Bill C-35 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

This enactment amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to change the manner of regulating third parties in immigration processes. Among other things it
(a) creates a new offence by extending the prohibition against representing or advising persons for consideration — or offering to do so — to all stages in connection with a proceeding or application under that Act, including before a proceeding has been commenced or an application has been made, and provides for penalties in case of contravention;
(b) exempts from the prohibition
(i) members of a provincial law society or notaries of the Chambre des notaires du Québec, and students-at-law acting under their supervision,
(ii) any other members of a provincial law society or the Chambre des notaires du Québec, including a paralegal,
(iii) members of a body designated by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and
(iv) entities, and persons acting on the entities’ behalf, acting in accordance with an agreement or arrangement with Her Majesty in right of Canada;
(c) extends the time for instituting certain proceedings by way of summary conviction from six months to 10 years;
(d) gives the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the power to make transitional regulations in relation to the designation or revocation by the Minister of a body;
(e) provides for oversight by that Minister of a designated body through regulations requiring the body to provide information to allow the Minister to determine whether it governs its members in the public interest; and
(f) facilitates information sharing with regulatory bodies regarding the professional and ethical conduct of their members.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Friday, June 16, 2017, be concurred in.

Earlier this year, something remarkable happened at the immigration committee. We tabled a unanimous report and for those watching who might not understand what that means, it meant that all parties in attendance agreed to the form and substance of a report that was tabled in the House. To me that is really remarkable. It shows that an in-depth study took place and there was general consensus on the need for change and general consensus on the way that the change should proceed.

The title of the report is “Starting Again: Improving Government Oversight of Immigration Consultants”. By moving this concurrence motion today, what I hope to achieve is that all members in this place will rise and support the content and the recommendations in this report as the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration also had consensus on this. Why is this important? Why are we raising this today? Because it is an issue that affects all members of Parliament in terms of the work that our offices complete. One of the main scopes of work that all of our offices provide in terms of support for our constituents is casework with regard to immigration. One of the things that we all see in our offices is constituents who have had significant impact from the results of bad advice from immigration consultants.

Before I start my speech on this, I want to emphasize something that members of all political parties wanted to convey in the study. There are people who do great work in this regard, but during the study, we heard overwhelming amounts of testimony that the way that this practice is regulated in Canada is not working.

This morning in debate, I want to give colleagues who were not on the immigration and citizenship committee a little background on what the study entailed and what the recommendations were in the hopes that they will support this and, for IRCC officials who are watching this morning, an understanding that my party generally supports the direction of the report. My party hopes that the government moves quickly on it and that colleagues in the government party who are not part of the government will also ask the government to move on the recommendations in the report. I and all other members of the citizenship and immigration committee, subsequent to the tabling of this report and the government's reponse, have had stakeholders talk to us and ask when the government is going to move on this, that there is a lack of clarity right now given that the committee tabled the unanimous report. I hope that by concurring in this report, we can agree with the findings of the committee, at least in general principle, and hopefully what we hear in debate this morning is the government committing to act quickly on implementing some of the recommendations.

In March 2017, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration commenced a study on immigration consultants. This study lasted from March to June, where the committee heard from 50 witnesses, so there were many witnesses who testified at committee, and received 24 written briefs. The final report of the committee was adopted by the committee on June 14, 2017, so we are already well over the six-month mark here.

The final report of the committee was adopted and presented in the House in the following days. This report entitled, “Starting Again: Improving Government Oversight of Immigration Consultants” was unanimous and did not have a dissenting opinion from the Conservative or NDP members. This final report was an instance of cross-party collaboration in an attempt to find a real solution to negligent, fraudulent, and ghost consultants who are taking advantage of already vulnerable clients.

During our committee meetings, we heard from countless witnesses that while any prospective immigrant or temporary resident may seek the services of immigration and citizenship consultants and paralegals, certain immigrants are at greater risk of exploitation by unscrupulous consultants. In particular, witnesses highlighted the vulnerability of those with “precarious immigration status”, a term encompassing all forms of temporary immigration status, noting that these individuals are more likely to pay thousands of dollars to consultants for false promises of permanent residency. Witnesses drew the committee's attention to abuse and exploitation involving live-in caregivers, international students, and temporary foreign workers.

In her testimony, Maria Esel Panlaqui from the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office in Toronto said the following:

[Live-in caregivers]...are easily taken advantage of by some immigration consultants, whether authorized or not authorized. Most often these workers say they can't discern whether consultants are authorized or not.

In some instances, even though they don't trust them entirely, they still end up working with them because they don't know where else to get help. Most of our clients claim that they have been manipulated and intimidated by their immigration consultants.

Another witness gave specific examples of exploitation experienced by international students. He stated that consultants have been known to ask for $15,000 to $20,000 to help international students find employment, remain, and gain permanent residency in Canada.

We also heard from Natalie Drolet of the West Coast Domestic Workers' Association, who drew attention to the vulnerability of temporary foreign workers, or TFWs. According to Ms. Drolet, temporary foreign workers have little choice but to hire third-party employment agents to get connected with an employer in Canada. She stated:

These agents are more often than not working in a dual role as immigration consultants and employment agents. We see immigration consultants typically charging temporary foreign workers anywhere from $4,000 to $16,000 for low-wage jobs in Canada. Recently, an IRCC officer in Vancouver told me that he had a case of a temporary foreign worker who paid $40,000.

Temporary foreign workers are willing to pay these fees because they are counselled by immigration consultants that they would have a pathway to permanent residence in Canada, which is often not the case.

The committee heard of a number of examples of misconduct and fraud, including forging signatures, charging exorbitant fees for some services often not rendered, and misleading clients who lost everything they had when they arrived in Canada. In short, without proper regulation and oversight, unscrupulous consultants can ruin lives.

The first issue is the lack of regulation, but the second is why do so many prospective Canadians feel they need to hire representatives? The fact that many newcomers to Canada feel they have no option but to pay thousands of dollars to access our immigration system should be a major concern. Why is our bureaucracy so complicated that the people it is set up to help cannot navigate it? Why are the majority of immigration applications not digitized? Why is correspondence not written in plain language so that people without a legal background can understand it? Why is it so difficult for people to receive accurate and detailed updates on the status of their immigration applications without the involvement of third parties? Again, these are questions all of us in this place wrestle with as we try to support people who come into our offices with immigration case work. Indeed, these are questions that consecutive governments have wrestled with over the course of decades.

With regard to the governance of immigration consultants and paralegals, there are two types of representatives: paid authorized representatives and unpaid representatives. Authorized paid representatives include lawyers and paralegals who are members in good standing of a Canadian, provincial, or territorial law society. They could also be notaries who are members in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec. Authorized paid representatives could also be citizenship or immigration consultants who are members in good standing with the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, the ICCRC, the current regulatory body. Unpaid representatives can be family members, friends, and other third parties such as church organizations.

Under the former Conservative government, changes were made through Bill C-35, the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, to designate ICCRC as the new regulator of immigration consultants. These changes were made to ensure the integrity of and confidence in our immigration system and to combat the rise in crooked and ghost consultants who had been taking advantage of newcomers to Canada.

While some positive changes were made, the misuse and abuse of new Canadians has persisted since the designation of ICCRC as the regulatory body. This is one of the reasons why the Conservatives support this report. While we recognize that attempts were made to create a regulatory body for this particular group of service providers, the reality is that there is overwhelming evidence showing that people are still being taken advantage of. This needs to change.

One of the major issues with the regulatory framework has been the issue of shared jurisdiction over fraudulent and ghost consultants. The RCMP and CBSA are both responsible for investigating authorized consultants who engage in fraud, and ghost consultants who operate outside the law governing immigration representatives. However, further resources are needed for these units to adequately address the issue of fraudulent consultants. Additionally, it should be noted that the ICCRC does not have any oversight over unregulated representatives. Instead, its authority lies in investigating misconduct and potential abuses by its members, who are regulated consultants.

I will now turn to the issues with the current governance of immigration consultants. As explained at committee, the ICCRC is a self-governing not-for-profit organization that has an arm's-length relationship with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The issues with the current system include the following: serious gaps in the disciplinary process of the ICCRC for the complaints it receives; lack of stringency in the ICCRC's admissions standards into it as a regulatory body; lack of a clear mechanism to adequately dispute fees; an inadequate governance structure; lack of transparency and accountability in the functioning of this regulatory body; fear on the part of new Canadians to lodge a complaint due to their lack of understanding of our immigration systems and fear of being denied status; the inadequacy of the current regulatory framework in overseeing the actions of regulated consultants; the inadequate pursuit and prosecution of ghost consultants, who are unregulated representatives, for their nefarious activities; and outside factors, including a lack of adequate client services, which contribute to the demand for immigration consultants and paralegals.

To address these problems, our committee unanimously issued 21 recommendations. The common theme in the committee's findings is that more needs to be done to combat fraudulent and ghost consultants. The recommendations are outlined in the report and contain many common-sense initiatives that should allow the government to provide an updated framework that, once and for, would begin to address some of the concerns contained therein.

I could spend the rest of my time going through all of the recommendations, and I might touch on a few of them, but there are a few themes I want to put forward.

One of the things that bothers me, and I am sure bothers my colleagues in the government party also, is the the lack of knowledge of the newcomers to Canada who are trying to access the immigration system. For example, I was in Toronto a few weeks ago and met with a few live-in caregivers. What alarmed me was that they did not understand that they could set up something as basic as a MyCIC account. It is an online account that allows people to look at the status of their immigration applications without having to pay a consultant or lawyer to do that. Oftentimes, people come into our office who simply do not understand how to fill out basic forms.

To me, this report really deals with two dimensions of the problems at hand. The first is that our system does not translate well to people who are trying to use it. There is a usability component that I feel the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, the government, needs to implement. We have been looking at this for years. However, we really need to make a very concerted effort to look at end-users and ensure that the system is easy for them to navigate, while maintaining the integrity and security of our immigration system. The government would be doing its job well if it could show not only the integrity of the processing and security of the immigration system, but also that the people who are trying to access it are not having to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or feel like they have to pay tens of thousands of dollars, to an immigration consultant to do something as basic as fill out a form. That is why some of the recommendations in here talk about service delivery and improving that within the department.

The government would also do very well if it could say what specific steps it is taking to combat these service delivery issues. Oftentimes, when I am at committee, and I am sure government members would share my frustration, we get departmental officials sitting in front of us basically giving the line, “Don't worry, we're on it.” The reality is that ICCRC is one of the most siloed and difficult-to-penetrate bureaucracies in government. I know there are many people doing a lot of good work in the department, but sometimes when listening to the departmental testimony, I feel there is more concern about preserving silos than thinking about new ways of delivering service to ensure that we are protecting the most vulnerable. I do not understand why there is this whole industry to fill out forms. To me, that is a failure of government. A lot of the recommendations in this report deal with that.

The other dimension of the recommendations deals with the fact that some of these consultants are providing what amounts to legal advice. Some of the cases I see in my office, and I hope some of my colleagues will agree with me, are the worst cases, and sometimes, as members of Parliament, there is really nothing we can do because people have been given bad legal advice by someone who is not a lawyer but a consultant. I am looking around the room. How many times have members had people walk into their offices and say that someone told them to lie on their citizenship application and that their application had been rejected because they were told to omit information? This is the sort of thing the report is designed to push the government to correct.

In good faith and to show that I am really trying to make this a non-partisan debate, especially to the government House leader, who I am sure will speak on this at some point, our government did attempt to fix this with the implementation of the regulatory body the ICCRC. However, as immigration critic, after listening to the testimony at committee, I have to say that we need to do more. This is a problem that has plagued Canada's governments of all political stripes, and to me this is a real opportunity for the government not only to show Canadians that it is serious about ensuring the integrity of our immigration system, but also about ensuring the world's most vulnerable, and the people who are trying to access our country, are not taken advantage of.

We heard stories at committee, some of them in camera because people were worried about their identity being leaked, or out of shame. These are people who do not have a lot of resources. They were bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars and basically left stranded in Canada. That should not happen.

The recommendations in the report are a road map to the action that I hope will eventually correct this. The way the immigration system consultants are governed right now is just not working, and needs to change. I really hope all of my colleagues will vote to concur in the report.

One of the reasons we are bringing this up today is the sheer number of reports of ghost consultants or others being prosecuted. I get a media notification at least once every couple of weeks about them. Yesterday, in the Winnipeg Free Press, there was a story about an unlicensed immigration consultant who collected $91,000 while having no licence whatsoever. We know that the number of unreported cases outweigh the ones reported in the media. That is part of the problem right now. The people who feel like they have been scammed really do not have recourse or an effective and transparent system to seek justice. Part of the issue is that we have difficulty as Canadians expressing to people overseas who is and who is not able to provide services.

The other thing I want to note to my colleagues opposite is that I had numerous groups in my office after the report was tabled asking when the government was going to do something about this, and what it was going to do. Law societies, the practice itself, especially the people who are operating in good faith, will need time to adapt to any changes made. I would like to see the government, prior to going into Christmas break, give some sort of indication to law societies, immigration consultants, and certainly to our offices that do a lot of casework, what those changes might be, or if it is in fact going to pursue changes.

I read the government's response to the report. There was some acknowledgement that the content of the report and study was valid, but what the government needs to do is to provide a bit more information about how and when it will implement changes, even if just to provide a little more clarity on how these will roll out, prior to our going into what will essentially be a six to eight-week break from debate in this place.

That is my rationale. I really hope all members will support this. The report was well done. It is an example for Canadians of committees and Parliament doing something that resembles work. At the end of the day, I hope the outcome is better policy for people who are accessing our immigration system.

I also want to congratulate and thank my colleagues. I thank the former chair of the immigration committee, as well as my colleagues of all political stripes for putting forward a really smart report. In the interests of everyone who will be affected by these changes in a very positive way, I sincerely ask my colleagues to support this.

[Jennifer Stone, Staff Lawyer, Neighbourhood Legal Services, Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group]

Thank you very much for having me here today.

I am an immigration lawyer at a community legal aid clinic in Toronto called Neighbourhood Legal Services, but I am here today on behalf of the Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group, which is a network of lawyers and paralegals in Ontario community legal clinics and student legal aid service societies. Clinics are funded by Legal Aid Ontario to provide services to low-income individuals and disadvantaged communities.

We service clients in a variety of ways, including summary legal advice, representation, public legal education, and law reform activities. Of the 76 funded clinics in Ontario, approximately 30 belong to ICIWG, so we are very aware, in Ontario, of a couple of perspectives: one is that access to legal aid is somewhat of a patchwork and a privilege not afforded to everyone, depending on where you reside; and the other is that, in the clinics that do provide immigration services, we are quite overwhelmed by the demand.

We are very pleased that the standing committee is studying the important issue of the legal, regulatory, and disciplinary frameworks governing and overseeing immigration paralegals and consultants in Canada. I'd like to make three main points, and then I'll move on to our recommendations.

First, we want to highlight for the committee how we are impacted by the chill placed on newcomer-serving NGOs by the very harsh penalties they potentially face should they contravene the law of authorized representatives. I am speaking particularly about section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and section 21.1 of the Citizenship Act, which would provide very serious consequences for anyone who is not authorized, i.e., a member of a regulatory body like a law society or the ICCRC. The penalties include a fine of up to $100,000 and/or two years' imprisonment.

Our position is that in Bill C-35—this “cracking down on crooked consultants act”, the attempt to catch the bad guys in all these stories you are hearing from various witnesses—those provisions have overreached. That is because they provide that anyone who provides services for consideration is captured by these provisions. Since these provisions came into effect in 2011, “for consideration” has been varyingly interpreted by the department.

At first, our newcomer-serving NGO partners were assured that these provisions would not apply to them, because they offer their services for free, in good faith, to the vulnerable communities we mutually serve. That changed a few years ago with some emails that some of the settlement sector partners we work with received from their IRCC representatives, advising them that in fact they were afoul of section 91 of IRPA because “for consideration” was interpreted to include salaries that they received at their non-profit organizations.

More recently, in January 2017, there was an attempt to bring some clarity, but it still appears that it may be only international organizations with service agreements with the federal government, like UNHCR and IOM, that are, in fact, exempt from these provisions.

My second point is to highlight for the committee the reality we experience on the ground, providing immigration services in our communities to low-income clients who cannot afford to pay anyone for their complex legal needs. We note that underfunding of legal aid immigration services in Ontario and across the country puts a big strain on newcomer-serving NGOs. Those NGOs play a key role in the continuum of immigration services for low-income newcomers.

When there was somewhat of a chill placed on our NGO partners as a result of these directives coming down a few years ago, a lot of that work came back into the clinics, and we could not possibly meet the demand. We really cannot meet the demand as it is. When settlement agencies aren't sure if they can provide any information beyond basic form-filling, you create a situation where people really don't know where to turn and, in our respectful submission, you create a situation that leads to people being preyed upon.

Our third main point is to highlight our observation that it is newcomers themselves who face the harshest penalties of all—loss of status, inability to reunite with family, deportation—when a representative, authorized or not, makes a mistake. We believe that, when there is a doubt, it is the newcomer who ought to be given the benefit of that doubt.

We sympathize with the department in aiming to strike a balance to protect vulnerable newcomers from unscrupulous practitioners who exploit the gaps in services. However, the current law and policy framework continue to assume that the vulnerable newcomers living in poverty will simply be able to pay a consultant, paralegal, or lawyer to help them when a complicated legal issue arises. This is blind to the access-to-justice reality for newcomers, and continues to expose newcomer-serving agencies, which operate without a profit motive and in good faith in the service of newcomers, to the overly harsh penalties set out in the law.

We urge the committee to recommend a more common-sense approach that is allied to the financial reality of newcomers in the context of a lack of adequate publicly funded legal services like legal aid clinics. Newcomer-serving NGOs may not always have the legal know-how to get it right, but we believe they operate in good faith and are a bedrock of the operation of Canada's immigration system. The better solution, in our view, would be stabilized long-term funding for that sector, enhancing their professional development opportunities, and ensuring that legal aid funding is adequate to meet the needs on the ground.

We believe that the current atmosphere of fear puts low-income newcomers, desperate for a solution to their problems, into the arms of unscrupulous practitioners, as I've said, borrowing money they often do not have for the service.

We have three sort of flexible, common-sense recommendations for the committee.

[Alli Amlani, President, Don Mills, Inter-Connections Canada Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and esteemed members of the committee for inviting me here today.

I followed the committee's proceedings on March 6 and 8 with great interest, and was delighted to hear the testimony this morning. It all comes down to the same thing, particularly the experiences and complaints members of the committee relay from constituents and members of the public about immigration advice they had received.

To put my testimony in context, I've been an immigration consultant since the beginning of 1988, having started with a law firm. I have served on boards of immigration consulting associations since 1992. That includes almost eight years in total as an elected director at both regulatory bodies, as a vice-chair of CSIC, the first body, and as a chair of ICCRC for two years.

I'm familiar, therefore, with the subject. I was a co-founder of the prototype immigration practitioner certificate program, quite a high standard, and that remains the entry requirement for the profession today. Since 2011, I have held the designation of chartered director.

Therefore, the subject you are deliberating on today is very near and dear to me, having built the profession from almost the very start on principles of ethical practice, and provisions of professional services to the needy, who are real people. It is a serious undertaking when people trust you with their and their family's aspirations and dreams, and are willing to pay a fee for good counsel.

Listening to the testimony on March 6, March 8, and this morning, it struck and gratified me that most of it was not dealing with regulated immigration consultants, RCICs, who were the targets of complaints relayed to members of this committee, but rather unlicensed immigration advisers, commonly referred to as ghost agents. This tells me that ICCRC has been largely successful in both elucidating standards of ethical and professional immigration consulting, and holding its members to those standards.

It is certainly true that high-profile cases of immigration fraud, such as the notorious Nova Scotia case of Hassan Al-Awaid who is facing 53 counts under IRPA, are perpetrated not by members of ICCRC but by those who are not licensed to give immigration advice.

In terms of effectively dealing with the problem of unlicensed representatives, this committee heard, on March 8, that CBSA was responsible for taking action against unlicensed consultants and executed its mandate, to a spectacular effect, in prosecutions initiated against Sunny Wang in B.C. and his employees and clients, and against Codina International in Ontario, to just give a couple of examples. They neither have resources nor the inclination to follow up on small-scale immigration fraudsters who are nonetheless more than capable of destroying the lives of their clients.

Most complaints received at ICCRC involve relatively minor disputes over payments and timeliness of service, rather than fraud and abuse of public trust. Also, while ICCRC's complaint and discipline process could be improved by shortening timelines, it is apparent to me that RCICs are not the real problem in the immigration system.

If the real consumer protection issue in immigration consulting is the conduct of unlicensed and unauthorized consultants, the solution lies in taking effective measures against them. ICCRC, as currently constituted, is limited to enforcement actions against its members only. The solution, then, appears to lie in giving ICCRC the regulatory authority to pursue, and take action against, those who are not its members.

If ICCRC were mandated by federal statute to regulate the entire immigration consulting industry in the same way as doctors, dentists, lawyers, and accountants regulate their respective professions, it would be able to hurt the people who actually cause harm to your constituents, the Canadian public, and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system.

I have brought sufficient copies for everyone to read the comments I am about to make. This is supporting documentation. Regulation by federal statutes is not a new idea.

Recommendation two of the report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on regulating immigration consultants of 2008, to which I contributed, clearly proposes independent self-regulation under federal statute. Letters produced during the consultative process leading to Bill C-35 in 2010, from the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Government of Manitoba all support the position that the body should have full regulatory powers. The letter from Manitoba goes on to support the notion that a strong federal regulator of immigration consultants would help bring clarity to jurisdictional issues and promote alignment between the province and the federal immigration regulation.

