Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 20th, 2010

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Would you be able to provide that to us?

[C/Supt Joe Oliver]

Yes, we'll provide that.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Chair, can I be assured that Mr. Oliver from the RCMP will be able to provide us with the number of convictions in the cases they've been investigating?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We've made a note of that.

Could you send that information to the clerk, please? We will be getting into clause-by-clause of this bill by November 3, so if you could provide that information prior to November 3, we'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Is there a one-stop shop--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We have a point of order.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

On this, there's no timeframe on it, so could it be perhaps from 2004 forward, year by year?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

It took about ten minutes for you to describe who's in charge of what. There are the police, the RCMP; it could be CSIS; it could be CBSA. An ordinary immigrant--who's not even an immigrant yet--could never figure out where to complain to. Is there a possibility of a one-stop shop, whether a person is subject to smuggling, trafficking, or bad advice and goes to consultants? Can they go to one place? It could be CIC or CBSA, RCMP--even just the acronyms would get people totally confused.

Can there be a one-stop shop or a snitch line so that there is a place where that person could determine whether to go to the police or if it's a fraud or whether it's RCMP? Is that possible? Who should lead that?

[Peter Hill]

Currently, and as envisaged in the proposed legislation, the client could raise concerns with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, they could raise concerns with CBSA.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

We've had that--

[Peter Hill]

On the CIC website they have information with respect to complaints and issues.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Yes, we have actually helped people to lay claims. My experience has been that they would go to the police, who would say to go to CIC. CIC would say to go to CBSA. CBSA would say to go to the RCMP. Even my office staff--with several degrees--get confused. I know they could go to all of them, but is it possible that whether it's CIC or CBSA, one agency could be the lead and then distribute it? It would just be so much easier, because it's confusing.

Let me just ask one other question. Right now the time for charges will extend from six months to five years. Why is it five years? Why not ten years? Why not longer? Why not be infinite? Why is it five?

[Gregory Israelstam]

We're very specifically talking about charging somebody on summary offence, which is reserved, generally, for crimes that are thought of as less serious. The Criminal Code provides as a default that you can charge somebody for a summary offence only within six months of the occurrence of the offence. Five years is an exceptional period. It's particularly exceptional when you consider that you're talking about offences for which you can't be sentenced to more than six months.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

But in some cases for immigration it takes eight years, in terms of waiting, to get your parents to be sponsored in Canada. By the time they finish waiting and say, oh, the application is mucked up, but it's after five years.... Because sometimes it does take five to eight years, well, three years, before your sponsorship case is even opened up. By that time.... If the offence was occurring when the application went in, five years can go by very quickly and the applicant might still be waiting, thinking that their application is fine, but actually having been given bad advice.

Could you consider having it be ten years?

[C/Supt Joe Oliver]

I don't know the legal rationale for it, but in terms of the practical application, when we're talking about a summary conviction offence, where the penalty would potentially be fairly minor, to now invest police resources in an investigation that may be dated and to find evidence that may be up to ten years old would be very difficult. Your probability of actually proving the offence, you know, kind of declines the older the evidence gets. It's people's memories. Changes in technology would also impact the availability of data that are in computer systems. It becomes increasingly difficult between the time the offence takes place and the time you start investigating to prove an offence. As a practical matter, there are challenges.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I have one brief question as a result of what Ms. Chow raised, and that has to do with issues that happen in another country. I think the minister made a statement about reciprocal agreements, I believe, with China and India.

No one knows? I don't know how I get these things in my head, but I understood that there was discussion about reciprocal agreements.

My question to you is whether either of you have any recommendations, if there were reciprocal agreements, because obviously that's a problem. These consultants could be in other countries.

[C/Supt Joe Oliver]

It's interesting that you raise China, because we actually have an MOU with the Ministry of Public Security in China, which covers offences under immigration. That was recently signed. And there is a Canada-China working group, which both Peter and I sit on. We meet either annually or biannually to discuss these and other types of transnational organized crime issues.

In terms of offences that may take place overseas, there are two ways we can approach them. If we can prove that there is a link to an offence in Canada, we can work through our international assistance group at the Department of Justice to seek evidence that there is evidence abroad. There is also extradition, if an arrangement exists. The other thing we can do if we have information that a fraud may have taken place and it is an offence in the country overseas is work with the authorities overseas to help provide them with the evidence to prove an offence in their jurisdiction.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much for coming to our committee.

Could you please supply us with some examples of the types of activities your organization has investigated that involve third parties representing vulnerable would-be immigrants? Maybe each one of you could answer that.

[C/Supt Joe Oliver]

We have a couple of MOs, I guess we would call them, for how these consultants work. There are cases of people knowingly working with corrupt consultants to get expedited access or to get access to Canada that they wouldn't otherwise have. In one case we're investigating, the method of operation is that these people aren't living in Canada, but the crooked consultant is actually providing the necessary appearance of residency in Canada by engaging people to conduct credit card transactions on the individual's credit card. That's one example.

Others we're seeing are done through arranged marriages. In other cases of people being, I guess you could say, ripped off by consultants, a Canadian might travel abroad, put on an information session that is communicated as if it is a requirement to gain entry into Canada, charge an exorbitant amount of money, and provide certification that looks as if it's been CIC approved and would give a person expedited access to the Canadian immigration process.

Those are some of the things we're seeing in our current investigations.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Is there anyone else who'd like to answer?

[Dale Brown, Acting Director, Criminal Investigations Division, Canada Border Services Agency]

I can add a few points to that.

From our perspective, we're also seeing cases, basically, as Peter mentioned earlier, that tend to touch on all of the immigration programs. The temporary foreign worker program would be an example. You may have consultants, likely unregistered, who are convincing individuals to come to Canada under the pretext that there are jobs waiting for them when they get to Canada. They generally have them pay relatively large sums of money to come to Canada to enter the temporary foreign worker stream. And upon arriving, they find out that the jobs are no longer available. That's one example.

There are basically, I would say, endless types of MOs out there for this type of fraud.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The other thing I am particularly interested in is how the RCMP and CBSA coordinate their investigations and prosecutions of immigration offences, and how your agencies coordinate with other law enforcement agencies. Could you explain that?

[Peter Hill]

I'll start by mentioning that, for example, if CBSA were investigating a ghost consultant, there would be no requirement under that scenario for the RCMP to be engaged. However, in the course of that investigation, if it came to light that there were suspicions that there may be an organized crime element, then likely at the regional level that information would be conveyed to the RCMP and there would be an assessment made at that point how to proceed with the investigation. It could be done jointly. It could be handed over to the RCMP and they would take the lead.

Once the investigation had been completed and all the evidence is available that could be collected, there would be an assessment on how to bring that case forward to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. There is very close collaboration between the CBSA and the RCMP really at all levels, right down to and including a regional operational level in these cases.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The other thing I am also interested in knowing is how you receive those reports. What circumstances lead these people to come forward with their stories of wrongdoing? Can you talk to us generally about the situations in which crooked immigration consultants are reported to you?