Evidence of meeting #28 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, IMMFUND-IMMFONDS Inc.
Well, I think it certainly is going to strengthen the regulatory body, and it's going to hold consultants more accountable. It's also going to force consultants who are outlying right now, who are acting as ghost consultants, to start paying their fair share in terms of providing consumer protection and taking on the insurances, taking on the various protection mechanisms in favour of their clients, which they don't do now.
On that point of view, we support the government.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ryan, could you provide us with a list of the other members of the advisory board along with the other information you're going to be providing us with for Friday?
5:10 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, IMMFUND-IMMFONDS Inc.
I can give you a copy of the executive summary and the report, which includes all of that information.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
That would be tremendous.
Mr. Janzen, how many immigration consultants does the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada have?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
None. Do you mean in terms of certification by CSIC?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
No, not certification. How many people are working the field as consultants to help people come to Canada on behalf of your council?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
Okay. In terms of staff who get paid by the organization, that would be fewer than 10, and then there are others who we try to resource, people who do it on their own.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
So you have staff. Are those staff also fieldworkers or are they just office staff who help with different processes?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
They are in different parts of Canada—
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
—and there are some in Latin America, too.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay. So how many people would you have outside of the country as fieldworkers and how many would you have in Canada?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
There would be only two outside of Canada who are staff, and there would be I think fewer than 10 in Canada. But they wouldn't necessarily do this work on a full-time basis. Some of it would do it....
If I could just add to this, one of the reasons why MCC has given me this consultancy one day per week is to resource other people who work on their own so that they have accurate information. They're not staff at MCC, because MCC doesn't want to enlarge staff for this work more than necessary. Those people work on their own, and they charge modest fees for their services.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
How many of those types would be involved with your organization? So they're non-staff, but they're out there--
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
There are about a dozen, about half a dozen in Canada and half a dozen outside, maybe a little more. There may be eight or ten outside of Canada.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
In the last 10 years, how many people have you brought into Canada? What would be the breakout in terms of family class and worker class?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
These people have brought a lot of people into Canada as citizens. The citizenship law, especially as it was before it was amended in 2009, was pretty generous in allowing earlier people to claim citizenship, so the main way was through citizenship. Now--
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Because we don't have a lot of time, how about some raw numbers?
5:10 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
Do you mean over the last 10 years?
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
So you're doing a tremendous amount of good work and obviously we don't have concerns that people are being abused.
5:15 p.m.
Consultant, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
I expect it's a little more than 5,000.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Yes, and people aren't being abused, but you've raised an important issue here, which is that people basically appear to be doing this because of goodwill and because of ties to communities in Latin America and other places. Has the central committee approached CSIC to see if they would consider a different type of certification in those cases for religious organizations that do this type of work? If you have, what has been the response?