Once immigration consultants are self-regulated under federal statute, the possibility arises for negotiating agreements with some foreign governments where an equivalent code will most likely exist, thus taking the fight beyond our borders to places where immigration consultants operate with impunity.

All of that said, the fight to protect Canadians, Canadian permanent residents, and foreign nationals who aspire to live, work, or study in Canada, from those who would defraud them by taking advantage of their hopes and aspirations cannot be successfully done by the regulator alone. A concerted effort, encompassing everything from IRCC refusing to accept applications from those who are advised or represented by unlicensed advisers, to increased information sharing among CBSA, ICCRC, and the RCMP, would be an excellent start. However, the effort would be even more effective if the ICCRC had the authority to take action against not only its members, but also the fraudsters who compromise everyone's confidence in this vital facet of Canadian life.

I will close by saying that I do not believe that we can completely eradicate the activities of those who prey on the vulnerable and promote fraud and misrepresentation, but we can certainly put a dent in such activities by making an example of a few.

Thank you.

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

I'm sorry.

One important point I would like to get out is that Bill C-35 increased the statute of limitations to 10 years for the offences of counselling misrepresentation and misrepresentation, and five years for the offence of being an unauthorized consultant. Investigators now have sufficient time to properly and fully investigate IRPA offences and refer the file to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

I will end it there.

[Jennifer Lutfallah, Director General, Enforcement and Intelligence Programs, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the committee is aware, the administration and enforcement of the Immigration, Refugee and Protection Act (IRPA) falls under the responsibility of several government departments and agencies.

While the IRCC has the lion's share of the policy responsibility under IRPA, the CBSA's role is largely one of enforcement and intelligence and criminal investigation.

Since 2000, the CBSA and the RCMP have worked to develop a complementary approach in relation to immigration penal offences. The RCMP is responsible for immigration offences dealing with organized crime, human trafficking, and national security. The CBSA has the lead responsibility for the remaining immigration offences. These include offences related to fraudulent documents, misrepresentation, counselling misrepresentation, and the general offence section under IRPA.

The general offence section under IRPA applies to individuals who do not comply with various conditions or obligations under the act. That includes examples such as persons who hire foreign nationals without authorization, previously deported individuals who return to Canada without authorization, or persons who fail to report to CBSA officers upon entry into our country.

Depending on the nature of the consultants' activities, various criminal offences and sanctions exist under IRPA and the Criminal Code. These would generally be investigated by the CBSA and/or the RCMP. By contrast, review of an activity that is unethical or unprofessional but does not constitute an offence falls under the responsibility of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council.

With respect to IRPA offences most frequently related to consultants, the act provides for criminal sanctions to be pursued in relation to the following: being an unauthorized consultant, counselling misrepresentation, misrepresentation, and counselling to commit an offence.

For example, where it can be proven in court that a consultant has counselled a client to provide false information with the objective of increasing the chances of their immigration application being approved, that consultant could be charged with counselling misrepresentation.

The counselling of misrepresentation could be in relation to any immigration application, be it a temporary resident permit application, a permanent resident application, a spousal sponsorship, or a refugee claim. This charge could apply to consultants whether or not they are authorized to act as a representative pursuant to the regulations.

The IRPA offence of being an unauthorized consultant applies when a consultant is not registered with the ICCRC and provides advice to a client for a fee. The penalty upon conviction by way of indictment ranges from a fine of not more than $100,000 to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years, or both. On summary conviction, the penalty ranges from a fine of not more than $20,000 to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or both.

Prior to the passage of Bill C-35 in March 2011, regulations respecting authorized representatives applied only after an immigration application was submitted.

This was problematic from an enforcement perspective, as much of the counselling often occurred prior to submission of the application. Activities of this nature were not regulated, and unauthorized consultants, sometimes referred to as “ghost consultants”,

were operating in the pre-application phase but could not be pursued through the courts. Now, the legislated rules respecting authorized representatives apply before and after an immigration application has been submitted. Unauthorized representatives found to be knowingly representing or providing advice, directly or indirectly, to a person prior to the application phase, during, and/or afterward can be charged under subsection 91(9) of IRPA, as well as persons “offering to” represent or provide such advice.

The legislative amendments brought about by Bill C-35 now limit those providing, or offering to provide, consulting services for a fee in the pre-application phase to persons who are lawyers, notaries in Quebec, and paralegals and consultants who are in good standing by a governing body. These provisions provide an additional tool for the CBSA and its partners to use in pursuing enforcement action against those individuals who would misrepresent themselves.

Obtaining evidence of consultant fraud can be challenging. Often the applicants are hesitant to report the counselling offences to the CBSA, as they were either a party themselves to the misrepresentation or convinced that even though the representative was not authorized, the individual could assist in ensuring that their client received a positive outcome on their application.

As a result, most offences are brought to the CBSA's attention only after the immigration application has been rejected. Even then, applicants in Canada may not come forward out of fear that they will be removed from our country.

In addition, contracts between clients and unscrupulous consultants are often made verbally, and payment is given in cash, leaving—

Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-31. However, I would have preferred that this bill not be introduced at all and that we not debate it. In my opinion, this is an objectionable bill. There are a number of problems with it and it is certainly going to result in legal challenges.

I would like to start by saying that Bill C-31 builds on Bill C-11, which was introduced in the previous Parliament. With a minority government, the Conservatives were unable to pass the strict and severe bills that they wanted. Now, they are taking Bill C-49, which was also from the previous Parliament, and making the necessary changes to complete their biased and discriminatory immigration policy the sole purpose of which is to close our borders for as long as possible to foreigners seeking asylum in Canada.

The change in this government's tone on immigration and citizenship is striking. Most of Bill C-31 is practically copied word for word from the former Bill C-49, the short title of which was Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act. It was promoted as the bill that would protect refugees and discourage smugglers who were endangering the lives of foreigners trying to enter Canada by boat. Bill C-31, which is pretty much the same, is entitled Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act. The image is eloquent.

The Conservatives are now showing their true colours. The intent of Bill C-31 is no longer to protect refugees, but to protect the integrity of Canada's immigration system against ill-intentioned refugees who abuse the generosity of Canadian laws and who try to take advantage of our country. These comments were made and repeated by the previous speaker.

In the previous Parliament, some immigration bills, especially, Bills C-11 and C-35, were passed after much discussion, debate and compromise by all parties. A compromise was even reached on Bill C-49, the predecessor to Bill C-31. This time, the Conservative government is no longer receptive to amendments. On the contrary, the minister himself said that there are gaps in the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and that Canada needs stronger measures that are closer to the original bill we introduced in March 2010.

This time, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is not honouring the agreements reached by the various parties.

At the time, a number of groups that defend rights and freedoms condemned Bill C-49. Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Barreau du Québec and Professor Peter Showler, to name just a few, roundly condemned several key provisions of the bill, saying that they represented a serious violation of Canada's international and constitutional obligations.

In fact, this government is still using the pretext of national security to justify its lack of transparency and its desire to keep people in need out of the country, with no regard for Canada's constitutional and international obligations.

Far from having improved his bill in response to the criticisms about humanitarian considerations in previous bills, the minister instead says that he will not give in to the “immigration industry” lobby whose criticisms only reinforce the idea that the government is truly on the right track. It would be hard to be any more arrogant.

In addition to the government's arrogance, its narrow vision and demagoguery must be condemned.

With this bill, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism is creating a new category of immigrants and giving himself the power to arbitrarily impose a different processing system for those immigrants than for other asylum seekers. This discretionary power is, in fact, the power to declare the entry of foreign nationals into the country as irregular by using loosely defined criteria based on national security interests, which was probably the genesis for the idea that this power cannot be delegated.

The creation of this category of refugee was specifically designed to block the entry of as many refugees as possible and it completely disregards the right to equality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These asylum seekers often come from countries where fundamental rights are denied and where living conditions jeopardize their health and lives.

It is utterly ridiculous, even irresponsible, for a government to arbitrarily punish refugees who arrive by boat on the pretext of wanting to separate the good refugees from the bad as quickly as possible. That makes no sense. A refugee is not a qualified immigrant who can be selected. We cannot select refugees, simply by virtue of their refugee status. According to this government's logic, refugees who are not selected are bad refugees.

The fact that the minister would be able to create two classes of people is unacceptable and downright disturbing. Human beings are all equal, and the minister must never forget that Canada has a legal responsibility toward these people under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a moral responsibility arising from its international obligations under various human rights treaties.

According to Peter Showler, director of the Refugee Forum and former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, concerns about a deluge of illegal refugees are unfounded because both routes to obtaining refugee protection—the Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program, which targets international refugees as defined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Canada's Inland Refugee Protection System for refugees arriving in Canada spontaneously—have historically been responsible for the same number of permanent residents in Canada, around 12,000 per year.

The difference between the two systems is control: control over the number of people coming in, the selection criteria, and the procedures and processing times. This is a legitimate concern, but it should not legitimize the crass justifications that the government is using to block access for people who need help.

For example, the minister claims that Canada is getting more and more claims from certain countries, such as Hungary and Mexico, and that these claims often come from “bad refugees” who do not really need protection. According to Mr. Showler, the Immigration and Refugee Board nevertheless accepts a significant number of claims from those two countries, 17% and 8%, respectively.

The minister also claims that this new bill will enable the board to do some “housecleaning” and shorten the waiting list for “good refugees” who have to wait patiently in refugee camps because illegitimate refugees who arrive by boat bog the system down by using fraudulent documents to get into Canada.

That, according to Mr. Showler, is not true because, on the one hand, not all refugees abroad can reach refugee camps, and on the other hand, the United Nations convention recognizes that it is difficult for refugees to be granted asylum, so it allows them to use fraudulent documents to seek refugee protection.

The Conservatives are trying to create an unhealthy climate around immigration, and specifically refugees. The executive of the Canadian Council for Refugees is very concerned about this and stated, “it is very worrisome when the government tries to create an anti-refugee sentiment among the population”. Several statements made by government MPs have promoted that very sentiment.

According to Wanda Yamamoto, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, “the bill is discriminatory and creates a two-tier system of refugee protection in Canada. It also makes it dangerously vulnerable to political considerations, rather than ensuring a fair and independent decision about who is a refugee. Our refugee system needs to give everyone a fair hearing, based on the facts of their case and regardless of their country of origin.”

Determining refugee status will henceforth be directly controlled by the minister, who now has the power to establish his own criteria. Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees said, “there is an arbitrary element in this, which the government is exploiting and abusing.”

Politicizing the immigration system is a very dangerous thing to do. The system had found a rather fair balance between security and individual liberties. All of that is now being compromised in the name of national security. From now on, any difficulty identifying refugees will be considered a threat to national security and, as a result, will justify different, more severe and punitive treatment than for all other kinds of refugees.

The Canadian Bar Association stated that Bill C-31 lacks clear qualitative thresholds and raises serious concern about excessive ministerial discretion. Furthermore, given the serious legal consequences that flow from a designation made by the minister, these amendments are overbroad and unsustainable.

Executive officers of the Canadian Bar Association went even further and recommended that implementation of the proposed changes be delayed to allow for immediate and meaningful consultation with all stakeholders.

I have only touched on some of the important aspects that support dropping this bill. We have asked the government many times to drop Bill C-31. This bill fuels an anti-refugee sentiment and exacerbates fears that are often legitimate, but that are being misguided with a bill like this one.

I think it is a shame that we are voting on this bill this evening with yet another time allocation. The NDP cannot vote in favour of Bill C-31.

We will strongly condemn this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Dykstra, I'm afraid the time has expired.

Mr. Atkinson, thank you.

I'd like to thank all of you.

Mr. Creates, I think you were here for Bill C-35 before and I thank you for once again attending.

Ms. Parker--

[Les Linklater]

Sure.

I'll start with Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which received royal assent in June of last year. We are working towards implementation of the provisions of that bill by June of 2012. Under the act, the transitional provisions allow a period of 24 months from royal assent before coming into force. We're working on that now across CIC, the IRB, the Border Services Agency, Justice, and others. So it's a lot of detailed work, particularly regulatory drafting. Many packages have been prepublished already, systems work is well under way, and we're starting to see things come together in a way that's going to allow us to meet those timelines.

On the previous cracking down on the Crooked Consultants Act, which is now Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we have moved forward very quickly. The minister has already made the designation of a new regulatory body for the consulting profession. That transition took place at the end of June of this year, and we are moving forward with the new ICCRC to ensure coverage of the consultant community. The transitional provisions, with the transfer from CSIC, the previous regulator, to the current one, expire at the end of October. At that point, as we understand from ICCRC, close to 1,700 consultants will be licensed by them, as the new regulator.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

In terms of a couple of things that we accomplished in the last Parliament, number one, the passage of Bill C-11, the refugee reform act, and number two, Bill C-35, the Crooked Consultants Act, could you provide the committee with a brief update on both of those pieces of legislation, not so much obviously from a government perspective on the bill itself, but rather on the implementation of them both? They both bring sweeping changes to their respective departments and obviously will lead to some fairly significant changes within your departments. Would you mind updating us on the status of both pieces of legislation in terms of practicality?

Safe Streets and Communities Act

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the point the member is making. I compliment him on his appointment as critic for the third party at our citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism committee. I look forward to working with him on that committee.

The member understands. He was here for part of the 40th Parliament when we introduced and passed Bill C-11, Balanced Refugee Reform Act and Bill C-35, the crooked consultants act, two pieces of significant legislation. In fact, I would argue that, aside from our budget, Bill C-11 was the most significant piece of legislation that this Parliament passed in the 40th Parliament. That legislation arrived in this House after second reading, went to committee, came back for third reading and was passed unanimously by the House.

I can let the member know that we have lots in this bill that we want to pass. We have passed quite a bit with respect to citizenship and immigration. There is a lot more to come.

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the record. I appreciate the fact that the member is making his presentation and speech on how he feels about Bill C-4 but he does need to ensure he is delivering what is factually in the bill.

He indicated that it would create two streams of refugees. In fact, that is not the case. The individuals who are on these ships are not refugees. They are not refugees until they have actually gone through the process and have either qualified or not qualified through the process. Therefore, in no way, shape or form are there two sets of refugees based on the bill. It is a very factual bill and the member needs to ensure he is correct on it.

I do want to ask him one question. He indicated that the government was not prepared to listen in the 40th Parliament with respect to the bill. I would say to him that if he looks at Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, and looks at Bill C-35, the crooked consultant act, he will find that we listened to all the parties on the opposite side of the House and came back to the House with both those bills passed unanimously.

Why will he not try to help us get the bill passed at second reading and get it into committee so we can talk about it?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I can absolutely go through a host of issues, resolutions and legislation that we have passed in the House of Commons that deal exactly with what the member is speaking to.

I would suggest to him that there is a third way for us to work through these issues, and that is in consultation with each other. We did it with Bill C-11, the refugee reform act, and we did it with Bill C-35, the crooked consultants act. In the last Parliament, with a minority government, these two major pieces of legislation went through with unanimous consent from all parties. I suggest to him that the third way to do that is for us to sit down and continue to work together, to work in committee to bring these issues together, and we will work as a government to try to solve them.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are two points I want to make very quickly.

The first point is that those individuals who seek asylum in this country and who deserve asylum as refugees will receive it. There is absolutely no question. This legislation would not change any of that from happening. It will not, it cannot and it shall not.

The second point is this. I know the member was elected in a byelection in the previous Parliament, so he was here for part of it. We introduced this legislation in the last Parliament. We literally begged the opposition to support it, at least at second reading, so that we could get this legislation to a legislative committee to study it and try to work with them. I can explain to members that on two occasions both Bill C-35, the crooked consultants act, and Bill C-11, the refugee reform legislation, ended up coming back to the House and after negotiation and work passed unanimously. Every member sitting on the opposite side who was here in the last Parliament said no to that opportunity.

We are not going to say no to Canadians. It is back in the House. It is a priority. We said it was a priority. Those on this side of the House keep their word.

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

Madam Speaker, there is one word to describe Bill C-4 and that word is cruel. The dictionary defines cruel as inflicting pain or suffering, and that is exactly what the bill would do. It is designed to punish refugees. If passed, the bill would inflict pain and suffering on the most vulnerable people trying to get to our shores.

Why do I say that? I say that because the bill would not punish smugglers. Under our present legislation, a smuggler would be jailed for life. We have the most severe punishment for people convicted of smuggling. What could be more severe than putting them away for life? We cannot get more severe. The bill is not really about the smugglers. It is about the refugees.

This legislation would require the mandatory detention of all people arriving in Canada, including women and children, whether they arrive by foot, by boat or by air. A mom and a two year old child, a five year old child, or a baby, would be jailed a minimum of 12 months. After they serve that 12 months they might receive some consideration. They would also be denied permanent residence or family reunification for at least five years.

Let me use as an example a dad who leaves a troubled country and his wife and children are left behind in a refugee camp. He arrives in Canada by himself and gets designated by the minister. The minister could not even explain a few minutes ago what criteria he is going to use. He mentioned those individuals who do not have documentation. Most refugees who come to Canada do not have documentation. How can we expect people who live through an earthquake or arrive from a war-torn country to have identification? A lot of refugees arrive at our shores without identification. They could be designated. More than two refugees who arrive on our shores could be designated as a group.

Let me revert to my example of the dad who arrived in Canada after fleeing from a war-torn country. Under this rule he would be sent to jail for at least a year. Let us say that he goes through the process and is determined to be a genuine refugee. For five years he would not be able to sponsor his wife and children from a refugee camp. What does that mean? It means that he will be separated from his family for at least seven years. These refugees will have to determine whether or not they want to leave their loved ones behind because they will not see them for at least seven years. Do they want to come to this country alone or do they want to make a dangerous journey together? That is why I say the bill is cruel. But that is just the beginning.

If these people do become refugees they have no chance to go to the United Nations to speak in a criminal court against a dictator who inflicted war crimes against them. For example, a woman who has been raped by the militia could not go to the UN to explain to the court what happened to her. Even though she is determined a genuine refugee, she will not be able to travel anywhere for at least five years. This means that she would not be able to go to the UN to bring war criminals to justice.

Why would the Conservatives bring forward a bill like that? The minister nailed it right on the head. He wants immigrants to think that there are all kinds of queue jumpers. There is in fact a huge amount of frustration from the immigrant communities. They are frustrated because they are waiting at least 6 to 10 or 13 years before they can bring their loved ones to Canada. When they try to sponsor their fathers and mothers, they are told that it will take 5 or 10 years. They wait and wait.

I will give some statistics. The backlog for parents who are waiting to come to Canada is in the hundreds of thousands. Why? It is because the number of visas for parents and grandparents issued this year has been reduced to close to 44%. It is getting longer and longer. This year there are only 11,000 parents who can come to Canada, which is a reduction of 9,000 because the 2005 and 2006 targets were 20,000. It is now only 11,000.

Immigrants are resentful because they are waiting longer and longer to bring their loved ones to Canada. Then they are told that there are people jumping the queue. These people are not jumping the queue because they are refugees and there is no queue for them to line up in. If they are in danger, they have to leave, unlike their parents, which is a completely different class of applications.

On top of that, the Conservative government claims to have cut the backlog of skilled workers. I do not know whether members will recall that a few years ago Bill C-50 got stuffed into a budget bill that was passed in the House of Commons with the help of Liberals supporting them. That bill was called fast, fair and efficient in cutting the backlog. Actually, the backlog for skilled workers grew. In 2005, it was 487,000 and now it is 508,000. It has grown by 173,000.

This so-called clearing the backlog is not working for skilled workers and it is not working for parents and grandparents. There are hundreds of thousands of people waiting patiently, some not so patiently, to come to Canada. It is under this failed immigration policy that the Conservatives try to find a scapegoat. Immigrants are really upset that they have to wait so long. The Conservatives try to find a scapegoat and say that it is not their fault. They say that it is not due to the Conservatives, that it is really the refugees' fault, which is why this bill was introduced, to my mind.

Let us look at the details in this bill. The mandatory detention for people arriving in Canada without any chance of review is at least 12 months, children or not. By the way, I do not know whether members of Parliament have read psychological studies of children being detained but studies done in the U.K. show that, even in just a few months of detention, what happens to a child is tragic. They wet their beds, some become mute, others stop learning, they become withdrawn, they are not able to go to school because they cannot focus, some lose a lot of weight and some eat much less. Psychological scars are inflicted on children who are being jailed for not just a few weeks or months, but we are jailing them for at least a year. It is totally unjustifiable.

There is mandatory detention for 12 months. There is a denial of the right to apply for permanent resident status until five years have passed, and that is after a favourable determination of their protection claim. These are genuine refugees. I am not talking about the bogus ones. If there are those who are determined to be bogus, deport them, that is fine. I am talking about genuine refugees. They are not even allowed to assimilate to Canada because they cannot become landed immigrants.

They also would be denied access to relief based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. They cannot get temporary resident permits or refugee travel documents for five years or longer. They are not given the right to appeal to the refugee appeal division, which is unfair. On top of that, the minister has the discretion to designate foreign nationals. It is not limited to mass arrivals. It could be two, three or four people and it could be applied retroactively to March 2009. This bill could be passed in 2012 but it could be retroactively applied to a few years before. I do not know how that could be called fair.

As I said earlier, the arrival or two or more persons by irregular means could attract designation.

Much has been said about the denial of detention reviews, because it is mandatory that they be jailed for at least a year, which breaches sections 9 and 10 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because these rights are supposed to protect people against arbitrary detention and the right to prompt review of detention.

If we look carefully, why is it that we need to protect them? Why are we jailing them? Normally a person is jailed because they are a danger to the public or that person is a flight risk and could disappear.

In these circumstances, when we jail a child, a refugee or these people, the government does not have to prove that the person is a flight risk or endangering anyone. A person would be detained even though they are not endangering anyone in this country or not trying to fly anywhere and disappear. They would still be jailed for at least a year without access to any appeal whatsoever.

