Pretty, As far as my knowledge goes, there are two types of them - the business classes. One is assessed at the federal level and the other at the provincial level. the rumour goes like they are more meant for those who are already doing business in canada but are not canadians yet. For a newbie contemplating investing here, they will have to verify the source of money, besides the regular verification of identity and security. They brag that they dont allow "black money". Another rumour says this kind of "already existing" theory holds only for the federal level, who are by nature, more reluctant to take decisions on such issues that might make more news. As u know, as canada allows dual citizenships, allowing "purchasing" of citizenship (PR actually) will let "many different varieties" of people. However, with the provincial approach, sometimes it is a lot faster than the skilled immigrant track and I have personally seen a few successful cases too. One more benefit is that you dont have to go through the frustating cycle of "networking" and setting up here as such immigrants are directly led to the local chamber of commerce (provincial wala ma) and introduced to business folks, investment advisors and so on. No frustation of odd jobs, humiliation, nothing...sidhai sasurali gako jasto! For more on this provincial thing, each province has its own rules. for anyone interested, let me make it more clear that it is a country of diversity and as a means of reaching to all the communities, the governments (feds and provs) are SPECIALLY AWARE to disseminate info from web. Look at any of the govt of canada websites and compare to websites of any other govts and you urself will feel the difference. As far as i m aware, the official govt policy is to make ALL the unclassified info available on the web so that one does not need to go and contact them or lawyers or whatever. However, they also have a policy of limiting online processing becasue they think ppl are not well acquainted with that. So, you will find fillable or non-fillable PDF forms on the web that you have to print and mail but not online-submit kinda forms per se. Hope I answered you well, otherwise you know what to do.