment in Ontario in order to foster the development of a strong and viable economy, consistent with the requirements of the regulations under the federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

Corporation status

The 2014 federal budget announced the termination of the IIP. In July 2017, Ontario triggered a suspension under IRPA regulations, and as such, Ontario will no longer accept future allocations from IRCC allowing the OIIC to wind down in 2022-23.

Governance and management

The OIIC reports to the minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development through the chair of the board of directors. There must be at least three members of the board of directors in order to meet quorum at all meetings. Board members are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. 

There were three directors serving at fiscal year end March 31, 2021:

Patricia Perez, chair
Appointment date: March 12, 2020

Mara Bakic, vice chair
Appointment date: February 15, 2017 (Reappointed on February 27, 2020)

Michael Reid, director
Appointment date: March 27, 2019

Five executive officers were carrying out the day-to-day operations of OIIC at fiscal year end March 31, 2021:

Morgan Owen, president
Appointment date: March 31, 2020

Adam Feather, general manager
Appointment date: March 31, 2020

Monica Leone, chief financial officer
Appointment date: March 31, 2020

Tyler Hargreaves, secretary
Appointment date: October 23, 2015

Asokan Sadasivan, accountant
Appointment date: October 23, 2015

Agency Dissolution Planning

The OIIC is required to remain operational until all immigrant investor funds, allocated to Ontario for five-year terms, are fully repaid. Once the OIIC has returned all IIP funds to IRCC, and interest to the CRF, the agency will have met its obligations with the federal government and will be a position to windup its operations.

In 2020-21 the OIIC will continue to work with the Ontario Finance Authority (OFA) to manage and repay its investments. The OIIC will begin its agency dissolution planning for a targeted dissolution of 2022-2023.

Program operations and performance

Performance measures :

  • To ensure that funds are secure and earn a positive return on investments.
  • To stimulate economic development and job creation through public infrastructure investments.

Ontario has always taken a prudent approach to investment given that the province is obligated to repay funds to the immigrant investors in five years. Initially, Ontario only utilized the interest accrued on the capital to invest in economic development and job creation; this was similar to the approach taken by other provinces.  Subsequently in 2010-11, following discussions with the federal government the approach was changed to fully invest the allocations being received.

This approach was facilitated by a Credit Facility/ Loan Agreement between the OIIC and Ontario Infrastructure and Lands Corporation (OILC). This agreement stipulated that the funds loaned from OIIC would be used towards infrastructure projects and job creation. Once the agreement with Infrastructure Ontario (IO), previously OILC, expired in December 2015, OIIC began investing in zero-coupon bonds.

In 2020-2021, the OIIC continued to manage investments under the Statement of Investment Policies and Procedures (SIPP) to ensure compliance with the Federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Ontario Financing Authority (OFA) will manage funds to ensure that all repayment obligations are met and will monitor the repayment process in conjunction with the OIIC’s accountant. In addition, the OIIC will continue to provide information to IRCC as per the IIP reporting requirements.

Risk factors:

The corporation is exposed to interest rate risk whenever any funds received from immigrants are invested in fixed income securities because the future return and market value of the investments is dependent on the prevailing interest rates.  However, there is very little exposure to fluctuating interest rates during the 5-year period of the repayable provincial allocations because the maturity of the fixed income investments matches the maturity of the repayable provincial allocations.

It is management’s opinion that the corporation is not exposed to significant credit or currency risk because all investments are with related parties supported by the province and none of them are denominated in a foreign currency.

Financial operations and performance

In 2020-21, the agency had revenues of $0.2M against expenses of $0.04M. At year end, the agency had net financial assets of $39M and had returned $7.3M to the federal government. The financial assets and liability of the Corporation have decreased since 2017-2018, consistent with the wind-down of the agency following the termination of the IIP program by the federal government.

For your reference, please see the enclosed copy of the Audited Financial Statements.