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Canadian Immigrants Tasting the Good Life

A third of affluent Canadians were born outside the country. Might it have something to do with their bootstrapping view of work, business, and life? Here’s a story about a typical Vancouverite of my acquaintance. Of Indo-Canadian heritage, he immigrated to Canada some 20 years ago. He’s a modest man who runs a modest retail business. He’s also rich – worth several million dollars.

By Tony Wanless /

Shaughnessy house, Vancouver
According to a BMO Harris Private Banking group survey, new Canadians make up a third of the affluent in this country.

A third of affluent Canadians were born outside the country. Might it have something to do with their bootstrapping view of work, business, and life?

Here’s a story about a typical Vancouverite of my acquaintance. Of Indo-Canadian heritage, he immigrated to Canada some 20 years ago. He’s a modest man who runs a modest retail business.

He’s also rich – worth several million dollars.

No, he’s not mega-rich in the sense that he has hundreds of millions of dollars. But through smart investing, he is affluent in that he has a few million.

He became that way because he methodically built up his wealth through hard work, a nose for an opportunity, and by sticking to traditional business methodology of buy and sell.

I thought of him when I saw a survey by the BMO Harris Private Banking group that showed that new Canadians make up a third of the affluent in this country.

Does this surprise you?

It might if you cling to the idea of wealth being inherited or dispersed among the well connected and traditionally educated. Certainly that might appear true to anyone who ventures into the Vancouver area’s more expensive neighbourhoods, peopled mostly by government mandarins, the politically connected, or corporate executives.

But there is, apparently, another dynamic in this country – immigrants who, I believe, have climbed the wealth ladder by dint of values and outlook and in so doing, have changed the country forever.

In Canada, aside from the often mythical Asian Rich, the common view of immigrants is as service people who do all the jobs native-born Canadians don’t want. It’s a view that is well-established by generations of immigrants and was standard when I came from Europe to this country as a child with my parents.

Our mantra was: Get a job, get a house, and get enough so that your children have a “better” life.

But over the past three decades or so, many immigrants have come from highly mercantile cultures, and, while they may have been forced to work at menial day jobs, were educated enough to start businesses on the side and bootstrap these businesses into viable enterprises.

In many cases, these immigrants saw opportunities in Canada they didn’t have at home. Most established Canadians, they reasoned, had a sense of entitlement to the middle-class life and so didn’t do much to advance themselves. In contrast, people with guts, thrift, and a willingness to work could do quite well.

So here’s my homage to my friend and all those like him: by bringing real values and old-fashioned business views, you have pulled this country up by its bootstraps from a class-ridden, primarily white and British enclave to a wealthier and much more vibrant business culture.