Different. EB-5 capital of US$800,000 or US$1,050,000 is invested at risk and may be returned; the Gold Card gift is not returned. Comparing them by headline amount ignores refund position, tax treatment, the EB-5 job test and the timeline of each immigrant category.
Compare what happens to the money, not the size of the number
Hypothetical example: a Haldimand County family lines up a US$800,000 EB-5 subscription beside a US$1,000,000 Gold Card gift and concludes the difference is US$200,000. That framing misleads. The EB-5 amount is invested in an enterprise, must remain at risk through conditional residence, carries the possibility of loss and the possibility of return, and depends on ten jobs being created.
The Gold Card amount is a gift to the U.S. government with no return under any outcome, plus a nonrefundable processing fee, plus the same amounts again for each included family member. Tax treatment of a gift versus an investment differs in both countries and can change the effective cost materially.
Timelines differ too: EB-5 leads to conditional residence and an I-829 stage; the Gold Card leads into EB-1 or EB-2 processing subject to visa availability. Build a table with columns for at-risk amount, non-recoverable amount, per-person multiplier, tax effect, job requirement and time to unconditional residence, and fill it from the official sources before choosing.