We know that this kind of behaviour not only breaches sections 9 and 10 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but it is also in conflict with our obligations under the convention relating to the status of refugees and the international covenant on civil and political rights.

It is interesting that this bill makes no reference to the human smuggling issues. Just a few months ago, the immigration committee dealt with several bills. It dealt with Bill C-35, which cracked down on crooked consultants. At that time, on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada, I expanded the amount of time that we could go after people who are smuggling from 6 months to at least 10 years.

We already closed the loopholes, because it used to be that we could only go after them for six months. If we could not catch them and prove that they had committed an offence, then we could not go after them after six months. We expanded it for a long period of time.

As I said earlier, if convicted it means life imprisonment, so this has nothing to do with going after smuggling.

The amendments in this punishing refugees bill would affect permanent residents and foreign nationals regardless of how they arrived in Canada. What it does is it expands the grounds on which the port of entry officers can detain permanent residents and foreign nationals, it would expand the grounds on which permanent residents can be kept in detention while the minister takes “responsible steps” to inquire if they are suspicious.

Lastly, it would remove the appeal rights from the Refugee Protection Division. This would apply to permanent residents also, not just refugees. Therefore, this bill is not just punishing refugees, it is punishing permanent residents as well.

Another problem with the bill, and the minister, by not answering my question, alluded to it, is that it would give tremendous power to the minister to designate people coming into this country. Anyone coming into the port of entry by any mode of travel could be called an “irregular arrival”. Actually, most refugees arrive in Canada irregularly.

In the 1930s, the S.S. St. Louis carried a large number of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany to Halifax. They came without a lot of documentation and arrived on the shore of Halifax and Canada sent them away. Some of them died at the hands of the Nazis.

With this bill, we are not sending a ship away. We could assume that if a ship like the S.S. St. Louis arrived on the shore of Victoria instead of Halifax, the women, children and the entire family would be detained in jail for a year. They would then be subjected to a search of their documentation to ensure they were really from Germany. They would then go through the process. Assuming that all of them would be declared refugees, they would not be able to bring any of their loved ones to Canada safely for five years. This is the kind of treatment we would be putting refugees through in coming to our shores.

I want to point out that most refugee claimants coming to Canada obtain documents from agents and sometimes these documents are not necessarily their real identity. For some of the genuine refugees this is the only way they can leave their country and come to safety. It is because there is no other way they can get on commercial carriers. With this bill, any group of two or more claimants leaving a country that is homophobic, for example, or they are being pursued, when they arrive here they could be designated as an irregular arrival and be subjected to that kind of treatment.

There are other aspects of this bill that are extremely draconian. For example, after the 12 months of detention, refugees are then allowed some kind of hearing every few months. However, that would also be very difficult. It means that they could face an indefinite detention.

In summary, this bill is not designed to prevent human smuggling because we already have laws that do that. It is designed to distract the public and put the blame for the long wait list that immigrants now have to endure in order to bring their loved ones to Canada on people who are desperately trying to leave a dangerous situation. It is unfair, cruel and not worthy of our support.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

When members are called smug, they all cheer and applaud.

As for the business of the House, I believe the minister responsible for the Status of Women has a motion that she would like to move after I have concluded my response to the Thursday question. Following that, without anticipating the outcome of any vote of the House, there seems to be an appetite to allow members who will not be running in the next election to have two minutes each to make statements. Following these statements, we will continue with day one of the budget debate.

Tomorrow we will consider the last allotted day in this supply period. I do not know why the opposition coalition is talking about ending this very productive Parliament to force an unwanted and unnecessary election. Recent weeks have led me to conclude that this is the most dysfunctional Parliament in Canadian history.

Yesterday our Conservative government achieved royal assent for the following bills: Bill S-6 to eliminate the faint hope clause; Bill C-14 to provide hard-working Canadians some fairness at the gas pumps; Bill C-21 to crack down on white collar crime; Bill C-22 to crack down on those who would exploit our children through the Internet; Bill C-30, R. v. Shoker; Bill C-35 to crack down on crooked immigration consultants; Bill C-42 to provide aviation security; Bill C-48 to eliminate sentencing discounts for multiple murderers; Bill C-59 to get rid of early parole for white collar fraudsters, a bill the Liberal government opposed but the Bloc supported; Bill C-61, the freezing of assets of corrupt regimes; and Bill S-5, safe vehicles from Mexico. What a legacy for the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

The work of this Parliament is not done. There are a number of key and popular government bills that Canadians want. Next week, starting on Monday, we will call: Bill C-8, the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement; Bill C-46, the Canada-Panama free trade agreement; Bill C-51, investigative powers for the 21st century; and Bill C-52, lawful access.

Does the Minister of Justice ever stop fighting crime? He gets more and more done. In many respects, as House leader I am like the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice.

Of course, we need to complete the budget debate to implement the next phase of Canada's economic action plan, a low tax plan for jobs and growth. Therefore, Tuesday we will debate day two of the budget, Wednesday we will debate day three of the budget and on Thursday we will debate day four of the budget. We have lots to do and I suggest to the members across that we turn our attention back to serving the interests of the public.

While I am on my feet, I would like to serve those interests by asking for unanimous consent for the following motion. I move that, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act shall be deemed to have been read a second time, referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, the federalist parties are unable to respond to the aspirations of Quebeckers and constantly minimize the achievements of the Bloc Québécois, even though there are numerous examples of the Bloc Québécois achieving concrete results for Quebec.

Only yesterday, Bill C-35 on immigration consultants received royal assent. It is thanks to the work of the Bloc Québécois members that the act contains a “Quebec clause”, which means that all immigration consultants in Quebec will have to meet Quebec’s requirements, which include fluency in French.

Without the hard work of the Bloc, there would be two categories of immigration consultants in Quebec today: those accredited by the federal government, who would not be required to be fluent in French, and those recognized by the Government of Quebec. Fortunately, the Bloc was here to get concrete results for Quebec and for the French language.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I'm asking on Bill C-4, Bill C-5, Bill C-16, Bill C-17, Bill C-21, Bill C-22, Bill C-23B, Bill C-30, Bill C-35, Bill C-37, Bill C-38, Bill C-39, Bill C-43, Bill C-48, Bill C-49, Bill C-50, Bill C-51, Bill C-52, Bill C-53C-54, Bill C-59, Bill SS-6, Bill S-7, Bill S-10.

What are the costs? What are the head counts? What are the implications? Why won't you give them to Parliament?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That's great; very good to hear.

Mr. Frank, one comment you made piqued my interest. We've just spent a great deal of time as a committee, as you are probably aware, passing Bill C-35. You referred in your comments to the fact that:

We are aware that consultants are promoting the investor programs in China as an alternative to the more restrictive Ministerial Instructions of the C-50 skilled worker category.

I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit. One of the big questions that came up during Bill C-35 that was very difficult to get answers to, or determine, is we strengthened the legislation with respect to our justice system to allow these consultants to face stronger criminal charges here in Canada, but of course it's very difficult for us to be able to charge someone in another country; in fact it's impossible.

You mentioned it here, so I wonder if you could expand on how these consultants have learned even just this process here, and how much time they spend in the offices to determine how Canada's legislation has changed and how it's going to impact them in terms of trying to convince folks to come to Canada.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to speak to Bill C-35 because it affects all hon. members in the conduct of their work. It is probably one of the more sensitive and the more difficult areas. It deals with constituents who have matters dealing with immigration and even refugee issues.

Recently I have had a number of cases where people received bad information. They either did not provide true, full, plain and accurate information on a form or in representations, or there were some contradictions, and it was basically because of these so-called experts or advisers, many of whom are just people who are part of a particular community and say they have been through this before and know how to do it. It is a real tragedy when that happens, while someone with all the details on the table will be able to successfully complete an application, be considered and in fact be able to proceed with whatever proceeding is going on, or even with regard to things such as appeals.

This problem has been going on for so long that we have finally come to a bill that says, in proposed subsection 91(1):

Subject to this section, no person shall knowingly, directly or indirectly, represent or advise a person, for direct or indirect consideration — or offer to do so — in connection with a proceeding or application under this Act.

It is interesting that the words “directly or indirectly” were put in there, I assume for greater certainty, but even the reference in this subsection, “or offer to do so”. Even to offer to provide advice for money is an offence unless it is persons who are designated as not contravening because they are either lawyers, members of a law society, including paralegals, or members in good standing of a body designated under subsection 91(5).

I previously asked the question of the member for Trinity—Spadina with regard to subsection 91(5) and said I would like an example of someone who might be designated by the minister. She gave the example of a paralegal, which actually is already in subsection 91(2). So I still do not have that. I hope someone is going to be able to expand on that, because when it gives the minister, under regulations, the authority to designate a body whose members in good standing may represent or advise a person for consideration, or offer to do so, in connection with the act, that means that notwithstanding anything else that is in the bill, the regulation is going to provide presumably a list of others who may be designated.

As I have often said in this place, bills that come before us are tabled and at first reading they get a bill number, we have second reading debate on the document, and if it is passed, it goes to committee where we have witnesses and amendments can be proposed. Once it passes through committee, it will come back to this place, where we can amend the bill with report stage motions, particularly from members who are not otherwise engaged in the process of the committee work, and also where the committee had not considered any such suggestions already. Now we are at third reading, and after all of this and we are going to vote on the bill in a very short time, we still do not know what the regulations will say. That is always my question.

If we look at legislation and ask when does it come into force and it says it comes into force on a date fixed by Governor in Council, that basically means that even though we may pass it and it goes through the Senate and all the legislative steps, it does not come into force until the regulations are drafted and promulgated and in fact are gazetted. That basically means nobody knows when it will happen, and there are other areas in which regulations have to be made.

My concern is that we have been having a debate on a bill that would do something and we have provided within the bill those who will not be committing an offence, but we have this regulation that would also exempt others at the discretion of the minister. I do not know whether that includes the YMCA or other social service agencies, something such as that, that may deal with the public.

The wording here is kind of interesting. Even to offer to provide service for direct or indirect compensation or benefit would constitute an offence under this.

I used to do the audit of a number of agencies, such as the Malton Community Council and immigration consulting services of Peel. These are organizations that do not fall under the legal ambit. I assume that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants itself may in fact be providing services to people. I do not know whether they are going to be included as well.

It leaves us in the situation, which we have been in so many other cases, where the legislation in its intent is clear, but the details with regard to the principal persons who would be authorized or who have been, as put here, committing an offence or a contravention of the section are still unknown. We still do not know who these others are.

That little hole means that until this bill becomes law and the regulations are there, people are going to continue to do this. This is a problem in terms of people providing bad advice, which has very serious consequences on the lives of people who may very well find themselves taken out of Canada and sent back to the country from which they came, for any proceeding under this act, for people who are giving information.

I think every member of Parliament in this place could give an example of where individuals had relied on bad advice from people who represented themselves as knowing how the system worked. Once a person's file gets that little black mark on the top corner, the flag, that means that not only is that person's situation jaundiced and possibly dead, but it may also mean that other family members would be involved. People desperately want to do it right. They want to become Canadians. They want to be in Canada, and they rely on someone who unscrupulously provides them with information that is not correct, either because they are not properly trained or up to date on the law, or in fact maybe they simply want to get money from people who trust them. This happens far too often.

I am not sure whether bills such as this ought not to be also accompanied by a commitment by the government to educate the public. We can pass laws here every day, but if people do not realize that there is a serious concern about unscrupulous people out there who are giving bad advice and charging a lot of money for it, I wonder when the government is going to tell people that they can go to their members of Parliament first.

There are experienced people in the constituency offices of members of Parliament, who have been through the process many times. They have seen some of the ugly stories where people have blown it because they relied on those who were not properly informed about the law or the processes, the number of people who have been told not to disclose the fact that they have a child who is staying with somebody back home somewhere, and they are told that will be taken care of later. Something such as that would be a terrible blow to anybody's chances of being successful in an appeal or whatever it might be.

We get these situations. It was probably the first critical issue that I dealt with when I became a member of Parliament some 17 years ago, to have people come and see me who already find themselves with some problem and not understanding why they have to provide this, that or the other thing, or they are being questioned why something was not done and they do not know what to do now. Sometimes, at that point, it is too late.

It goes also to the fact that when members of Parliament get elected and come to this place, most members do not realize that their offices are going to become, for all intents and purposes, consultancies for immigration, refugee, citizenship and visa issues. It is a very complicated area, yet the House provides absolutely no orientation on it. Basically we have to survive and just struggle as much as we can. But experienced members have experienced staff and they can do very helpful work. If people are not confident there, they still certainly can go and get other advice, but even something as simple as making a mistake on an application can in fact jeopardize the success of any action that might be taken by a person covered under this act .

We need to spend some time, because most members will know that even if our offices were to contact citizenship and immigration, often there are difficulties even getting quick answers on certain things. There are often long delays in getting responses to requests for the status of certain things. The saddest day in a constituency office is undoubtedly when we have bad news for people because mistakes were made when they relied on others.

I hope that this is a good step and that the regulations will in fact be appropriate and not leave a little window open for those who may want to take advantage of it, because there are several regulations here. We will have to wait until they are promulgated to see what the government has in mind, but I would caution people and encourage the government, once this bill is passed, to publicly announce this bill and what it does and to encourage people not to be too quick to rely on the advice of those who are not properly trained or knowledgeable about the laws of Canada. They do change, and it can make a difference to a person's entire life.

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

Madam Speaker, all government services should be fast, fair and efficient. That should always include immigration services. People who use the service often do not necessarily know immigration laws very well and sometimes have language difficulties. That is why, ultimately, immigration regulations and laws should be transparent. They should be easy to understand. The decision-making process should be very clear and not appear to be arbitrary. Until then, a lot of immigrants will require some assistance. Some will have to go to immigration consultants or lawyers. We hope most will find they do not have the need to do so.

For the past many years, immigration consultants have not been regulated. The former Liberal government brought forward a bill a few years ago and set up a regulatory body. However, the regulatory body was not given the power to regulate properly. As a result, people could set up shop and call themselves immigration consultants without much knowledge of immigration laws or regulations. They could practise, but they did not need to be regulated and they were not breaking any law.

There are 2,000 immigration consultants who are licensed through one body and then there are another 2,000 immigration consultants practising who are not licensed. No one could really tell whether one group was better than the other group, or that any immigration consultants were breaking the laws.

In the last five years, only two or three people have been charged by the government for fraudulent behaviour. However, most people who have dealt with immigrants, whether at immigration offices or constituency offices of members of Parliament, have heard many horrifying experiences, where potential immigrants have been told that their applications have been submitted, but they have not. As a result, their brothers or sisters have grown too old to be considered under family class, or applications are completed in a way that is wrong. Many thousands of dollars later, because their applications have not been completed correctly, the potential immigrants have lost the opportunity to come to Canada or Canadians have been unable to bring their relatives to be united with them in Canada.

There are also other even more extreme cases where immigration consultants have taught people how lie and pretend to be refugees, clogging up the refugee system so genuine refugees have to wait for a long time before their cases are heard.

There are also cases where genuine refugees complete their application forms incorrectly. Some of them experienced torture overseas, but they were unable to describe it in a way that was satisfactory because of the wrong advice they received from consultants. As a result, some faced deportation, while others lost a lot of money.

This terrible experience suffered by potential immigrants is not new. In the early eighties, I was an assistant to a member of Parliament, New Democrat Dan Heap. At that time, I worked with the Globe and Mail with Victor Malarek, an investigative journalist. We visited a few unscrupulous immigration consultants and were able to document all types of behaviour that was fraudulent.

In the eighties and nineties there was a huge uproar in the communities. People were saying that these consultants had to be regulated, yet through these years, it was never done properly.

I hope, with Bill C-35, we will finally get it done properly. I hope the minister will ensure that there is speedy implementation of the bill, that the regulator will be picked and that it will operate in a democratic, fair and open manner. I also hope the regulator will have the power to legislate and regulate all immigration consultants. If people choose to practise as immigration consultants, they will be unable to do so, if they proceed without the licensing of this body. It will be a criminal offence to do so.

Beyond that, legislation is just one piece of the puzzle. The other piece includes education of both Canadians and potential immigrants overseas. The third piece is enforcement of the law. Even after a regulator has been established and licensed, we need to ensure that the Canadian Border Services Agency, the RCMP, sometimes CSIS and immigration officers work together to go after people who act in a fraudulent manner. The regulator needs the power to do this.

The Canadian government also needs to provide the kind of human resources needed in order to ensure those who commit a criminal act will be brought to justice. If not, the legislation will unfortunately not be enforced.

As well, after the regulator has been established, there needs to be regular evaluation. There have to be audits and regular reporting so it is clear for Canadian taxpayers, immigrants, members of Parliament and the general public that this new regulatory body functions in a way that is open, transparent and fair.

I want to spend some time on the detail of the proposed legislation. I have made quite a few amendments to the bill, one of which deals with smugglers, traffickers and immigration consultants who give bad advice. Through this amendment, if people, be they smugglers or consultants, violate the immigration act, enforcement officers will now have 10 years to go after them. In the past, it was only six months. Therefore, it is much tougher and there will be more fines if convictions take place. Smugglers will face life sentences and/or $1 million in fines if they are convicted. The punishment to those who give bad advice, cheat or victimize refugees and immigrants is very steep, and that is a good change.

Another change is the minister will have the power to revoke a regulator's licence. If a regulator is not performing the duty it is supposed to perform, the minister will have the power to take its licence away, especially if it is not delivering good service.

Other changes that I have been assured will be implemented are as follows.

There is the provision that would require immigrants seeking immigration status of any kind or renewing status in Canada to disclose the use of a representative. This would enable immigration officers to check whether a representative was licensed or not.

An administrative change would be a published list of people who had been convicted or removed from the list of approved immigration consultants. This list would be published on the Citizenship and Immigration website. Potential overseas immigrants would be able to see which consultants were licensed, which ones had their licences revoked or had been fined or convicted.

There would be a one-stop shop kind of hotline for the public to report fraud with a lead team to investigate the tips from complaints on unscrupulous immigration consultants. Often it is very confusing for immigrants, especially if their language capacity is not perfect. They may not know whether they should go to the local police, the RCMP, the immigration officer, or CBSA and they may get bounced around. At the end of the day, an immigrant may get frustrated and not file a complaint. Then the immigration consultant would continue to exploit other people. With the hotline and information published on the website of CIC, the public will know how to report fraud.

Another area where there is agreement is on some companies operating in Beijing or New Delhi. A company in India will be advised that it cannot provide substantive immigration advice. It is assisting immigrants to process claims, but it should not act as consultants or lawyers. It is not its task and really should not be its function.

At the end of day, after these agreements, there were still a few changes I would have made, but they were never included in Bill C-35.

I would have preferred to have seen overseas employment recruiters included in the bill so they could be licensed as well. If they ended up behaving in a way that was unacceptable, then they could be charged.

I hoped that if potential immigrants were given terrible advice, they would have a chance to reapply if the immigration consultant was convicted. Also, the immigrant's removal from Canada would be stayed until the immigration consultant went to court and was convicted.

Sometimes, whether they are smugglers, traffickers or crooked consultants, they give bad advice and the victims end up being deported from Canada and are not given the chance to either report the fraud or testify in court. The smugglers, traffickers or crooked consultants end up getting away without being convicted in court and they end up preying on other people.

A stay of removal until the criminals are convicted is really important so the victims are protected. If not, others, unfortunately, will be victimized by these criminals.

Unfortunately, that did not get into Bill C-35. This bill also deals with the same section of the law that deals with traffickers and smugglers. I would prefer it if we could reverse the onus so that the smugglers would have to prove that they are innocent. However, that was not acceptable.

All in all, at the end of the day, Bill C-35 is a bill that I and the New Democratic Party of Canada support because it would provide a legislative framework to ensure that all immigration consultants practising in Canada must be licensed and it would tighten up the law so that hopefully there will be fewer immigrants being cheated and having their life destroyed by these crooks.

I hope there will be sufficient resources to ensure the enforcement of this bill so that in a few years from now we will not be coming back to the House yet one more time to try to fix this issue.

Ultimately, maybe five or ten years from now, if the industry has matured in a way to be able to set up an independent non-share corporation so that the body can be self-regulating and the minister or the Government of Canada would no longer have to regulate, that would be the way to go. Just like the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society or other professional bodies of engineers or accountants, this immigration consultant industry would be able to independently regulate itself.

I have been persuaded that the time is not right yet. Eventually that would be the goal for this industry to practice, as an independent non-share corporation. In the meantime, I hope the minister will be wise and will pick the right kind of regulator that will be able to deliver the service in a most efficient, open and transparent manner.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking about Bill C-35, which we are debating today. We have talked a lot about immigration consultants, which are the focus of this bill.

I want to begin by speaking about the bill's title. Those following the debate since speeches started in the House this morning at about 10:20 a.m. would initially have seen it indicated on their screen that we are talking about the “Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act”, or the “Loi sévissant contre les consultants véreux” in French.

If they are watching now, they will probably see that we are talking about An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This was changed because, likely, at the beginning of the debate the audiovisual team was using the former title of the bill.

In committee, it was decided that the title should be changed to make it more neutral and objective. There are a number of reasons for this decision. Even though we all agree that a bill title has no legal effect and is simply a secondary element in the debate about the substantive clauses and the actual provisions of the bill, the title is still important. On one hand, the title is important from a social point of view because it can affect how people perceive the bill. On the other hand, it is important from a political point of view because it is a tool used by the government to engage in political marketing and even to change the essence and intent of a bill for its own purposes. The government is using this technique more and more.

