Equipment ownership and ownership of the business are distinct facts. Review each accurately.
Identify the rights that matter
The business may have use rights under a lease while its ownership interests are held separately. Do not infer treaty nationality solely from who owns an operating asset.
The investor must develop and direct the enterprise, which is ordinarily shown by at least fifty percent ownership or by operational control through a management position or another mechanism recorded in the governing documents. Ownership of at least fifty percent by treaty nationals is required and the applicant's sixty percent meets it, provided the shares are held personally or through an entity that is itself Canadian-owned. What matters is whether the enterprise is real and operating or credibly ready to launch, whether the capital is substantial and genuinely at risk, and whether projections built on the remaining customers still support non-marginality. Majority ownership is the usual proof, but a franchise agreement that reserves most operating decisions to the franchisor can undermine it, so the agreement's control clauses are examined alongside the share percentage. The governing condition bears repeating without decoration: the applicant must have irrevocably committed capital that is at risk in a real operating enterprise, and a transfer no supplier will acknowledge does not evidence that commitment.