Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think one of the key things--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the legislation does one thing, which is to give Canada the moral imperative and the moral authority to go and talk to other countries about their bad consultants, who cheat not only Canadian immigrants but also British immigrants and New Zealanders. To do effectively what the minister's been doing is to go around and say to his counterparts that we think they should enact similar legislation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're talking about CIC's website?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. On almost every single form, certainly even on the front page, there's a clear indication to individuals who are inquiring about immigration services that they do not need or require the services of an immigration consultant. It then goes on to explain a bit about who's regulated.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here again before the committee and to welcome more new faces than at any other time I've had the pleasure to present. Welcome to everyone. We also prepared a detailed brief and submitted it, but I believe it's in the process of being translated.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know about multiple courses.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We certainly have that now. Many individuals get on the legal treadmill with ever-increasing costs, so that after four or five years they've spent tens of thousands of dollars to try to stay in the country, when their claims were not good claims to begin with. I think if you do the first steps right you have all the time in the world for due process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, and often the reasons for those delays are not the individuals but the processes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It depends on which part of the process. Judicial review is always done through lawyers. They're at the vulnerability of the court schedule. I believe we say in Canada that everyone has a right to judicial review, so they have it.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Those were two questions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Okay. I've never been a refugee claimant, but in our meetings and discussions with refugee claimants they consider the first few weeks in Canada to be not catastrophic, but absolutely mind-bending. Again, when they go to see an officer for the first time, these are officers and they are armed, all right?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to make two points. First of all, there are many legal contracts in Canada, specifically employment contracts, where individuals must make a statement on the contract that they have had the opportunity to seek and obtain independent legal advice before they enter into the contract.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I certainly agree with the idea of having a claim decided, or a hearing, within 60 days. And I think since that's the stake in the ground we've all set, we're talking now about nothing that delays the process, nothing that encourages people to stay here too long. We have that 60-day stake in the ground.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Even as an interview.... You're in front of a formal person. The last formal person they saw or the last person in authority may have been an individual who was persecuting them, and if these are CBSA officers, they're sitting in front of armed individuals. So I believe there's nothing to lose if we change the eight days to some time within the process and we redefine what that interview is about.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I absolutely agree that a faster decision is of benefit to the claimant, because these are people's lives we're talking about. We work with these people every day. We see the stress they're going through while they're waiting for a decision. In the old days, sometimes not that long ago, some of these people were waiting three, four, or five years for decisions without a letter.