I will discuss both cases, beginning with the one before us, Bill C-35. It seems to me that the government was using the bill's original title for political purposes. They said they would attack crooked consultants. That sounds like an opinion to me. Opinions have no place in the law. The government should stick to a technical description of what the bill does, which in this case is amend the immigration act to require people who want to practise as immigration consultants and who are not already members of a provincial bar or the Chambre des notaires du Québec to be members of a body to be designated by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. That is what this bill would do.

In practice, will this actually improve the situation and crack down on crooked consultants? That is a matter of opinion. Every member of the House is entitled to an opinion on the subject. I suppose that if the bill receives unanimous support, as it seems to have, that means people pretty much agree. Of course, the 308 members of the House can make mistakes. In the end, history may confirm that we have not. I do not think there should be anything subjective in the title.

If we want voters and the public to respect us, we should be humble enough to resist using bill titles to promote any messages, claims or opinions whatsoever. We must also take into account the potential social impact of an inappropriate title. In this case, they were calling it the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

Imagine consultants telling their clients to trust them because they have been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. As if. Picture the certificate hanging behind a consultant's desk, stating that the consultant has been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. That is not what the bill is about. This bill is about consultants who are not crooked. That is why the title of the bill was changed. Personally, I hope that the government will put an end to this practice, which has been observed in several House committees.

It is a ridiculous practice, one that wastes a great deal of parliamentarians' energy. In many cases, the bills do not even accomplish what is stated in the title, and that skews the democratic debate.

Since there is unanimity in the House on Bill C-35, I would like to provide a few other examples. In fact, most of the disagreement in committee was about the title.

There was Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. Once again, the title was a claim. There was also the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act. That is a matter of opinion; we may or may not agree that Bill C-34 will actually protect people from sex offenders. Then there is the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. I gave examples from different Parliaments, and there are others from the current session. We have bills pertaining to security that are named in memory of a victim whose case has nothing to do with the bill in question.

Getting back to immigration, given that this is the subject of the bill before us today, there is Bill C-49, at second reading. The title, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, is an opinion. In fact, most observers, including the opposition members in the House, find that the bill does not in any way deal with smugglers, but rather targets refugees. The title also refers to people who abuse the immigration system. The bill does not refer to the immigration system but to the refugee protection system. The title is completely at odds with the reality and serves as a political marketing tool.

The government has said that people support their bill. It conducted a poll and asked whether people agreed with the law to prevent human smugglers from abusing our immigration system. Everyone is evidently in agreement. The problem is that the bill does not do what the title says.

Clearly, this is a ploy on the government's part. Basically, the government is admitting that it knows very well that it will not be able to sell the contents of its bill to the public. So it is using smoke and mirrors. It is using the title as an intermediary to try and suggest that one of its bills cracks down on crooked consultants and therefore must be a good bill. It has a bill that cracks down on human smugglers, so it is a good bill.

The most pathetic title we have seen in this House was the title of a bill that was something like: an act to stop the trafficking of minors, even though the word “trafficking” was not mentioned once in the entire bill. The bill had a title that referred to the trafficking of minors, even though the bill was not about that.

Clearly, this is a recurring ploy that must stop. I am very pleased that the members of the committee agreed to stop playing the government's game. I hope the government will have the wisdom and good sense to stop playing these ridiculous little games. The parliamentary secretary talked about it and so did my Liberal colleague, the hon. member for Papineau, and I imagine my NDP colleague will also talk about it, since we tend to work very well together on that committee; we respect one another, despite our political differences. If the government wanted to demonstrate its desire to co-operate and its respect for the opposition members, it could start by giving its bills legitimate titles, instead of making these inane attempts to manipulate public opinion.

I realize that was a long digression, but I had to do it. All that being said, I will now talk about the substance of the bill.

Those who want to immigrate to Quebec and Canada, whether we are talking about refugees, economic immigrants, immigrants in the family reunification category, or people who come on humanitarian or other grounds, are often overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. They are unfamiliar with our laws and are a bit distressed by the red tape. We can relate because we cannot keep up with all the bureaucracy, requirements and regulations either. It is hard for us to keep track of our rights. Imagine what it is like for an immigrant.

There is a real and legitimate concern and many of these people seek advice on the immigration application process. The advice they are given is extremely important because it can have a significant impact on the ruling to be made and on the rest of their lives. During this process, many decide to deal with lawyers or notaries. That is what I always recommend when people knock on the door of my riding office.

However, others seek advice and representation from an immigration consultant. The problem is that, unlike notaries or lawyers, immigration consultants are not really regulated. The regulatory body for these consultants, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, does not work at all; it is a colossal failure. This agency has serious governance problems and is run by people who commit flagrant abuses. They take liberties and do not administer the agency in the interest of its members or the general public. In my opinion, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants has to be abolished. It is beyond repair because it is fundamentally tainted by personal interests to the detriment of its members and the general public. I hope the minister will see it that way when he designates an agency.

A new organization must therefore be created that will better regulate the occupation. Let us hope that, with the new act, this organization will not encounter the same type of internal management problems and that it will have a much broader sphere of activity. Rather than controlling the relationship between the consultant and the government only from the day the application is filed to the day the application is ultimately accepted or rejected, the new act will cover the entire relationship between the consultant and the client or in other words, from the moment a client contacts a consultant or a consultant offers a potential client his or her services. This is a real improvement. However, the organization designated by the minister must do its work correctly and separate the wheat from the chaff.

We have to admit that there are some good immigration consultants; however, there are others who do not do their work properly at all. When touring the country, we were told that some consultants were abusing their ethnic proximity a little or even a lot. Someone immigrates to a new country where they do not know the system and do not know whom to trust, and then they meet someone from the same ethnic group who has successfully immigrated to Canada. Human nature being what it is, they might have a tendency to trust that person more than someone else.

Many crooked consultants—that is how the minister referred to them at the beginning—will abuse this trust. Sometimes these people do not know French or English, nor do they know the laws. People may pay a consultant thousands of dollars and that consultant will not even bother to submit their applications. They wonder why they have not heard anything, so they call the constituency office or the department only to be told that their application was never received and no one has ever heard of it. It can take years before they figure this out. There was a similar story on the news yesterday morning: a lady paid thousands of dollars but her application was likely never submitted.

We have taken a step forward. The House can pass laws, but it does not create the regulations. It is not the House that ultimately does the selection. The minister's role in that regard is very important. He must make wise choices and not usurp the will of Parliament, as has happened in the past, particularly in terms of immigration. He must comply with legislation and ensure that there is finally a real regulator that lives up to that title. Competent people are needed in order to ensure that the immigration consultants in Quebec and Canada are competent.

I have one last aside. Throughout this process, I have insisted that we must ensure that immigration consultants in Quebec are familiar with the requirements of the Quebec immigration system, which has its particularities. There is an agreement between Canada and Quebec. This must be recognized. If there are two categories of immigration consultants in Quebec, people who are submitting an application will not know whether their consultant is able to advise them on all of the possible options or just those that fall under either federal or Quebec jurisdiction. I maintain that, in dealing with immigration issues, we must always remember that the situation in Quebec is different and requires special treatment.

I would like to repeat that there is a good deal of collaboration in this committee. If there are interesting bills, we will study them. I do want to share a little frustration that is not the fault of the committee members or our chair, but it is a result of parliamentary procedure, which seriously limits us with respect to amendment possibilities. We could have developed a better bill if we had had more latitude, as parliamentarians, to make amendments that would change the bill's scope and give it a better direction. That is a problem for all parliamentarians. I hope that we will be able to have a look at this issue in the near future.

In the meantime, overall, I think that the bill before us deserves the support of Parliament.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-35 at third reading. Everyone knows that our country was built on immigration. People came from all over the world to try to build a new life. In some ways, it was easier to come to Canada in the past. There was certainly less paperwork 100 or even 50 years ago. Now, the process is complicated and strict. We want to ensure that the people we welcome into Canada are the best and that they have a lot to offer to help build a good, strong society.

That is why it is so disheartening to have seen that, for so many years, there have been immigration consultants who have been taking advantage of vulnerable people who want to improve their lives, who want to travel across the seas to start a new life and instead end up defrauded and taken advantage of by unscrupulous consultants.

That is why the bill and various projects around cracking down on unscrupulous consultants have come through various committee studies and we finally arrive at this point where we are bringing forward a framework for the minister to pick a new, and hopefully more effective, governing body around immigration consultants.

As my hon. colleague mentioned, this was a model of co-operation among all parliamentarians. There was a clear desire on behalf of Canadians to see Parliament work together to create a more robust structure that was going to care for these vulnerable people, people looking for help in a very big decision and process, that of coming to Canada.

We agreed in principle across the House that something needed to be done. On this side, we are still a little bit worried that the establishment of the recommendation from the immigration committee upon which Bill C-35 was built, which talked about creating a stand-alone regulator, was not entirely followed and is instead still just done through regulations.

However, I think the intent of the bill is clear and the effectiveness of what we have in place will move forward to protecting Canadians.

The essential part of the bill is that it gives more power to go after people who are consulting and offering advice at the earliest stages of an application process. The larger scope of the bill will allow us to protect people even before they have submitted a firm application, which was an important loophole to close.

On the other issues we brought forward as amendments, the Liberal Party was pleased to present the amendment that actually doubled the fines to $20,000 for a summary conviction, and up to $100,000 from $50,000 for anyone convicted of being an unregistered immigration consultant.

There was an excellent discussion in committee around the role and the responsibilities of immigration consultants in Quebec.

We concluded that, without taking anything away from the federal government's power, any immigration consultant working in the province of Quebec who wants to recommend an immigration opportunity in Quebec must be familiar with the immigration system in that province. The primacy of the federal government in this area in maintained, but we recognize that in Quebec, it is extremely important to be able to speak French to interact with the Quebec government. In addition, the consultant must be familiar with the particularities of the process in Quebec to be able to give good advice to those who would like to become citizens of this country.

We also managed to get rid of the short title. In consultations, it came back time and time again from consultants that they were actually offended and felt that naming the bill around the problem, which is the crooked consultants, actually demeaned and belittled the work of legitimate consultants. So we depoliticized the short title of the bill, which was a victory.

In general, the bill puts forward more powers of accountability for, and better relationships between, the minister's office and the eventual regulator. It provides for the sharing of information.

Unfortunately, one of the concerns we have, which is beyond the scope of this bill, is that in our mind there are still not enough resources for the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP to go after those who are not registered consultants and are still operating as, as we call them, ghost consultants, without being qualified or being able to guarantee that they are offering proper services to these vulnerable people who want to emigrate to Canada.

Ultimately, Bill C-35 is just an initial step in allowing the minister to create a new governing body for immigration consultants. It provides a very general framework. It provides a few important key issues. However, push is going to come to shove in the coming months when the government and the minister actually settle on who is going to be the next governing body for immigration consultants.

We have to make sure that we do not just end up with the same problems once again. We have to make sure that there is going to be a strong governance framework around this new consultant body. We have to make sure, if we stick with the same organization that will be articulated in a new way, that the same problems do not come back. We have to make sure that if we have a new and completely different governing body than the one existing right now, we do not fall into the same old traps and have the same ineffectiveness and problems that we have right now.

That is going to be where the opposition parties will watch closely what the government and the minister do and hopefully will engage and help shape the decision in such a way that people will truly be protected by this set of regulations governing immigration consultants.

The members of the committee worked together. We had differences and concerns that were hammered out. It was, as the parliamentary secretary has said, a model of co-operation and of trying to do right by Canadians on this important issue. It is something that I was very pleased to be able to be part of, and it is something that I know we can be proud of as parliamentarians, that on important issues, from time to time, we are able to work together.

I think the spirit of collegiality and co-operation is important and I certainly hope it extends to other bills and other issues on which we can find agreement in principle and not just tweak in committee but improve in committee, as my hon. colleague has said.

For all of these reasons, the Liberal Party is very happy to support Bill C-35 at third reading. We hope that it will be quickly passed by the other chamber so that Canadians will be protected when we have our new regulator for immigration consultants.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the involvement of the member for Abbotsford in this process. Many government members, such as my colleague from Abbotsford, participated in round table discussions leading up to the introduction of Bill C-35.

My colleague touched on a very important point. We bring forward legislation in this place in order to provide good government for a number of different reasons. One of the most important reasons, and one of the reasons that has pushed this legislation forward and has allowed all of us in the House to work together, is that Canadians absolutely believe that this legislation is the right thing to do. Countless groups have told us this is the direction to take, that this is where we should go. That is why we are here today.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Trinity—Spadina for her efforts on committee. I may not have always agreed with the issues or the particular amendments that she put forward, but she did participate in a vigorous way to ensure this bill would move forward.

The member spoke to the issue of regulation and how the implementation of the regulatory body would work. She pursued this issue throughout our committee hearings and our work on Bill C-35.

I can assure the member that the regulatory body will have the responsibility for ensuring that all consultants will have to receive its approval to act in this country. They will be governed by the regulatory body.

In terms of the practice of law, under the current legislation it is extremely difficult to charge and convict anyone acting as a ghost consultant or a consultant who has been unscrupulous with a client. This legislation would allow the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to take the lead on the regulatory body, which would report directly to him. The bill would allow our ministry of justice to enforce legislation if a conviction was sought or a conviction was earned.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, I am pleased to rise today to commence third reading of Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

This important piece of legislation would strengthen the rules governing those who charge a fee for immigration advice and representation. I hope at the end of the day that all hon. members will support the bill.

Over the past four years, this government has proposed and implemented initiatives and policies that clearly demonstrate a commitment to innovation and to improvement. Hon. members will recall that we modernized our immigration system by bringing flexibility to the way we select immigrants while tackling the backlog. We had to fix our immigration system or else the number of people waiting to come here would have swelled to over 1.5 million by 2012.

To improve Canada's asylum system, the minister introduced earlier this year the balanced refugee reform act. Its implementation will mean faster protection for those who genuinely need it and fast removals of bogus refugees who simply do not.

Now it is time to address the lack of public confidence in the regulation of immigration consultants. We all know that people anxious to immigrate to Canada can fall victim to unscrupulous immigration representatives who charge exorbitant fees and may promise would-be immigrants high-paying jobs or guaranteed, fast-tracked visas.

We have all heard or read about their unscrupulous and deceitful schemes such as encouraging prospective immigrants to lie on their applications, to concoct bogus stories about persecution while making refugee claims or to enter into sham marriages with Canadian citizens and permanent residents. In their quest for personal gain these unscrupulous representatives have displayed a wanton disregard for our immigration rules, bilked numerous people out of their hard-earned dollars and left countless lives in tatters along the way. These crooked immigration representatives are a menace, posing a costly threat not only to their victims but also to the integrity and fairness of our system.

Bill C-35 would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act so that only members in good standing of a law society of a province, the Chambre des notaires du Québec or a body designated by the minister may represent or advise for a fee, or offer to do so at any stage of a proceeding or application.

Under the current legislation, the involvement of representatives in the pre-application or pre-submission period is beyond the scope of the law. Well, I am happy to say that Bill C-35 fixes that. By our casting a wider net, unauthorized individuals who provide paid advice or representation at any stage would be subject to a fine and/or imprisonment. This includes undeclared ghost consultants who operate in the shadows and conceal their involvement in an application or proceeding.

Further, there are currently no mechanisms in law that give the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism the authority to oversee the governing body regulating immigration consultants. The bill would provide the minister with the power by regulation to designate a body to govern immigration consultants and provide the Governor in Council the ability to establish measures to enhance the government's oversight of that designated body.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is currently limited in its ability to disclose to the relevant governing body information on individuals providing unethical or unprofessional representation or advice. The bill would allow CIC to disclose such information to those responsible for governing or investigating that conduct, so we can work together to crack down on crooked consultants. An investigation could be undertaken more readily by the appropriate governing body and, where appropriate, disciplinary action pursued.

As we all know, governing bodies are responsible for taking disciplinary action against their members in cases of misconduct. This includes the revocation of membership. The governing body for immigration consultants can, like other bodies, investigate the conduct of its members where there is a concern that a member has breached a term of his or her membership. Provincial law societies use a similar process to look into complaints concerning their own members.

This bill is a comprehensive proposal to provide protection for vulnerable would-be immigrants by imposing serious criminal sanctions on unscrupulous representatives, enhancing oversight of the governing body for immigration consultants and improving information-sharing tools.

Since its introduction, Bill C-35 has received positive feedback from stakeholders, the media and Canadians, all of whom believe that this change was long overdue.

Throughout the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration study of Bill C-35, the minister and government committee members listened to the concerns raised and, accordingly, have adjusted the bill in a way that we believe can only strengthen it. That is what I said. We adjusted the bill accordingly during our consultations at committee.

For example, the government proposed the recognition of paralegals regulated by a law society. By recognizing the ability of law societies to govern their members in the public interest, such recognition could help protect would-be immigrants.

In response to concerns raised in good faith by parliamentarians, we also agreed to a number of amendments that reflect their input, resulting in language that, I believe, has strengthened this bill.

These amendments create a package that would realize our goal of cracking down on unscrupulous immigration representatives who exploit prospective would-be immigrants.

The offence provision found in Bill C-35 has been amended to capture both direct and indirect representation and advice. Penalties have been toughened by increasing the maximum fine for the offence of providing unauthorized immigration advice from $50,000 to $100,000; and summary convictions from $10,000 to $20,000.

The statute of limitations for summary conviction has also been increased to 10 years, offering investigators ample time to properly and fully investigate various offences committed under the act and lay charges before the time period passes.

In addition, for greater clarity, the government proposed a compromise amendment, which would respect Quebec's jurisdiction while maintaining federal authority over the regulation of immigration consultants.

The intention of this provision is to recognize that the province's act respecting immigration to Quebec applies to immigration consultants who, for consideration, advise or represent a person who files an application with the Quebec minister or government.

This amendment is not intended to capture immigration consultants who are advising or representing a person with regard to processes or requirements only under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, where these processes or requirements do not relate to Quebec legislation.

The proposed reforms follow the launch in 2009 of a public information campaign with information on the web in Canada, at missions abroad and through the media, explaining to Canadians how our immigration system works.

At the same time that Bill C-35 moves through the legislative process, a public selection process has been undertaken, under current authority, to identify a governing body for recognition as the regulator of immigration consultants.

In 2008 and 2009, reports of the standing committee pointed to a lack of public confidence in the body currently governing immigration consultants. This lack of public confidence poses a significant and immediate threat to the immigration program and its process.

Public comments on the selection process were solicited in June. This was followed by a call for submissions, as published in the Canada Gazette on August 28.

This open and transparent process is being undertaken in order to ensure that the body governing immigration consultants can effectively regulate its members, thus ensuring public confidence in the integrity of our immigration program.

A selection committee, composed of officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, other federal government organizations and external experts, will examine all of the completed submissions against the criteria listed in the call for submissions that I spoke of earlier.

The selection committee will provide the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism with a recommendation as to which organizations, if any, has or have demonstrated the necessary organizational competencies.

Any and all potential and interested candidates are welcome to apply, including the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

This ongoing public selection process, together with the legislative changes proposed in Bill C-35, ensure the most efficient and the most effective approach to strengthening the regulation of immigration consultants, immediately and in the future. However, as we know all too well, there are large numbers of immigration consultants who operate beyond our borders.

The problem we are trying to address is large in scale and it is international in scope. The value of coming to Canada is so great in the minds of so many that they are often willing to pay their life savings in cash, and beyond, to unscrupulous representatives with the false promise of obtaining visas to visit or to move to Canada. That is why, when the minister met in September with some of our international partners, he underscored the need for combined action to thwart fraud and various forms of exploitation by unscrupulous immigration representatives.

The commission of fraud under Canada's immigration program is a crime that threatens the integrity of our immigration system, raises security concerns, wastes tax dollars, is unfair to those who do follow the rules and adds to the processing time for legitimate applications. We are fortunate that Canada's visa officers are extremely vigilant in preventing the exploitation of victims, but every fake document and false story we find slows down the entire system and diverts our resources away from legitimate applications. That is because our fraud deterrents and verification efforts, while effective, require much more time and resources than routine processing of applications.

Members can see why we are determined to crack down on immigration fraud or misrepresentation by unscrupulous immigration representatives. These unscrupulous representatives victimize people who dream of immigrating to this country. With no motive but greed, these profiteers take advantage of would-be immigrants and tempt them with a bogus bill of goods.

Needless to say, the underhanded schemes of unscrupulous representatives undermine the integrity and the fairness of Canada's immigration system. It is imperative that we tackle the threat they pose and this bill would allow us to do just that. The changes we propose would strengthen the rules governing those who provide immigration advice and representation for a fee, or offer to do so, and it would improve the way in which immigration consultants are regulated.

These changes are also in line with amendments we have proposed to the Citizenship Act to regulate citizenship consultants, which is Bill C-37 and will be coming to this House for second reading very shortly.

For far too long, unscrupulous immigration representatives have preyed upon the hopes and the dreams of would-be immigrants to our country. This disreputable conduct has brought shame to their profession and has abused our immigration system.

As was the case with Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the spirit of compromise and co-operation surrounding this bill has again been remarkable. I should speak to that briefly.

The fact is that one of the things Canadians have asked this government to do, and have asked all parties in this House to do, is to do our best to work together, to not be seen as always opposing the position of each other for political gain or to embarrass each other, because at the end of the day, legislation that passes through this House must be good for Canadians. It must be effective and efficient in terms of the new law that it sets, the new standard that it sets, in legislation.

I have to say, having been a member, as a parliamentary secretary, of the citizenship and immigration committee since the 40th general election, it is in fact a testament to the group of people who have sat on that committee and the group of people who sit on the committee now that indeed, while we do have our political flare-ups and we do have our disagreements, we have in fact, with Bill C-11 and Bill C-35, found a way to work together.

