"Is it not possible to have money plus a higher level of education or possession of good skills?"

That's a moot point and strawman ("person" if you will ) argument at best.

No one would argue that Canada should not continue to be open to accepting highly skilled and/or well-educated  immigrants regardless as to whether they have funds available and/or  intent to invest in the Candian economy (with the proviso that those monies are not being used solely for the purpose of speculative housing investments -witness the rife abuse of the former(?current .. have the loopholes been closed )  system with "ghost immigrants"    driving up housing prices on Vancouver and elsewhere.

But accepting immigrants solely based on investment criteria is a whole other animal. Most certainly there must already be policies in place to minimize the risk of potential abuse  of  such a system/program  (i.e. the funneling of monies  from unsavoury sources). Such an abuse would be a political boondoggle  if the screening and/or enforcement was substandard. (Although one could argue that such enforcement by Canada would be hypocritical given that it has accepted the $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia ... "When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses." Shirley Chisholm)

I guess another question might be, does the Canadian Stimulus Fund Ltd already have an existing  aggregate of potental $1 million+ investors to fund the $400million /year, and if not, how long would it take them to accrue those investors.

It might just  be that the Ontario/Canadian government would prefer a home grown 3P type partnership to address the ROF and other  infrastructure issues, to avoid the potential pitfalls of abuse mentioned and/or  to score polical points at one or both levels of government (assuming that one or both levels of govenment can afford their share of involvement at this time)

Cheers,

Luker