I certainly want to credit my critic who, while being on the job for a little less than a year, has in fact taken up the challenge that his predecessor put in front of him in terms of ensuring that, if we are going to work on issues of citizenship, on issues of immigration and on issues of multiculturalism and because the laws of the country sit before that committee, we must work together on behalf of Canadians to move that legislation forward.

The citizenship and immigration committee certainly has set an example of the spirit of compromise. It is a testament that legislation requires the support not just of the government but of a number of individuals in order to get it through the House.

Bill C-35 is a testament to the compromise the government is prepared to make without surrendering its values or the importance of the legislation the government puts before the House. The government recognizes that in the spirit of compromise, in some cases, the amendments actually strengthen the legislation. Bill C-35 is stronger now than it was before it went to committee. I compliment the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who understands the need to listen, respond and act when legislation is moving forward.

I think the vote on third reading of Bill C-35 will show the support throughout the House for this piece of legislation. This legislation stands for those people who come to this country to become Canadians because of the history and traditions that make Canada a great country. Many people want to become Canadian citizens.

It is important to note that this legislation is for prospective Canadians. It is not just for those who are already Canadian citizens. That speaks volumes to where we are going as a country in terms of the immigrants coming here to build better lives for themselves and to contribute to the Canadian way of life. This bill does a great job in terms of representing that direction.

It is my hope that the spirit of compromise and co-operation as seen during the committee's study of Bill C-35 will ensure the bill's passage in the House.

I want to note the tireless efforts of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Many in the House know of his hard work.

I also want to compliment all of the members of the committee, in particular my colleagues who sit on the government side. All five of them put in hours and hours of effort to ensure that this bill would move forward and carry.

I want to thank the chairman of the committee who at times had to rule with an iron fist. At times, he had to ensure that even the parliamentary secretary kept his cool during the hearings. In fact, I moved a motion to challenge the chair. I lost that vote as the opposition members actually sided with the chairman, but I certainly respected his decision in that regard.

Despite the workings of some of the issues that arose, the chairman did an excellent job in guiding the committee through some difficult negotiations and discussions on the bill. He ensured that witnesses, members of the public from across the country, who wanted the opportunity to participate and speak to the bill in terms of what was good or in need of change were allowed to do so.

At the end of the day, we have a piece of legislation before this House of which all of us regardless of political stripe can be proud. The government will do its best to ensure that Bill C-35 is implemented quickly once it receives royal assent.

To conclude, I wish to thank the people who work at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They did an amazing job in ensuring that this bill met all of the standards this government wanted it to meet.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

moved that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Oh, great.

Look, we certainly work here in Ottawa...[Technical difficulty--Editor]...in a minority, but it is a democracy...[Technical difficulty--Editor]...at this committee proven that you can move bills forward, move legislation forward--Bill C-11 and Bill C-35, which is up for third reading debate tomorrow--and that we can find compromise and still maintain the integrity of a piece of legislation that is important to Canadians, to the running of our government, and to the fairness within the system you've just spoken of.

One of the options the opposition obviously has...and it is certainly within their realm and within their right to oppose legislation the government moves. But based on their input and their response to that, it's also important that we attempt to move legislation forward.

I'm asking you whether or not you have had any proposals put forward either from parties in this House, in terms of options that would see Bill C-49 move forward, or whether we've seen suggestions and comments from those who are opposed to the legislation, from organizations within this country that have said, look, we don't necessarily agree with the bill, but here are some options you could put forward, and perhaps we could move this bill forward.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues.

I am pleased today to present to the Committee my department's supplementary estimates (B) for fiscal year 2010-2011.

I think the supplementary estimates are self-explanatory, but if you have questions, of course, we are here to answer them. Perhaps in my opening remarks I can provide a brief summary of new developments within the Department, our operations and our policies.

Last March, as you all know, we introduced Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Federal Courts Act, which received Royal Assent on June 29, 2010, of course after receiving the unanimous approval of both Houses of Parliament.

I would again like to thank my colleagues from all parties who worked on this.

This act will make Canada's refugee system more balanced, ensuring quicker protection for those who need it and quicker removals of those who don't. It will help deter those who would seek to abuse our immigration and refugee protection systems.

As part of these changes, Canada will also increase the number of resettled refugees by 20%, or 2,500 refugees per year. This includes 2,000 more spots in the private sponsorship program and 500 more government-assisted refugees. In addition, we will increase funding to the refugee assistance program. We've already started that work. This will give the refugees we resettle the support they need to begin their lives in Canada.

To promote these increases, I travelled across the country this summer to encourage individuals and organizations to become private sponsors, to become more involved in a revitalization of the private sponsorship refugee program. In particular, I urged them to become part of our humanitarian tradition by helping to provide a new beginning for victims of violence and persecution around the world, such as those forced to flee the cruelty and brutality of the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran and religious persecution in Iraq.

I should also mention that we've begun--or more than begun, we're well into--the hard work of implementation of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act. In fact, I've appointed, I believe, all of the additional IRB decision-makers for the refugee protection division who are necessary as part of our commitment to begin the process of backlog reduction.

Canada remains committed to protecting those who are most vulnerable. The Government of Canada is equally committed to upholding our laws and to protecting the integrity of our immigration and refugee systems.

That's why we've introduced legislation to crack down on crooked immigration consultants who promote fraud in our immigration program and victimize those who dream of immigrating to this great country.

I'd like to acknowledge Ms. Chow's advocacy that this initiative had to be twinned with our efforts on refugee reform.

As was the case with Bill C-11, this spirit of compromise and cooperation surrounding Bill C-35 has spoken, I think, very well to all parliamentarians on this committee.

We also introduced legislation that would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship by making it easier to lose citizenship if it is improperly obtained, and we hope to begin debate upon second reading in the House in the near future.

But for Canadian citizenship to be meaningful, it also is essential that new and established Canadians alike share a common understanding of our rights and responsibilities, our institutions, our democratic traditions, and our history. That's why, just over a year ago, I was proud to launch Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, our popular new citizenship study guide, which is required reading for anyone seeking to become a Canadian citizen. In fact, the demands for the publication and tens of thousands of downloads from the website, as well as the very positive feedback, have been extraordinary.

This past March, my department began administering a new citizenship test based on Discover Canada. We expect new citizens to know about our country, so we've made the material and guide more comprehensive in scope. We strongly encourage citizenship applicants who want to do well on the test to study the new guide and familiarize themselves with their new country's history, symbols, values, and institutions.

To become a Canadian citizen, you also need to have knowledge of English or French. That obligation is set out in the Citizenship Act. Discover Canada is available as an audio version to help applicants who are still learning English or French study.

And since 2006, we have tripled funding to settlement services, including free language classes, after it had been previously frozen for years. That's meant an additional $1.4 billion over five years to enhance services that help newcomers integrate into Canadian society.

While the government helps immigrants integrate into our society, including through the provision of language training, we expect newcomers to take advantage of this support. What concerns me is that only about 25% of newcomers who qualify for free language classes have enrolled in federally funded classes. To ensure that all immigrants are able to fully integrate and participate in society, this is a number that we would like to see increase.

I'm very pleased to report today that we are well on our way to achieving this goal, as a result, in part, of a pilot project that we launched last fall, where we mailed language training vouchers to 2,000 randomly selected permanent residents. The preliminary results of the vouchers show that more than twice the number of immigrants who received vouchers enrolled in language classes than those who did not. We'll being seeing the final results of our assessment in the spring, and if they continue to be positive, we'll look at options to expand this approach.

We've also updated the multiculturalism program's objectives, placing a much greater emphasis on integration. Through its new objectives, the program will help build an integrated, socially cohesive society, and improve the responsiveness of institutions to the needs of a diverse population.

The Government is committed to improving the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to protect foreign workers and live-in caregivers from potential abuse and exploitation.

To this end, we proposed improvements to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, including penalties for employers who fail in their commitments to their employees.

We also made changes to the live-in caregiver program to better protect these workers and make it easier and faster for them and their families to obtain permanent residency in Canada.

In addition, Mr. Chair, we have introduced important legislative amendments to Canada's immigration laws, which would help protect vulnerable foreign workers, such as exotic dancers, who could be victims of exploitation or human trafficking.

The government is committed to maintaining our tradition of welcoming newcomers from around the world, Mr. Chairman. In fact, it's likely that this year, we will see the largest number of newcomers landing in Canada as permanent residents in more than five decades. In 2011 we intend to welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 permanent residents. I understand my officials were before you last week to discuss the planned levels.

The Government of Canada also remains committed to using immigration in a way that best serves our economic needs.

That's why I'm pleased that Canada was able to lift the visa requirement for travellers with ordinary Taiwan passports. This is something we announced, I believe, just a week ago. This is the eighth visa that we've lifted since 2006.

As you know, I spent time in September visiting our principal immigration source countries—India, China, and the Philippines—as well as having discussions with my colleagues in Europe and Australia. We focused on working together to combat abuse of our immigration system, and human smuggling and trafficking.

We are taking steps to address this challenge. Regulatory changes have been introduced to clarify the authority of the government to refuse applicants on the basis of marriages of convenience. The changes provide visa officers with a better tool to prevent people who have entered into phony marriages from undermining the integrity of our system.

This fall I also held a series of cross-country town hall meetings on the issue of phony marriages. I want to personally hear people's stories, as well as their opinions and ideas about how to best address the issue. While we obviously want to keep the doors open for legitimate spouses, we also want to make sure the doors are not open for those who would break our laws and exploit Canadians.

Mr. Chair, in closing, let me just address human smuggling. This represents an assault on our country's borders and generosity. It clogs our immigration system by diverting resources away from other areas where they ought to be focused. That's why our law enforcement agencies need the tools to be able to combat human smuggling, whether on a small or large scale. Bill C-49, an act Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System, will enable us to crack down on the despicable human smugglers who prey on vulnerable migrants.

Canadians expect strong actions, but actions that are also balanced with our humanitarian and legal obligations. We believe Bill C-49 achieves that objective.

In closing, these are just some of the ways we are working to make immigration more responsive to our economy, and make our refugee programs more fair and efficient.

Thank you for this opportunity to address the Committee, and I would be happy to respond to your questions.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations and I believe you will find unanimous consent of the House for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be deemed to have been amended at the report stage as proposed in the report stage motion in the name of the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism on today's notice paper; be deemed concurred in as amended; and that the House be authorized to consider the bill at third reading later today.

Bill C-35—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

It has been brought to my attention that a clerical error has been found in the report to the House on Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

During its consideration of the bill, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration adopted a subamendment to an amendment to clause 2. Regrettably, that subamendment was omitted from the report to the House and the reprint of the bill.

The report to the House should have indicated that Bill C-35, in clause 2, be amended by replacing lines 16 to 20 on page 2 with the following:

(5) The Minister may, by regulation, designate a body whose members in good standing may represent or advise a person for consideration—or offer to do so—in connection with the proceeding or application under this Act.

(5.1) For greater certainty, subsection (5) authorizes the Minister to revoke, by regulation, a designation made under that subsection.

Therefore, I am directing that a corrigendum to the report be prepared to insert the correct words to clause 2. In addition, I am ordering a reprint of the bill.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, certainly Bill C-49, our tough legislation to prevent human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system, gives us the tools we need to stop illegal smuggling boats. Longer detention will keep our streets safer. Preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining sponsoring relatives for five years reduces the incentive to queue jump. Finally, we will have the tools under our criminal law to pursue and punish the captain and crew.

We did it with Bill C-11, refugee reform legislation. We did it with Bill C-35, dealing with crooked immigration consultants. Let us work together to get this bill through the House.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in relation to Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I move that Bill C-35 in clause 6 be amended by replacing line 18 on page 4 with the following:

connection with a proceeding--other than a proceeding before a superior court--or application

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 6 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 7 agreed to)

(On clause 8--Order in council)

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I move that Bill C-35 in clause 5 be amended by replacing lines 37 to 39 on page 3 with the following:

ing that conduct, for the purposes of ensuring that persons referred to in those paragraphs offer and provide professional and ethical representation and advice to persons in connection with such proceedings and applications.

Basically it makes for the provision of information to governing bodies so that they have to disclose their information properly. I just wanted to clarify to make sure that would be the case.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 5 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 6--Persons authorized to represent, advise or consult)

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

No, I'm not.

I move that Bill C-35 in clause 5 be amended by replacing line 33 on page 3 with the following:

connection with a proceeding--other than a proceeding before a superior court--or application

(Amendment agreed to)

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

So moved, that Bill C-35--

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Before I finish, I would really like to understand. The amendment before us suggests extending the limitation period to 10 years for a summary conviction. But Bill C-35 already amends the act to make that limitation period five years.

Is it true that it is six months at the moment? If Bill C-35 were not passed, would it be six months for a summary conviction?

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

Yes, I am.

I move that Bill C-35 be amended by adding after line 11 on page 3 the following new clause:

Section 117 of the act is amended by adding the following after subsection (1):

(1.1) Evidence that 40 or more passengers of a vessel each possess a document in contravention of paragraph 122(1)(a) is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof that any individual serving as a crew member of the vessel knowingly organized, induced, aided or abetted the coming into Canada of one or more persons in contravention of subsection (1).

That deals with the smugglers. It is reversing the onus of proof.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

All right, I'll proceed.

Bill C-35 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by providing the minister with the power to designate a body whose members may represent or advise a person and to require the body to provide information to the minister.

This amendment attempts to require the minister to stay a removal order under certain circumstances. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states at page 766 that “[a]n amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill”.

It's my opinion, as chairman, that the requirement to stay a removal order is a new concept that is beyond the scope of Bill C-35 and is therefore inadmissible.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

We certainly understand Ms. Chow's intent. The minister has done so in the letter that he sent to her indicating that the regulation will be strengthened by amending the regulations, as Ms. MacNeil mentioned, once Bill C-35 comes into force.

I understand the intent of the direction in which Ms. Chow would like to go, but I think it's important for the committee to understand and accept the fact that there are things that belong within the legislative framework of the bill and there are things that belong within the regulatory framework. I think there is agreement across the board that this should be strengthened, but it should be strengthened through regulation and not through legislation.

[Brenna MacNeil, Director, Social Policy and Programs, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

The authority presently exists under section 10 of the immigration and refugee protection regulations to return an application where a representative is not disclosed. It provides that if there is representation for a fee, an application shall include the name of the organization of which the person is a member and their membership number.

So this issue is currently dealt with under regulation. It gives the authority to return applications where the identified representative is not an authorized representative or if an application is suspected to have been submitted by a representative who is not an authorized representative or not disclosed.

There are provisions in the regulations. They'll certainly be amended should Bill C-35 come into effect. They can be strengthened at that time.

I would also like to point out that the amendment as proposed does not specify “for consideration”. That is an additional issue with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 33, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

This is a carry-over from the last session. We have Ms. MacNeil and Ms. Ménard with us from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Ms. Chow, I think we left off with you on NDP-8.

(On clause 2)

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I understand, Chair. We understand. We're attempting to make sure that we don't fall into some of the same problems we've had with the current regulator in the next one, and we had wished to frame a little more rigour around governance, but we understand that's not what Bill C-35 is all about.

It sort of pulls into question the issue on the fact that we're doing the legislation that's governing the body at the same time as the bodies are applying to be the governor, the eventual regulator, and there's a little bit of a parallel track that causes some confusion. But we accept the decision of the chair on that and we'll move on.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

It is moved by me that Bill C-35 in clause 2 be amended by adding after line 3 on page 3 the following:

(7.1) For greater certainty, An Act respecting immigration to Québec, R.S.Q., c. I-.0.2 applies to, among other persons, every person who, in Quebec, represents or advises a person for consideration--or offers to do so--in connection with a proceeding or application under this Act and

(a) is authorized to do so under regulations made under paragraph (7)(b); or

(b) is a member of a body designated under subsection (5).

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

The concern of the Liberal Party around this issue of consultants in Quebec centres around the fact that for a consultant to operate in the province of Quebec, and be effective and a quality consultant, they should be able to recommend to clients all the options, including the options touching on the provincial stream of immigration. The concern is that there may be an infringement of people's rights to practise certain types of immigration consultancy that don't require any provincial input, such as the refugee stream, which wouldn't need to conform to the Quebec code.

Now, this is a small issue, but it is one that I think represents a rare enough case that in this situation, as with much of what we're doing on Bill C-35, we're going to have to have faith that the eventual regulator will be strong enough to ensure the quality of advice and representation that is given to all its clients. Therefore, the amendment that the government is putting forward seems reasonable to us, as long as the government also commits—as it has indicated it will—to instruct the future regulator to ensure that anyone applying to a Quebec immigration consultant who is not conforming to the rules of the Quebec system must advise any client that there are Quebec options that they cannot sell them on and that they therefore should seek advice from a different consultant who is qualified in Quebec.

This a middling compromise that satisfies none of the parties around the table, to be entirely honest—not entirely. It requires us to have faith that an eventual regulator will be able to ensure that the immigration consultants operating in Quebec and across the country are of top quality. Because of this, we are not going to be supportive of the BQ-1.1 amendment and will be supporting the government amendment.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

In my opinion, we are voting on the principle. The Committee has already expressed its opinion. I believe that this amendment is necessary to ensure consistency with Quebec's policy.

I would like to give you a concrete example of the consequences of not passing this amendment. Both at the federal level and in Quebec, there is an immigrant investor program. Even though there is generally extensive cooperation between the two levels of government, the fact is that these two programs compete with each other. The federal government and the Quebec government try to encourage immigrant investors to take part in their program, because it brings in money. In Quebec, the immigrant investors program brings in up to $50 million a year, which is distributed in the form of grants to Quebec companies.

If the amendment currently under consideration is not passed, that will mean that some immigration consultants in Quebec will be authorized to recommend the federal program, but will not be authorized to recommend the Quebec program.

Of course, the government is saying, through the letter and spirit of its proposal, that people will be required to state that they are not authorized under the Quebec program. My respectful submission is that this will simply create confusion. The evidence needed to monitor the veracity of such claims will be extremely difficult to collect, and a great many immigration consultants in Quebec will recommend to investors that they go through the federal program, not necessarily because it is advantageous for them, but simply because it is the only program they are able to recommend.

That confusion could result in a loss of investors for the Quebec Business Immigrant Investor Program and, as a result, a loss of funding for our Quebec SMEs, as well as lost job opportunities or even jobs.

In spite of the government's good intentions, which are completely inadequate, this amendment is needed and continues to be needed in the interests, not only of Quebec, but of all consumers.

I think it's important to point out to Committee members that this is something we have been examining for more than two years. We began by looking at bogus consultants. We were told that it was very complicated and difficult to ensure that people deal with accredited consultants who are able to provide advice.

We should be advertising on our website and on government websites. Bill C-35 will be implemented, and yet we will leave a gaping hole and create even more confusion because, in Quebec, when people go and see an immigration consultant, they will have to know in advance whether that person is able to apply at a single level, as opposed to both levels.

Outside of any considerations with respect to the separation of powers between the different levels of government, on which we do not agree, it is clear that this is in the interests of consumers and that the Committee's work thus far supports passing this amendment. I encourage you to do that.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I have a few more points to make.

The amendment, at least the way it's drafted, would also remove the minister's authority to designate a body. We would actually have to move an amendment to this to allow the minister the ability to revoke a designation.

I do have an alternative approach to this. I understand where Mr. St-Cyr is coming from. He may not be satisfied with the alternative approach, but I think it is one that is reasonable and that certainly gets to the intent of his amendment. It also has stronger support from the Government of Quebec. They have informed us that they do not see the need for such an amendment, that it's actually not necessary.

The minister mentioned at his appearance here a couple of weeks ago that the intention of Bill C-35 was to designate one body. Nothing in the bill limits designation to only one governing body, so it does allow for that provision.

I can't stress strongly enough that it's the federal government—and Ms. Ménard laid out a Supreme Court decision on this—that maintains responsibility for its legislation. If we were to pass this amendment we would be relinquishing that responsibility.

We have worked extremely well together on bills like Bill C-11 and we want to try to find a way to compromise and meet the objectives of the bill while still having a bill that meets federal requirements. This amendment simply shoots a hole in that strategy, and in fact it is the one amendment that would obviously have to go back to cabinet for approval. This is one area around where there is a huge question mark as to whether it would survive that.

So, Mr. St-Cyr, if it is the intention of the Bloc to pass this amendment and if it is the will of the committee, we're going to need the support of somebody on the other side of the table, as we only have five votes on this side. I can tell you that it is not going to meet with the approval of the government.

I'm asking the committee to consider an alternative amendment that would get at what Mr. St-Cyr is presenting but do so in a way that actually allows us, as the federal government and legislators, to maintain our federal responsibility for legislation.

Thank you.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

The one thing I agree with Mr. St-Cyr on and appreciate is that this is something he brought to the attention of the committee, and certainly to my attention, when we began to deal with Bill C-35. The difficulty, and where we disagree, is that his amendment actually significantly deflates the ability of the federal government to control its own federal legislation. It would actually pass on some federal responsibilities to the provincial government, which is not acceptable when taking on accountability and responsibility for legislation.

I have further comments to make, but I would like Ms. Ménard to lay out, from a legal perspective, the difficulties we would face if in fact this amendment were carried.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon. This is meeting number 32 of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Monday, November 15, 2010.

The orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In other words, we are into clause-by-clause consideration of this bill, having heard witnesses for some time.

I'd like to again introduce the two members of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration who are with us. If need be, they are available for, I suppose, technical questions. The policy questions, of course, can be asked of Mr. Dykstra. We have with us Brenna MacNeil, who is the director of social policy and programs, and Elaine Ménard, legal counsel, legal services.

Welcome to the committee again, both of you.

We will commence with the clause-by-clause debate on Bill C-35. As you know, the first clause will be postponed because of Standing Order 75(1). That will be dealt with at the end. I will therefore proceed to calling clause 2.

(On clause 2)

Ms. Chow, you have an amendment. I assume you're going to proceed with that. Before you do, I will advise the committee that if your amendment, Ms. Chow, is amended--and that is seeking to amend line 12 on page 1 in the French text, I believe--the committee will have taken the decision on the wording of that line, and the government amendment, G-1, then cannot be moved. I just draw that to everyone's attention.

You may proceed and move your proposal, Ms. Chow.

Business of the House

[John Baird, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the NDP opposition motion.

Pursuant to any order adopted by the House earlier today, the vote on that opposition motion will take place on Tuesday, November 16 at the end of government orders.

Tomorrow the House will have the occasion to debate at second reading Bill C-32, Copyright Modernization Act, and the backup bill, should debate conclude at second reading, will be Bill S-9, Tackling Auto Theft and Property Crime Act, which I know is a key priority of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Next week, as the member opposite said, is a constituency week. I encourage all members to remember and recognize the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces, on November 11.

When we return on Monday, November 15, we will call a number of bills, including Bill C-3, Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act, Bill C-31, Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, Bill C-35, Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, Bill C-20, An Action Plan for the National Capital Commission, Bill C-28, Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, Bill C-22, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act and Bill C-48, Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. We would also consider calling other bills that may have returned from committee by the time we return.

Thursday, November 18, shall be the next allotted day.

In closing, I wish all members a productive constituency week.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to call the meeting to order.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting 31, on Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, we are considering Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

We are into clause-by-clause discussion.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj has put me on notice that he wishes to....

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Dykstra, for raising that question, because it is probably the most important issue with respect to the notion of creating a so-called statutory body. If we were to create a statutory body and that body were to relive the same kind of problematic issues that CSIC has, there would be no ability for the government to de-recognize that body.

This is a sector that has clearly had some challenges. The previous government, I think in good faith, created the structure in 2003 for the minister to designate a body. Serious concerns have been raised.

The government, upon the advice of this committee, has been able to act on those serious concerns by opening up the process for designation. If it were a statutory body and there were to be problems in terms of accountability either to its members or the general public, guess what? We would be out of luck. The organization would just continue to churn away, run by its executive.

I think that because this is an industry that does not have anything like the capacity of the law society in terms of experience, of funding, it is very important that we ensure in the public interest that if things go off the rails, the government can intervene and de-designate the body. That's what the model we propose in Bill C-35 allows for. It is the emergency escape hatch.

If the organization becomes guilty of self-dealing, of a failure to properly prosecute immigration crimes committed by its members, if it becomes unaccountable and ineffective, we can pull the plug on it under Bill C-35. In fact, in the bill, there are enhanced or clarified powers to do so. That is a fundamental advantage we have in this model as opposed to the so-called statutory body.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few technical questions to ask either you, Minister, or one of your representatives.

Bill C-35, now before the committee, states the following:[...] no person shall knowingly represent or advise a person for consideration—or offer to do so—in connection with a proceeding or application under this act.

The act this provision refers to is clearly the IRPA. Will an application to the Government of Quebec for a CSQ, and then for permanent residence, be covered under this provision, or would it be considered as outside the scope of the IRPA?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

That is power we get in BillC-35, so unless someone gives me some legal reason why we can't, I think it's makes a lot of sense that we would publish their blacklists, shall I say, on our website as well.

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

You will after Bill C-35.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

But if the friend is providing advice and dealing with Immigration Canada or not, they would then be covered by IRPA and Bill C-35.

I understand your point. There absolutely are unscrupulous labour recruiters. That's why I'd like to commend the NDP government of Manitoba and other provinces for having taken the lead in tighter regulation of that sector--

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Labour recruiters are captured under the current law in Bill C-35 if they provide advice on immigration matters--

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Just to make sure I express myself clearly, I will read my answer, since I was expecting the committee to ask that question.

I do not think such amendments would be necessary to achieve that objective. Even if I intended to designate just one national body, there is nothing in the legislation stipulating that only one body can be designated.

Quebec's recent amendments to its regulations not only refer to the body designated under federal regulations, but also demonstrate a willingness to work closely with the federal government in the regulation of immigration consultants.

Prior to introducing Bill C-35, we shared our proposed legislative changes with Quebec during federal-provincial consultations. I had many discussions with Quebec's Minister James, and I spoke with Minister Weil on Saturday. They did not raise any objections to our approach.

However, if Quebec wishes to regulate immigration consultants, the federal government will, when designating a body, take into consideration any regulator designated by a provincial government to oversee immigration consultants.

So we are open to Quebec designating such a body. We believe the legislation already sets out that power clearly. And, of course, nothing in Bill C-35 prevents the federal minister from recognizing a body designated by Quebec.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you.

On the process we're in right now, we're busy debating and amending Bill C-35 as we move forward. However, at the same time, we've had the call for submissions going on since the summer. Ideally, Bill C-35 would be complete and we'd have a framework to then turn around and say, “This is what we want you to apply for”.

Can you talk to me a little bit about why we're doing it all at the same time and how that's perhaps interfering with the quality of the process?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today. Obviously, we have a few questions.

First of all, you mention in your brief that Australia is going through a more expensive approach in creating stand-alone legislation to create a regulatory body. One of the hints as to why they're going that way is something that we heard in the previous testimony.

According to the Canadian Bar Association, the model of having the regulator also be the professional body has fallen into disrepute. For example, we have the Law Society of Upper Canada in Ontario, and the Canadian Bar Association, which is the professional body and the association for lawyers.

The proposal in Bill C-35 does not separate these different functions into two different entities. I'm worried that down the line we'll have to end up going the route the committee recommended we take the first time, when they came forward with the recommendations a couple of years ago.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Thank you, Chairman.

I am joined here by members of the public service from Citizenship and Immigration Canada who have assisted with the development of this important bill to crack down on crooked immigration consultants and to protect the people who dream of coming to Canada from exploitation by unscrupulous agents.

Mr. Chairman and colleagues, thank you for the invitation to speak to you about Bill C-35. It would of course amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to strengthen the rules governing representatives who charge a fee for immigration advice and representation.

We intend to close loopholes currently exploited by unscrupulous representatives and improve the way in which immigration consultants are regulated.

Taken together, the changes we propose would help protect vulnerable would-be immigrants, help safeguard our immigration system against fraud and abuse, and help ensure an efficient and fair system for those trying to get into Canada through legitimate means.

As we all know, Mr. Chair, immigration fraud happens around the world, and Canada is far from being the only country challenged by it. Some examples of fraudulent activity include bogus marriages, lying to an officer on an application form, and the use of fake documents, including fake marriage certificates, death certificates, travel itineraries and banking statements.

The problem we are tackling is large in scale and international in scope. The value of coming to Canada is frankly so great in the minds of so many that they are often willing to pay sometimes their life savings in cash to unscrupulous representatives, be they lawyers or consultants, with the false promise of obtaining visas to visit or move to Canada.

As you know, I spent a couple of weeks in September meeting with our international partners in Europe, India, China, the Philippines, and Australia to discuss ways we can work together to combat fraud, abuse, and wrongdoing in our immigration system.

Because large numbers of immigration consultants operate beyond our borders, I underscored the need for combined action to thwart fraud and various forms of exploitation by unscrupulous immigration agents and crooked consultants.

After all, the commission of fraud under Canada's immigration program is a crime that threatens the integrity of our immigration system, raises security concerns, wastes tax dollars, is unfair to those who do follow the rules, and adds to the processing time for legitimate applications.

Bill C-35 would amend IRPA so that only members in good standing of a provincial bar association, the Chambre des notaires du Québec or a body designated by the minister may represent or advise for a fee—or offer to do so—at any stage of a proceeding or the application process.

In short, Mr. Chairman, we propose to extend the prohibition on advice and representation to the pre-application period, or that period before an immigration proceeding begins. In so doing, we have created a new criminal offence, which would further deter those persons known as ghost consultants, who are not members of a recognized body.

As we all know, governing bodies are responsible for taking disciplinary action against their members in cases of misconduct. This includes the revocation of membership. A governing body for immigration consultants can, like other governing bodies, investigate the conduct of its members where there's a concern that a member has breached the terms of such membership. Provincial law societies use a similar process to look into complaints concerning their own members.

Protecting the integrity of immigration programs is principally the federal government's role, but because of their responsibility for consumer protection and the regulation of professions, the provinces and territories also play an important role in regulating the conduct of immigration consultants.

In this regard, Quebec's own recent amendments to its regulations recognize as an immigration consultant any member in good standing of the body designated under federal regulations.

Quebec's amendments also demonstrate a willingness to work closely with the federal government in the regulation of immigration consultants.

In addition, provinces raised no objections when we shared the changes to IRPA, proposed under this bill, with them during the course of federal-provincial consultations.

With respect to oversight of the governing body for immigration consultants, there are currently no mechanisms in IRPA that give the minister the authority to oversee the governing body.

The bill would provide the minister with the power, by regulation, to designate a body to govern immigration consultants and to establish measures to enhance the government's oversight of that designated body. Specifically, the designated body would be required to provide the minister with information for the purpose of assisting us and to evaluate whether it governs its members in a manner that is in the public interest so that they provide professional and ethical representation and advice.

Upon further review of the bill, and in response to concerns raised by this committee--and I followed closely the deliberations of the committee and commend and thank you all for your active and very conscientious review--the government is now considering an amendment in this regard. The amendment would provide broader authority to enact regulations requiring the designated governing body to provide information to the government relating to its governance.

The government is also proposing the recognition of paralegals regulated by a law society; I believe that's an issue that's come up in hearings. By recognizing the ability of law societies to govern their membership in the public interest, such recognition could help would-be immigrants.

This bill is a comprehensive proposal to provide protection to vulnerable would-be immigrants by imposing criminal sanctions on unscrupulous representatives, enhancing oversight of the governing body for immigration consultants and improving information-sharing tools.

This is being done without the significant costs associated with the establishment of a governing body through stand-alone legislation, as suggested by some. A similar approach is expected to cost Australia approximately $20 million over four years, just as an example.

At the same time that Bill C-35 moves through the legislative process, a public selection process has been undertaken, as you know, under the existing legislation, to identify a governing body for recognition as the regulator of immigration consultants.

This committee's 2008 and 2009 reports on the issue pointed to a clear lack of public confidence in the body currently governing immigration consultants. This lack of public confidence poses a significant and immediate threat to the immigration program.

Public comments on the selection process were solicited in June and were followed by a call for submissions as published in the Canada Gazette last August. This open and transparent process is being undertaken to ensure that the body governing immigration consultants can effectively regulate its members, thus ensuring public confidence in the integrity of our overall immigration system.

A selection committee composed of officials from my department, other federal government organizations, and external experts will examine all complete submissions against the criteria listed in our published call for submissions. This selection committee will provide the minister with a recommendation as to which organization(s), if any, has or have demonstrated the necessary competencies. Any and all interested candidates are welcome to apply.

This ongoing public selection process, together with the legislative changes proposed in this bill, ensure, we believe, the most efficient and effective approach to strengthening the regulation of immigration consultants now and in the future.

In closing, as I have said before, most immigration representatives working in Canada are legitimate and ethical. But we must act against those who exploit and victimize would-be immigrants by charging them for bad advice, or who help them try to cheat their way into the country, thereby compromising the integrity of Canada's immigration program.

I invite the members of the committee to help us as we work together to crack down on crooked consultants and protect fairness for all applicants for immigration to Canada.

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Handfield.

Mr. Handfield, thank you very much for taking the time to appear before our committee and assist us in our study on Bill C-35.

Do you believe that the disclosure of information relating to the ethical or professional conduct of immigration representatives to bodies responsible for governing or investigating that conduct will improve the effectiveness or the regulation of immigration representatives?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to the hearing today.

My questions are directed to the Canadian Bar Association. Any one of you can answer them. They are in two parts, so I will tell you the questions first, and you can then decide which one to answer first.

First of all, can you explain how law societies discipline their members? In our discussion earlier, a lot of you mentioned the fact that discipline is important to make sure that your members are following the rules. Why is this important? That's question number one. Second, how will improved information-sharing with the Canadian government, as Bill C-35 has suggested, strengthen this law society function?

Thank you very much for answering.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Would you see, then, a need to insert into a bill like Bill C-35 a recommendation or even an obligation that people who want to practise immigration law should be qualified specialists in immigration law? Or is that setting the bar higher than you feel is needed?

[Laurie Pawlitza, Treasurer, Law Society of Upper Canada]

Thank you. I'm the treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada, which is the elected head of the society.

I'd like to begin by saying that we very much welcome the minister's actions in introducing Bill C-35. We're supportive of its aim, which is to protect the public. In particular, we're supportive of the expansion of the range of prohibited activities.

However, we are here to ask you to consider an amendment to the bill to exempt from the membership to CSIC the paralegals in Ontario who are regulated by the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Currently, proposed subsection 91(2) of Bill C-35 exempts from CSIC the members of the provincial bars. Lawyers are exempted, as I understand it, because they are already regulated by law societies.

In Ontario, the Law Society of Upper Canada does not only regulate lawyers; since 2008, it has also had a fully operational regulatory structure for paralegals that mirrors the structure of regulation for lawyers. Currently we regulate 42,000 lawyers and 3,000 independent paralegals.

I should pause here to point out that the law societies are not like the bar associations. The operations of the associations, like the CBA, are quite different. Their membership is voluntary. Bar associations lobby in their members' interests. By contrast, the law society is a statutory body that's obliged to regulate in the public interest. To provide legal services as a paralegal in Ontario, you must be licensed as a paralegal.

Under the amendments to the Law Society Act, paralegals are permitted to provide legal services in a narrow scope of practice, which includes things such as small claims court and federal and provincial tribunals. Included in the legal services that paralegals who are licensed in Ontario can provide are immigration matters.

The difficulty the paralegals in Ontario face is that the Law Society Act requires that for them to provide legal services, they must be a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. In addition to that, IRPA requires that they be a member of CSIC. In our view, the regulation of paralegals in Ontario by two regulatory bodies is unnecessary.

I'm going to mention a little bit about how we regulate paralegals in Ontario. When the regime was implemented in 2008, applicants who met certain criteria were grandparented, and they weren't required to have a certain college education. That phase has now passed.

Now paralegals providing legal services in Ontario can only be licensed if they have completed an accredited community college program. The law society accredits the programs. We've done extensive research into the competencies required, which we can discuss if questions are asked.

In addition to that, paralegals must satisfy other criteria. As with the lawyers we license, they must all be of good character. They must pass a licensing examination that tests different competencies than the competencies required under the accredited college programs. They are required, under those licensing exams, to focus on the issues of professional responsibility, ethics, and so on.

In addition, paralegals, once licensed, must abide by the paralegal rules of conduct, which are very similar to the lawyers' rules of professional conduct. If they handle and hold client funds, they must maintain a trust account. As with our lawyers, they are subject to spot audits of their books and records. Also, they must cooperate with reviews of their practices.

Beginning in January 2011, they will also be required to take 12 hours per year of continuing professional development education. They will be suspended from providing legal services--suspended from their practice, if you will--if they don't complete that education over the course of that year. They would be reinstated once they have completed it. To maintain a licence, they need to have insurance of $1 million--$2 million in the aggregate.

The law society also operates a compensation fund. If a client has been subject to dishonest action on the part of the paralegal, there is compensation provided by the law society; for example, in the instance of fraud.

The law society of course has an established discipline process. We discipline paralegals as well as lawyers in the event that there are issues with their conduct, competence, or capacity, and we also prosecute unauthorized practice.

In addition to that, with respect to the paralegal regime, we're required to report to the government. We reported in 2009 and have copies of the interim report about the paralegal licensing regime here with us today. We're also required to report again to the government in 2012.

In conclusion, the law society has been regulating the legal profession since 1797. We're Canada's oldest regulatory body. Our regime mirrors the lawyers' regime and, for these reasons, we're asking that Bill C-35 be amended to exempt the paralegals licensed by the Law Society of Upper Canada from the provisions of proposed subsection 91(1) in the same manner as our lawyer licensees are exempted.

We're happy to answer any questions.

Mr. Heins, our CEO, has been with the law society for much longer than I've been an elected treasurer, so Mr. Heins will doubtless be answering any questions you might have of the law society.

[Chantal Arsenault, Chair, National Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

The Canadian Bar Association has always been committed to protecting the public interest, as well as the integrity of the immigration system. With that objective in mind, we have kept a very close eye on all developments related to consultants for many years now, releasing numerous briefs on the issue since 1995. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on Bill C-35.

First of all, we stand together with all those who have already hailed the fact that the bill prohibits unregulated persons from representing immigration applicants at all stages of the process, even before the application is filed. Furthermore, the CBA has long been calling attention to that serious flaw in the current system. So we welcome this change.

The issue of who should be regulated and how is much more complex. The CBA has always maintained that only lawyers should be allowed to represent or advise someone in connection with a proceeding or application under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Otherwise, it is our position that adequate representation of consultants is critical.

The whole idea of representation and advice is one of the cornerstones of Bill C-35. Unfortunately, however, contrary to what we have been recommending since 1996, the bill does not set out a clear definition of the immigration services subject to regulation.

In our submission, we provide you with such a definition of acts that should only be performed by lawyers, whether or not we are willing or able to designate a body as per the proposed paragraph 91(2)(b). Lawyers have received formal education aimed at developing the ability to analyze and address legal complex issues.

Many issues in the immigration context involve not only immigration law, but other areas of law, such as administrative, criminal, constitutional, and human rights. Inadmissibility or validity of a foreign marriage are just two examples of issues that require a sophisticated legal analysis for a representative to be able to competently advise and draft documents for clients, rather than just memorizing manuals.

While we recommend that nobody be designated by proposed paragraph 91(2)(b) of the bill, and that consultants be allowed to act only under the supervision of lawyers, we also suggest in our submission improvements to the bill in the event our recommendation is not followed by this committee or by the government.

My colleague Michael Greene has been involved with this issue for many years now. I will therefore give him the floor to talk about how we hope to improve the bill.

[Stéphane Handfield, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you regarding Bill C-35.

I have been a lawyer in Montreal for 18 years, and I served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada for 11 years. Immigration law makes up most of my practice. Practising law is a lawyer's domain. Immigration law is a field of law. Therefore, immigration law should be practised solely by lawyers, with the exception of notaries in Quebec.

The scope of activity of immigration counsellors should be limited to functions such as recruiting immigration applicants, gathering documentation and completing forms. Their activities should be overseen by a lawyer or notary, to ensure that the immigration applicant or foreigner receives proper advice. That would better protect people against fraud and other forms of abuse.

In the course of practising law, I have heard a number of disturbing stories involving immigration consultants. For example, an 80-year-old woman hired an immigration consultant to prepare and file her application for permanent residence in Canada on humanitarian grounds. After waiting several years and paying various fees, the woman learned from Citizenship and Immigration Canada that her application had never been filed. The consultant in question was arrested by the RCMP and taken to court on fraud charges.

There was another immigration applicant who, despite meeting the criteria for the skilled worker class, was advised by an immigration consultant to apply as an investor, so that the consultant could collect $50,000 in commission. Stories like that are a dime a dozen.

Situations like these have serious consequences for the people affected: their applications are denied, they are deported, they are separated from their families, they suffer financial losses, their lives are ruined. It is my position that Bill C-35 does not protect people from crooked immigration consultants who could claim that they were not compensated for their services.

Bill C-35 gives the body that would be responsible for immigration consultants numerous regulatory powers. That organization could be considered a professional body. The existing legal and regulatory framework in Quebec with respect to professional bodies can provide assurance of consultant oversight, which the federal framework cannot do. As a result, immigration consultants operating in Quebec should be overseen solely by the Quebec government. That would ensure that provincial jurisdiction is respected.

In short, only lawyers and notaries should be able to practise immigration law. If the government wishes to recognize immigration consultants, it should require them to work under the supervision of a lawyer. Furthermore, the body in charge of consultants should be regulated by Quebec.

In closing, I would point out that, according to Le Petit Larousse 2010, a consultant is defined as a specialist who gives detailed professional advice in his or her area of expertise, whereas a lawyer is an officer of the court who advises, assists and represents clients. A lawyer is trained to interpret complex laws and regulations, such as those in immigration law.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 30, on Monday, November 1, 2010. This meeting is televised and is pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

We have three sets witnesses in this panel. The first witness, Stéphane Handfield, appears as an individual.

Good afternoon to you, sir.

We have three representatives from the Canadian Bar Association: Michael Greene, who is a member of the national citizenship and immigration law section; Tamra L. Thomson, who is the director of legislation and law reform; and Chantal Arsenault, who is the chair of the national citizenship and immigration law section.

From the Law Society of Upper Canada, we have: Laurie Pawlitza, who is the treasurer; Malcolm Heins, who is the chief executive officer; and Sheena Weir, who is the manager of government relations.

Good afternoon to all of you.

Each group has up to seven minutes to make a presentation, and then there will be questions from the four caucuses present here today. We'll just take it in order.

Mr. Handfield, you have up to seven minutes to make a presentation.

[Joel E. Tencer]

Right, I agree. It's trite to say this, but they have to be registered. They have to meet the standards that I and Ms. Adam have met and that the rest of our 1,850 or so members have met. I don't see the jail or fine, but I don't have Bill C-35 in front of me. As long as it's there, that's important.

I think that maybe a government body should be set up, some investigative body that should try to find these unlicensed persons and have them charged. I would like to see the government take a very serious step in this direction. As I said, there are many people out there who didn't take any courses and who don't pay money. I think there should be more proactive work done by the government, by Immigration Canada, possibly, together with CSIC, to work against these unlicensed, unscrupulous people.

[Joel E. Tencer]

Thank you.

Your question, if I understand it, is about the difference between an unlicensed person and a licensed consultant. I think I've answered part of that. The unlicensed person takes advantage of vulnerable people who need to run away or want to immigrate to Canada. These unlicensed persons are not knowledgeable because they didn't study like we did. We paid money to take courses and to pass exams. We are at a certain level of knowledge and skill that these unlicensed persons cannot possibly have.

As for moneys and where our client's money goes, the bank accounts are regulated. These other people could take the money and run away and they've done that. It has been in the newspapers, in the media. We are licensed and therefore are held to a strict standard. None of us would have been licensed, Mr. Uppal, had we not proven to CSIC that we know the refugee law and the immigration law.

There are always complaints.... A disciplinary department is hanging over our heads, which is important for any professional body.

Our knowledge allows us to render a proper professional service, which I'm very proud of, because I am where I am today thanks to CSIC.

As I said, lawyers do not take immigration law in law school; I never did when I was there. I learned everything through seminars and conferences, as Ms. Adam has stated.

Therefore, an unlicensed person is now covered in this new legislation, Bill C-35 in that it's an offence for them to get involved with persons in the area of immigration and refugee law.

The only comment I want to add now is that I'd like to have some serious teeth put into this bill. Unlicensed persons who are caught practising immigration and refugee law ought to be strictly fined, with maybe even a jail term to deter them, because they're taking advantage of vulnerable people around the world who want to come to Canada.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

The federal minister, under Bill C-35.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Several of us have mentioned the power given to the minister under this bill. In 2008, this committee made some recommendations. In the June 2008 report, it recommended that a new organization be created under a separate statute. Under Bill C-35, the organization would be under the direct authority of the minister. Don't you think that would give him too much power?

[Selin Deravedisyan-Adam]

There are a lot of changes in Quebec. Everyone who can work directly with the ministère de l'Immigration et des Communautés culturelles is going to have to make a mandatory declaration when they fill out the forms. There is a parallel with Bill C-35. I didn't come here just to criticize. The positive point is that anyone who advises another person will have to be a member in good standing of an organization. Quebec has already focused on this, and at its site we can see today that it does indeed talk about members in good standing of the CSIC. That is a positive point.

[Joel E. Tencer]

My answer to you, Mr. Oliphant, is the following: that's actually one of the comments I have on Bill C-35 and particularly on proposed subsection 91(5), where it says, of course, that the minister “may designate a body...”. Rather than the minister having this extraordinary power, it's my respectful submission that a body ought to be set up--or possibly in cabinet or with a committee of some sort--and they are the ones who should decide whether the society should continue--that is, CSIC--or a new regulatory body should be set up.

I'm not totally experienced in politics. It's not an area that I profess expertise in, but I believe that a certain body or cabinet, after discussions and meetings, ought to decide whether the society, CSIC, should continue or a new one should be appointed--

[Cobus (Jacobus) Kriek]

My intention was not to include the regulation of recruiters in Bill C-35. My intention was just to clearly identify what is the practice of immigration law or immigration law advice and to expand proposed section 91. I believe that recruitment is a function that should be dealt with by the provinces, not in federal legislation.

As for how to deal with overseas ghost agents practising immigration law, follow these two suggestions: have an intelligence system to follow those people and, once they enter Canada, prosecute them for their actions abroad. I think it would be very difficult for the Canadian government to go after these people right around the world. I don't think it's practical.

[Cobus (Jacobus) Kriek]

Yes, I fully agree. If Bill C-35 could go ahead, it would make the immigration manual's paragraph 5.4 in chapter IP 9 ultra vires. This needs to be changed. This is the root cause of the problem. The existing law is not detailed enough. According to the status quo, anybody can assist a foreign national with an application, and even submit it, but cannot make an inquiry. That's the root cause of the whole issue. That's where it all starts.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

I would like you to tell me, as an authorized recruiter, what basic requirements people who want to perform this function should have to meet. Should candidates have to be lawyers, for example? That would be asking a lot. People can't all be lawyers, but it is really dangerous to appoint just anyone as a recruiter.

Are there basic requirements you would like to see included in Bill C-35?

[Cobus (Jacobus) Kriek]

I think it should be lumped together. Bill C-35 clearly indicates that, in order to represent a party under any submissions under the act, proposed section 91 does not exclude LMOs and AEOs. I'm just following what's written in Bill C-35.

[Fanny Levy]

Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee on Bill C-35 to share with you Manitoba's position and some of the efforts we have made in Manitoba in regard to regulating the activities of third party immigration consultants.

We're very pleased that the federal government is proactively addressing the issue. As you may know, the protection of vulnerable immigration clients, such as temporary foreign workers, has been a priority in Manitoba that we are addressing through provincial legislation called the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act.

We believe that complementary provincial and federal regulatory systems will advance protective measures for immigrants, and we have some suggestions in regard to the selection of a regulator for immigration consultants.

We believe that regulatory capacity needs to have the power to sanction and regulate immigration consultants and to seek judicial enforcement of the disciplinary consequences imposed on the members.

We also believe that it's important that dissatisfied members and the public and others are able to influence the regulatory body's internal functioning through a formal review process.

We believe the Government of Canada should be involved in the affairs of any new regulator until it's fully functioning.

We also support the view that the relevant federal regulatory and enforcement authorities should work with their provincial partners to coordinate investigation, communication, and enforcement efforts to ensure that unregistered immigration consultants are either referred to the appropriate authorities for sanction or are prosecuted under existing federal provisions.

We believe the Government of Canada should ensure that the new immigration consultants regulator institutes a third party, no-cost complaints process in respect of unauthorized or improper representation to support immigrants who lodge complaints. We also want immigrants to be informed that their complaints to the regulator will have no negative impact on their immigration applications or proceedings and that the regulator has a prosecutor or investigator who will represent the public interest in prosecuting misconduct.

I mentioned the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act that came into force in April 2009 in Manitoba. I want to share with you some of its highlights.

First of all, it extended coverage to include the protection of children in the modelling industry from sexual exploitation, but it also protects foreign workers from unscrupulous recruiters and employers. It requires Manitoba employers to register with the province prior to undertaking any foreign international recruitment efforts.

It allows the province to provide two different types of service. First, it will educate employers about what they have to comply with in terms of the legislation. Second, it will help them access support for the ethical, coordinated international recruitment of skilled workers through international agreements with Manitoba. Employers can also receive assistance to identify a local pool of immigrants who are already in the province. There is no cost for this service.

I will list some of the key provisions of WRAPA in terms of the provisions for employers. They must register with the province. They have to declare that they are using the services of a third party recruiter, who must be licensed to provide those services in Manitoba. They must pay any recruitment fees owed to a licensed recruiter; temporary foreign workers cannot and should not be responsible for paying any recruitment fees. Also, they cannot apply for a labour market opinion before being registered by the Province of Manitoba.

Employers using an unlicensed recruiter are liable for fees charged to workers, and fines can go up to $50,000 for corporations. Of course, they may be ineligible to reapply for registration.

In terms of recruiters, they must be licensed by the province, and to obtain the licence they need to be members of the Law Society of Canada, the Chambre des notaires du Québec, or, currently, CSIC, and they must present a letter of credit for $10,000. Also, they are liable for charging any recruitment fees to workers.

To date, we have about 2,400 employers who have been registered through this legislation. We receive an average of 150 applications a month, with an average of 135 approvals. These registrations are completed in two or three weeks.

We've seen many improvements with this legislation. First of all, information-sharing agreements that we have developed with governments, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies allow the province to monitor, investigate, and enforce legislation. It gives us the ability to refuse or revoke a licence, to investigate, to recover money on behalf of workers, to prosecute offences of WRAPA, and to fine individuals up to $25,000--and $50,000 for corporations--for non-compliance with the legislation.

We firmly believe that it has been very successful in preventing countless workers from being exploited, and it provides the province with the tools needed to protect these workers once they are already in the province. We have created a new special investigation unit to administer WRAPA and to handle all investigations related to it.

Thank you.

[Cobus, Jacobus) Kriek (Director, Matrixvisa Inc.]

Mr. Tilson and respected committee members, my name is Cobus Kriek. I'm a member in good standing of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. I'm also the owner of Matrixvisa Incorporated. Thank you for the opportunity to allow me to share my thoughts with you today. It is a privilege and an honour to be here.

I only have two suggestions. The first suggestion has to do with proposed subsection 91(1) of Bill C-35, and the second suggestion is about the definition of immigration law advice. I will start with my first suggestion about proposed subsection 91(1).

The proposed wording of subsection 91(1) reads that “...no person shall knowingly represent or advise a person for consideration...in connection with a proceeding or application” under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I suggest that the wording be changed or expanded to include anyone who induces, aids, abets any ghost agent to directly or indirectly represent or advise for consideration under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Such a change would discourage a federal employee inside or outside Canada from accepting submissions from or communicating with an unauthorized ghost agent about immigration cases, which I have seen happening in 2010.

This brings me to my second suggestion on defining immigration law advice. Under the current dispensation, that is, in the pre-Bill C-35 era, it is perfectly legal and, one could say, ethical for anyone to provide certain immigration law advice without being a member of CSIC, the bar, or a public notary in Quebec.

I hold in my hand chapter “IP 9—Use of Representatives Paid or Unpaid” of the department's immigration manual. Paragraph 5.4 reads as follows:

...there are many individuals who receive payment for filling out forms and applications.... However, as these individuals do not meet the definition of an authorized representative, there are functions that they cannot perform. These functions include making interventions on behalf of the applicant during processing, and requesting information about the progress of the application. In order to make interventions and request information on behalf of the applicant during application processing, these individuals must be members of one of the regulatory bodies.

It is clear that CIC believes that immigration advisers only need to be authorized representatives when intervention is needed or inquiries are made. According to CIC, any immigration law advice given prior to an inquiry can be completed by anyone.

If an unauthorized representative or ghost agent is allowed to complete forms and applications, it implies that the unauthorized representative or ghost agent may provide advice about the appropriate immigration class, such as the investor class, federal entrepreneur class, federal skilled worker class, etc., as this activity would logically precede the completion of forms and applications. The completion of forms and applications would only be possible after an analysis of the person’s experience, education, and financial status.

It is very obvious that the completion of forms and applications is not merely an administrative action, but requires in-depth knowledge of immigration law. Consumers cannot be protected if any untrained person can assist a member of the public to complete immigration forms and applications.

On 18 October, Mr. Nigel Thomson mentioned before this committee that CSIC has about 1,600 to 1,700 ghost agents in its intelligence system at CSIC. Given the wording of chapter IP 9, which I have just read, many of these ghost agents are not in contravention of any act and are conducting their immigration work completely legally. The existence of ghost agents in the immigration law industry is directly related to the wording in the immigration manual's chapter IP 9, which I have read to you. This wording in turn is the result of the policy vacuum that exists in the current legislation, as immigration law advice is not defined in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act or regulations.

In order to prevent the continued unauthorized practise of immigration law, it is suggested that the words “advise...under this act”--or immigration law advice-be clearly defined in Bill C-35 and not be left to be defined in the regulations. The following wording is suggested:

Advice would be any guidance offered by one person to another on any immigration matter where profit is directly or indirectly a result of the advice. Specific cases (not limited to): (a) Recruiters may not provide immigration advice or advise under the act; (b) Education agents may not provide immigration advice or advise under the act; (c) Recruiters for provincial nominees may not provide immigration advice or advise under the act; (d) Assistance with the completion of forms is also immigration advice or to advise under the act.

Specific examples in the act will prevent a misunderstanding of the intention of the lawmaker. Furthermore, specific examples are already being used as a technique in the case of immigration regulation 187(2).

It must be recognized that ethical recruiters who comply with provincial laws play an important and valuable role in the immigration process, both for permanent and for temporary entry. However, recruitment is a function related to human resources management, not immigration law. Recruiters are not trained in immigration law and the immigration activities of recruiters are not regulated to ensure the protection of the public.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We'd like to call the meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 29, on Wednesday, October 27, 2010. Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, we are studying Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

We have a number of guests before us. Some of the guests are on the video conference from Winnipeg.

However, before we start, I'd like to make three announcements. One, Mr. Rafferty and Madame Beaudoin , perhaps, if you could tell Monsieur St-Cyr and Madam Chow that if there are any amendments to this bill, we will be doing clause-by-clause a week today, which is November 3. Amendments must be at the clerk's office, or given to the clerk here, on or before noon on November 2, which is the day before.

There is a notice going out today. You could pass this on to Monsieur St-Cyr and Ms. Chow, although they will get notices: the subcommittee will be meeting on Monday after this meeting, which is at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, November 1, unless there are votes, in which case, I guess, it will be cancelled. Assuming there are no votes, we'll have a subcommittee meeting on Monday.

Also, just so you don't come down here, all meetings next week will be in Centre Block.

Those are my preliminary remarks. I'd like now to introduce to members of the committee our guests, our witnesses.

Before us here is Matrixvisa Inc., immigration law and international recruitment. We have Cobus (Jacobus) Kriek, the director, before us here in the committee room.

We have, by video conference, the Government of Manitoba, it says here on our agenda, and we have two people before us. Fanny Levy is the acting director of the Manitoba provincial nominee program and Dave Dyson is the executive director of the employment standards division with Manitoba Labour and Immigration.

Can the two of you hear me?

[John Ryan]

Mr. Dykstra, I think Mr. Janzen and the regulator are not that far apart, quite honestly, and there is a public protection mandate. The law societies have part-time lawyers; they have lawyers who practice within corporations. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that CSIC would entertain.... I remember the conversation from three years ago. Quite frankly, with 1,800 members, we have a limited $9 million budget to deliver a public protection mechanism. There was a real concern at CSIC at the time that we would not be able to have those graduated things.

But certainly, once Bill C-35 comes in, I think there is an opportunity again to have that conversation, because obviously the number of people--the base of consultants paying into the public protection mechanism--would be much greater, and therefore we can start looking at a graduated or restricted scope of practices, which I think Mr. Janzen is proposing. I don't think we're too far apart on that.

[Holly L. Gracey]

I'll try to be fast.

Thank you for inviting me here today to speak to Bill C-35. I'm the chairman of the board of directors of IMMFUND.

IMMFUND was established in 2008 to offer consumers of immigration services an added layer of protection against the potential criminal activities of immigration consultants who are members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. It is a wholly-owned not-for-profit subsidiary of CSIC, which has its own staff and board of directors. Since its inception, the fund has collected just over $1.2 million from CSIC members, who are required to make an annual contribution.

I'd like to take a moment to describe how the fund works. If a CSIC member is convicted for a criminal act in a court of law, and if that act resulted in the loss of a client's money, IMMFUND will reimburse the client for their loss. To date, there have been no claims against the fund, but we are aware of five cases currently before the courts that could result in claims.

l'II now turn to IMMFUND's position on Bill C-35. The provision for clear penalties is strongly supported by IMMFUND, because it should discourage those operating in Canada from continuing to practice outside of regulation. IMMFUND strongly supports Bill C-35 because it offers consumers added protection by closing a loophole that allows ghost consultants to front-end services and further prevents them from openly advertising their services.

Of particular concern to IMMFUND is the provision that gives the immigration minister the unilateral power to designate a regulatory body with a simple notice in the Canada Gazette. This awesome power could create instability in the immigration system. It is of paramount importance that Bill C-35 be amended to allow for the Governor in Council, and not the immigration minister, to select the regulator of immigration consultants and establish criteria under which this power would be exercised.

I want to take the opportunity to stress the instability that would ensue should any body other than CSIC be designated regulator as a result of Bill C-35. If CSIC ceases to exist, so too would IMMFUND, and make no mistake, IMMFUND provides an added layer of stability to the Canadian immigration system by offering protections to consumers that would not otherwise exist.

I was disheartened to hear one of my fellow CSIC members last week talk about the possibility of dismantling the fund. This viewpoint shows a complete lack of respect for consumers and a lack of understanding about how to run an effective regulatory body. It's important to remember that the job of a regulatory body is to protect consumers, which goes to the very heart of why it's necessary to create IMMFUND as a subsidiary of CSIC. Further, the foundations of its very existence guarantee that the assets of the fund would not be used for CSIC operations.

If CSIC is not recognized as the regulator, the $1.2 million that CSIC members have already contributed will not be returned to them, but would instead be repatriated to the parent corporation to cover any costs associated with the wind-down of its operations. I don't have to tell you that this would leave consumers without any source of potential compensation for criminal acts perpetrated by CSIC members until a new fund could be established.

IMMFUND is just one of the ways that members of CSIC work together to protect the consumers of immigration consulting services while contributing to the integrity of the immigration system. I urge this committee to act on the recommendations that IMMFUND has presented to you today in the interests of consumer protection and the immigration system as a whole.

Thank you.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I would like to go back to the question of jurisdiction.

You mentioned the decision of the Supreme Court. Since I am not a lawyer, I will do my best with this. In my opinion, since current legislation essentially allows the federal government to decide on who will appear to represent a client, the Supreme Court determined that the government could say who it wanted to deal with and that it was its choice.

In my view, Bill C-35 is heading towards something much broader. It is not only a question about regulating who represents a client before the federal government but it is also about regulating the whole profession. This would include consultants who only do preliminary consultations, even before getting to the applications.

Would you agree with me that there is a change in the scope of the legislation? Do you think that, with this new legislation, the Supreme Court could now arrive at a different decision in terms of the federal government's jurisdiction to regulate the profession of consultant?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

In your reading of Bill C-35--and you've mentioned that we may end up in a situation where only the current regulator, CSIC, actually has an application and is chosen to be the future regulator--how much changes within this system? How much of a real level of transparency is the minister going to be able to compel with the modifications brought forward by Bill C-35?

[Maria Yvonne Javier, As an Individual]

I will go first. It's my pleasure.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me to speak before you today. My name is Maria Yvonne Javier. I was a programs director for Multicultural Helping House Society, a non-profit service provider for immigrant settlement and employment services. As an agency, we helped hundreds of immigrants settle in and adjust to their new lives in Canada. Those were the happy stories.

However, we also encountered immigrants and migrant workers who were deceived by what we now refer to as “ghost consultants”. Let me tell you how this happens.

There is immigrant or migrant worker A. That's me. I went to the website, downloaded the forms, filled them out, and submitted them. I'm here without any help from anyone. Then there's immigrant or migrant worker B, who needs an immigration consultant because they don't understand the forms, or they are rich and just want someone else to do it, or they are almost--but not quite--qualified, so they need a creative mind to help them.

A ghost consultant is defined as somebody who is not registered but is giving advice for a fee. The fees could run from $5,000 to $10,000--or even more, depending on how complex the case is. Bill C-35, as I understand it, hopes to eliminate this ghost consultant, who I would like to call “Casper”. He may be a ghost, but he's friendly; this is only business, and there is no swindling involved.

Now let me introduce you to immigrant or migrant worker C, who comes to Canada through a ghost consultant, not Casper, the friendly ghost, but a mean ghost, or a ghost recruiter with a ghost employer and ghost documents. This ghost is also a magician and can magically produce documents that look authentic enough to pass the scrutiny of Immigration and CBSA officers. Once immigrant C is outside the airport, the magician's assistant appears out of nowhere, gives him some Canadian dollars, retrieves all the ghost documents, and disappears into thin air. Immigrant C never sees this person again and doesn't even know the name of the person.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the new ghost: not Casper, the friendly ghost, but a real, live monster. This is not an unscrupulous consultant who charges exorbitant fees; this is a major swindler.

The registered immigration consultants and your so-called ghost consultants, my Casper, are all waiting in fear to see how the bill will affect them. But this new ghost I described doesn't even care what you do, because these new ghosts are nameless and faceless, and believe me, none of the victims will give them up. They will be ghosts as long as there are desperate people who will pay anything to get to Canada. They will be there because the recession has made Canadian employers bold enough to hire illegals and pay under the table.

I'm not expecting you to eliminate this new ghost: a single bill will not do this. These people are experts, with years of experience bringing illegal immigrants to the U.S. and Europe. I just want you to understand that we are not talking about $10,000 here. This is a multi-million-dollar scam. The people I encountered said that there were 10 of them and they were the pilot project. That was in 2009. This is now the end of 2010.

I wouldn't be surprised if by now they have brought in 100 people who have each paid $10,000. That's $1 million. Your fine is $50,000. These ghosts are making a mockery out of our immigration system and have made a fool out of every legal immigrant who had to go through the tedious process. Your jail term is two years. These are not unscrupulous consultants; let's not give them nice names. These are major swindlers. Call them what they really are: criminals.

This is not to say that you should not pass the bill. If you truly believe in your hearts that this bill will eliminate the Caspers of this world, then go right ahead and pass the bill, but understand that Casper is what we call a small fish, and don't forget the big sharks. I have seen far too many heartbroken fellow Filipinos innocently deceived by these new ghosts.

Although I no longer work for Multicultural Helping House, I remain an advocate for this cause. I have put up a company, 1-800-Godmother, with me being the godmother they can run to for help. I will no longer sit back and watch this happen.

While I cannot stop the ghosts myself, I can make sure that the victim recognizes a ghost when they see one. I may be a Canadian citizen now, but I am still a Filipino, and a lot of these victims are my countrymen.

I am here before you today to respectfully request you to please find it in your hearts to understand that these people are victims. If we cannot run after the ghosts, if the ghost documents are so good that our own immigration and CBSA officers cannot tell the difference between a ghost document and a real one, then let us not take it out on the victims and send them back home.

I cannot offer you a solution. This problem has existed for decades in the U.S. and Europe. Canada is the new dreamland, so it's Canada's turn. Maybe this is the price we have to pay for being a better dreamland than the U.S.

Ladies and gentlemen, the future of these ghost consultants and their victims is in your hands. All I can ask at this point is for you to show a little compassion to the victims and show no mercy to the criminal ghost consultants.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Merci, monsieur.

All those in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

We will now proceed with Bill C-35. We have two witnesses before us: Mr. Lorne Waldman, who is an immigration lawyer, and Maria Yvonne Javier.

Ms. Javier told me how to pronounce her name before the meeting started, and I appreciate that, because one of my many faults is that I have trouble pronouncing people's names. Thank you, Ms. Javier.

You each have up to seven minutes to make a presentation to the committee. Who would like to go first?

Ms. Javier, thank you for coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll start the meeting. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 28, on Monday, October 25, 2010. Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, we are reviewing Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Before we start, the clerk has passed to all of you a budget for the bill we are reviewing. I trust you've all received it. I would like someone to move a motion that this budget be adopted.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

In the existing law the rule applies only during the process. The new bill, which we're presenting to the House right now, Bill C-35, states that even before they actually go to the proceedings, whoever gives them advice is under the jurisdiction of this bill.

How would that help the IRB?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you.

You did mention one way that Bill C-35 can help IRB to turn your policy into something you can put into practice. What other practices will change at the IRB as a result of this bill?

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, both of you, for being our witnesses.

My question is directed to the IRB and Ms. Cox-Duquette. You listed very clearly in your written presentation, as well as in your verbal presentation just now, how you prevent crooked consultants from representing claimants in proceedings before the IRB within the existing system and existing law. With the introduction of this new bill, Bill C-35, how will that help the IRB to ensure the integrity of your proceedings?

[Sylvia Cox-Duquette, Senior General Counsel, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman and members of the committee. As you said, I'm Sylvia Cox-Duquette and I'm the senior general counsel for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. I want to thank you for your invitation to appear before you today.

I thought I would talk about the IRB's policy for handling complaints regarding unauthorized paid representatives--in other words, those persons who are targeted by this new bill.

This is the third time I've appeared before the committee, and of course following my opening remarks I'd be pleased to try to answer any questions you may have.

By way of background, and I think most of you here have heard this before, here are some background stats. The IRB is Canada's largest administrative tribunal. Our members make anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 decisions annually, and our mission, as you know, is to resolve immigration refugee cases efficiently, fairly, and in accordance with the law. We fulfill our functions presently through three divisions: the immigration division; the immigration appeal division; and the refugee protection division.

I'd like to speak specifically about the proposed legislation, Bill C-35. As this committee knows, the IRB has no role in policy-making. This is the responsibility of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. But I did want to assure the committee that the IRB will of course implement any resulting legislation professionally and effectively that falls within its responsibilities.

I think it would be important to begin by explaining how we categorize counsel who represent individuals who appear before the IRB. You'll recall that on April 13, 2004, regulations were introduced that defined who may for a fee represent, advise, or consult with an individual who is the subject of any application or proceeding related to their immigration or refugee status.

Obviously, the current immigration and refugee protection regulations require that a person must be an authorized representative, someone who is a member in good standing of the bar in any province, or a member of the Chambre des notaires du Québec, or a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, CSIC. But it's important to remember that under the current act—and this will continue under the new Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act--that hasn't been changed. Any individual can represent or advise a person with respect to their IRB proceedings pro bono, for free. If a fee is to be charged, then the person must be a member of either the applicable law society, Chambre des notaires or CSIC, or whatever body is designated to regulate non-lawyers and non-notaries.

Obviously, the legislation is designed to protect claimants, appellants, and persons concerned who typically may be vulnerable--for example, newcomers to Canada who may not have a support system, who may not know the language or understand the immigration and refugee system. We want to protect those persons from unscrupulous or incompetent people as advisors.

I won't go through the definitions further. I'll skip right to how we deal with and how we control our proceedings before the board in order to do the best we can to preserve the integrity of our proceedings, and to prevent unscrupulous or incompetent counsel from appearing before the board, be they lawyers or immigration consultants.

We have a policy. It's been in place since April 10, 2008, and is called the policy for the handling of IRB complaints regarding unauthorized paid representatives. This policy was introduced to address specific concerns regarding the charging of fees by counsel who had declared themselves to be unpaid. Under this policy, the chairperson of the IRB or his delegate may prohibit counsel from appearing before any division of the board, and it provides the board with a mechanism for ensuring that only those representatives who meet the criteria outlined in the regulations may appear before it.

This policy sets out, obviously, the IRB's approach to the treatment of complaints against unauthorized representatives who may be charging a fee for their services. While it's not the primary responsibility of the IRB to monitor compliance with the provisions of the regulations that govern counsel, we don't overlook contraventions of the regulations.

One of the things we do, which I can get into in greater detail later, to prevent unauthorized representatives who are charging a fee from appearing before the board is that when a claimant commences proceedings before the board, he's asked to say whether he will be represented and to say who he will be represented by. It's then determined whether the person he's chosen to represent him or her is either legal counsel, a member in good standing of the provincial law society or Chambre des notaires, or a member in good standing of CSIC.

If the person is proposing to have someone else represent them—in other words, an unauthorized representative—then both counsel and the claimant must sign a declaration indicating that the services of the counsel are being provided for free. It doesn't stop there, because of course someone can sign a declaration and we may get information or we may learn during the course of a hearing that we have some doubts as to whether the person is being paid, despite their declaration to the contrary. At that point, we will question the counsel and the complainant or we will look into any information received from another source on that to ensure that the person is not charging a fee.

If for some reason we're not satisfied with the explanations we are given, then at that point we go full blast into our policy. We do an investigation. If it turns out we determine the person is charging a fee for that service, then they will be prohibited from appearing before the board.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

In your opinion, offering one's services by distributing business cards would be an offence under Bill C-35. Is that your interpretation?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have looked at your presentation. I wanted to be sure that I properly understood the respective mandates of your two organizations as well as that of the organization that will be responsible for oversight of the profession.

More specifically on this last aspect, there are cases—and you have described them in your documents—of obvious fraud: there are those who take advantage of naive, gullible people in distress and get money from them by promising things they cannot deliver, by lying to them and getting them to lie, etc. Those are the kinds of situations we see on public affairs programs, where money is being extorted from people. It happens in immigration and other circumstances.

However, we have the issue of how the profession is exercised. If this bill were to be passed, one of its provisions would ban people outright from practising the profession, providing advice for a fee, regardless of whether they have the skills to do so or not. So we might end up with consultants who are not accredited by the organization, but who are very competent and do their work well, but who are practising illegally because they are not members of the organization.

To begin with, who will be responsible for identifying those people, and second, who will be responsible for investigating and potentially prosecuting them? Will it be you or the organization that will be created by Bill C-35?

[Peter Hill, Director General, Post-Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency]

I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear today to discuss CBSA's role in relation to Bill C-35.

Since 2006 the CBSA and the RCMP have developed a complementary approach in relation to immigration offences. The CBSA is the lead agency for investigating most offences under IRPA. The RCMP maintains responsibility for immigration offences dealing with organized crime, human smuggling, and national security. The CBSA has lead responsibility for offences related to fraudulent documents, misrepresentation, counselling misrepresentation, and the general offence section within the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The general offence section applies to individuals who do not comply with various conditions or obligations under the IRPA. Examples include employers who hire foreign nationals without authorization, previously deported persons who return to Canada without authorization, and persons who fail to report to the CBSA officials upon entry into Canada.

Enforcement related to misconduct by consultants is complex and may cross the jurisdiction of various enforcement bodies. Depending on the nature of the consultant's activity, various criminal offences and sanctions exist under the IRPA and the Criminal Code. These would generally be investigated by the CBSA and/or the RCMP. By contrast, review of activity that is either unethical or unprofessional but does not constitute an offence falls under the responsibility of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

I will now speak to the IRPA offences most frequently related to consultants. IRPA provides for criminal sanctions to be laid in relation to counselling misrepresentation, section 126; misrepresentation, section 127; counselling to commit an offence, section 131; as well as the general offence provision under section 124.

For example, where it can be proven in court that a consultant counselled the client to provide false information with the hope of increasing the chances that their immigration application would be approved, that consultant could be charged with counselling misrepresentation. The counselling of misrepresentation could be in relation to any immigration application, for example, a temporary resident application, a permanent resident application, a spousal sponsorship, or a refugee claim. This charge could apply to consultants whether or not they are authorized to act as representatives pursuant to the regulations.

The IRPA general offence section would apply in situations where an individual who is not an authorized representative represents a client for a fee. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine up to $50,000, and/or imprisonment for up to two years. Presently the regulation respecting authorized representatives applies only after an immigration application is submitted. This has been problematic, as much of the counselling often occurs prior to the submission of the application. Today, activities of this nature are not regulated by the IRPA, and ghost consultants operating in the pre-application stage cannot be pursued through the courts.

The proposed legislative amendment in Bill C-35 would broaden the legislation to also limit those providing or offering to provide consulting services for a fee in the pre-application stage to persons who are lawyers, notaries in Quebec, and consultants who are in good standing with the governing body. If you're not any of those, then you're a ghost consultant. This would close a current loophole in the legislation and provide the CBSA and its enforcement partners with a further and important enforcement tool.

Obtaining evidence of consultant fraud can be time-consuming and challenging. The applicants are often hesitant to report the counselling offences to the CBSA, as they were either party themselves to the misrepresentation, or have been convinced that even though the representative is not authorized, he or she can assist in ensuring that they receive a positive outcome on their application. As a result, most alleged offences are only brought to our attention after Citizenship and Immigration Canada has rejected the applications. Even then, applicants may not come forward for fear that they be removed from Canada.

Additionally, contracts between clients and unscrupulous consultants are often verbal in nature, and payment is made in cash, leaving little documentary evidence for presentation in court. Further, many consultants operate outside of Canada, where Canadian law cannot be applied. In such cases, investigators will attempt to identify and investigate any Canadian links to the overseas consultant.

Currently, in order to lay summary charges investigators must become aware of an alleged offence, gather all the evidence, and lay charges within six months. In the case of immigration offences and the complexities required to adequately investigate such cases, six months is generally not adequate.

One of the proposed legislative amendments in Bill C-35 would increase the statute of limitations to five years, thereby ensuring that investigators have sufficient time to properly and fully investigate various IRPA offences, refer the file to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, and lay charges before the time period passes.

A second type of fraud with respect to consultants involves situations where an individual accepts fees for services and fails to submit any application to the Government of Canada. Allegations of this nature are best investigated under the fraud provisions of the Criminal Code, and therefore fall primarily to the responsibility of my colleagues at the RCMP, or in municipal or provincial policing agencies.

Finally, there are cases where the alleged activity of the consultant appears unethical or unprofessional but is not a criminal offence, such as charging exorbitant fees, or the provision of poor quality advice. Matters of this nature are not the responsibility of the RCMP or the CBSA, but rather a matter for a designated body, such as the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

Under the current system, government officials are limited in their ability to share information regarding allegations of this nature with the designated body. Bill C-35 would authorize government officials to share information with the governing body and ensure that the body has the required information to undertake a review and pursue disciplinary action where appropriate.

Since taking on IRPA enforcement responsibilities, the CBSA has undertaken a large number of investigations related to various offences. The agency, in many cases in conjunction with the RCMP, is currently investigating a number of cases related to immigration consultants. The CBSA anticipates that the legislative amendments contained in Bill C-35 will assist us to continue to build on these efforts and results to date by closing the loophole that currently exists with respect to individuals who provide, or offer to provide, consulting services for a fee at the pre-application stage.

Mr. Chair, in closing, the CBSA recognizes the seriousness of this issue and its importance to maintaining the integrity of the immigration program. The CBSA will continue to work diligently with CIC, the RCMP and other law enforcement partners to address this issue.

Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and I will be pleased to take questions and pass the comments over my colleague at the RCMP.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 27 on Wednesday, October 20, 2010.

The order of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, is Bill C-35, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

You will note that this meeting is being recorded by video.

We have two guests with us today: the Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Peter Hill, who is the director general of post-border programs, who I gather will be speaking for the group today. We have Dale Brown, who is the acting director of criminal investigations division. We have Gregory Israelstam.... How did I do?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

I want to make sure that I have understood properly.

Statutory and regulatory organizations were discussed. My understanding is that a statutory organization is an organization created pursuant to the act, while a regulatory organization is set up pursuant to the regulations.

In addition, unless I am mistaken, you say that Bill C-35 provisions are a good starting point, but the ideal institution in the medium term would be an organization created pursuant to the act.

Did I understand that part properly?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks. This has actually been an interesting contrast in terms of presentations. It was good to have you guys sort of back to back to each other.

Mr. Mooney, I wanted to very quickly get your thoughts on the issue Ms. Chow brought up. This process we're undertaking now to choose a new regulator, or at least to go through the process to choose a new regulator.... One of the confusing parts of our last meeting, when we had the ministry staff here, was that we had almost pre-started or predated Bill C-35 through this process. But you didn't, and you aren't, considering in your application and process potentially becoming a regulator under the new legislation. You did so under the current legislation.

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

Bill C-35 is mute as to whether this should or should not exist. So is it an area that we should probably look at, whether the rules are too tight or whether it's important to have such a fund?

Maybe our lawyer friend can enlighten us. Is there such a fund for lawyers? If there's a criminal offence, then I could apply for some kind of support.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

In your presentation, you said that you would possibly participate in the competitive bidding process that would take place under Bill C-35 to fashion a new regulatory body. I think you also said that you have partnerships with other organizations.

Could you explain to us quickly what that's about?

[Philip Mooney]

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.

In the past and until Bill C-35 passes, individuals could come back to their own governments and say they were not doing anything wrong: they could fill in forms; they could provide advice, and there's nothing illegal about that under Canadian legislation. Now we will have the opportunity to do that.

It also gives agencies such as ours the opportunity to take our members, who advertise in many of the same places these ghost agents advertise, and talk to the editors of those newspapers and ask them if they realize what they're doing, if they realize they can prevent these individuals from putting out their false ads.

The last thing I'll say is that we hear the sensational stories. We do. We hear about all the gross, egregious things individuals do, but those things aren't the bulk of the problem. The bulk of the problem is that individuals do a few things every once in a while, and we have to let those individuals know that the cost of doing that is prohibitive and that they can't get away with it.

[Timothy Morson, Policy Director, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants]

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to briefly address the issue of designated entities under the proposed subsection 91(4), and the need for a definition of what constitutes immigration advice.

CAPIC recognizes that the growing number of arrangements between visa offices and visa application centres allows for a measure of efficiency and cost savings. VACs, as they are called, are private agencies officially appointed to assist clients in filing their applications with visa offices, for a fee.

The services offered by VACs are actively promoted on visa office websites. Officially, VACs may only assist with form filling and filing of the application. The VAC agreement between VFS Global in India and the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi states that “The Service Provider...will advise the client as to any apparent shortcomings in the application”. This agreement explicitly acknowledges VFS's role in providing advice, and it explicitly recognizes that clients may need help with the process. Our question is where exactly a line is drawn between immigration form completion and advice.

The VACs are not qualified, in any way, to offer immigration advice. If a VAC completes or checks a form, does that constitute advice? Is it possible to complete a form without offering advice?

These questions are important because, besides VACs, there are many specialized sectors that are peripherally involved in the immigration business: travel agencies, education agents, human resources recruiting firms, all offer incidental immigration services. A badly completed form can unleash a whole chain of consequences that could be detrimental to an applicant, including the outright refusal of the application.

If completing an application form does not constitute advice, then by what measure can any third party be prevented from charging a fee for completing a form?

It is not clear how Bill C-35 addresses this issue. If it does not address the issue, then one can be reasonably assured that ghost agents will exploit it.

CAPIC recommends, at a minimum, that Bill C-35 be amended to include a definition for advice, and that it require VACs to publish clear disclaimers to the effect that they are not authorized to provide immigration advice, with links to those regulatory bodies whose members are so authorized, as is the case in the U.K.

Thank you very much.

[Philip Mooney, Past President, Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants]

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.

I'd like to make some general comments on the legislation. Then I'll turn it over to my associate to make some specific recommendations on one of the particular items in the legislation, and certainly allow as many questions as possible.

Just for the record, I'll say to everybody, “That's a great question, thank you for your question”, so we don't have to repeat that. We all went to the Bill Clinton school of political answers.

The Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants has worked for and supported the concept of the regulation of immigration consultants for 25 years. That is why CAPIC supports the intent and the main thrust of this bill. It is not only in the interest of consumers and the public to regulate immigration consultants, but in the interest of immigration consultants themselves.

Like many professionals, we hold ourselves to very high standards. We want to see these standards officially sanctioned and subjected to strong and enforceable regulation. Bill C-35 grapples with the very complex issue of ghost agents. The exploitation of vulnerable migrants by unscrupulous agents and unqualified intermediaries is a major global problem, part of a criminal industry worth billions of dollars. It causes incalculable harm to victims and their families. CAPIC has a number of recommendations concerning the enforcement, control, and prosecution of ghost agents.

Bill C-35 also addresses the major shortcomings identified by the standing committee in two separate reports in 2008 and 2009 on the way the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants was constituted in the first place. They recognized that the absence of any statute governing CSIC simply makes it impossible for the society to enforce its rules on non-members, and impossible for the minister and CIC to hold the society accountable or influence the society’s internal functioning. They also acknowledged the many legitimate complaints of CSIC members about CSIC's governance.

You recommended that a statutory body be established to replace CSIC. While CAPIC appreciates the degree of progress represented by Bill C-35 in making certain activities a violation of the Immigration Act--and we credit the department's ingenuity in bringing it forward in that manner--we recommend that the option of a statutory body be kept open for the future.

CAPIC has led the fight to resolve the issues of bad consultants and a poorly functioning regulator, and has continued to make recommendations for positive changes. Currently we are leading a group of concerned practitioners in preparing a bid to set up a new body, which we are calling “The Better Regulator.”

We have learned from the mistakes made in the past and from six years of imperfect regulation. We are doing this in an open and transparent manner, as volunteers, and we will ensure that our proposal is very clear on accountability and effectiveness.

Our detailed report makes several recommendations that we hope you will consider seriously, including specific recommendations that deal with third-party service providers. My colleague will explain those recommendations shortly, but I want to bring one more issue to the table first, and that is the issue of respect.

Hard-working, ethical consultants who ably assist tens of thousands of newcomers to come to Canada deserve the respect of the department and the government, as well as the respect of the general public. They choose every day to follow the rules, to serve the interests of their clients, and to forgo the fast buck and easy money that lures the unscrupulous. They do not need special recognition, but they do deserve the same respect accorded to all hard-working Canadians, be they auto workers, teachers, politicians, or millions of others.

Tackling the problem of ghost agents requires a better working relationship between all stakeholders. To be coherent, the policies that will flow from Bill C-35 must also recognize the role that authorized representatives play in support of legal immigration. It is self-defeating to deplore the ghost agent phenomenon on the one hand, while discouraging the use of authorized representatives on the other, as CIC does with its website messages. The role of authorized representatives must be validated, not denigrated; otherwise, what’s the point of it all?

Finally, as an additional sign of respect, and in agreement with my colleague who spoke earlier—thank you for stealing my thunder--we ask that you consider changing the title of this act. For hard-working, ethical consultants, it will be very difficult to accept the fact that for years to come they will be regulated by an act that specifically refers to everything they are not. The alliteration is appreciated, but the perceived disrespect is not.

Thank you.

I'd like to turn this over to my colleague, Mr. Morson.

[Warren Creates]

I only got notice of this on Thursday, so I did what I could to get prepared for the time we have together this afternoon.

Obvioiusly it's clear to all of us that we need robust laws, we need.... Unfortunately, we've come to a point in our history in this country where we need to criminalize the provision of immigration advice by those who are unauthorized to do so.

Twenty-five years ago I didn't think I'd be saying that, but it's obvious and clear to me now--and perhaps to everyone at this table and outside this room--that it's now required. Without it.... Obviously a second part of that is we need a very robust organization to be the watchdog for those immigration consultants who do become authorized.

I have a list of eight recommendations in my brief and I just want to touch on them in the limited time that I have, very quickly.

First of all, I take issue with the name of the legislation. This is not just a question of cracking down on crooked immigration consultants. If it were only that, we would be dealing with a far more robust piece of legislation. What we're dealing with in Bill C-35 are those who are unauthorized, and criminalizing their conduct.

So I recommend a name change, and I think this committee should look very carefully at that. Although there are headlines in the proposed name, I don't think it really accurately describes what this piece of legislation is doing.

Second, putting a five-year limitation period on the investigation, charge, and prosecution of offences that are chosen by election to be summary conviction offences I think is wrong. If we want robust legislation that's going to deter those who would be inclined to practise unauthorized practice in immigration law, it should be open-ended. Why put a five-year limitation clause on it? I just don't see the public policy behind it. If the objective of this legislation is to deter criminal conduct, then it should be forever over the heads of those who engage in it.

Third, I obviously--like all--want to see a new watchdog. It must be robust, independent, arm's length from the government. It must be professional. It must be fully staffed and resourced. The panel before us and others have commented before this committee on the ineffective nature of that watchdog organization, and a lot needs to be done to approve one that's going to be better resourced.

Fourth, I like the authority given to the cabinet to make regulations requiring the watchdog to give the minister information. That's of particular interest because it has the power beyond the minister, and that's often important to have. It was lacking in the last piece of legislation. It was lacking in the last watchdog, and privacy was I think given as the shadow, the reason why things couldn't be shared with the minister. So I like that.

I have some other comments, though, about what needs to be done to resource this properly. It's not in the legislation, it probably can't be, but our overseas and Canadian-based officers need tools to detect and monitor fraud. It's not enough just to criminalize it; there has to be an enforcement opportunity. Training is needed, sophisticated tracking, and audit software. There needs to be an investment by the Canadian government in those tools.

Sixth, I think the bill should contain a provision that requires everyone seeking status or renewed status in Canada to disclose the use of a representative. That was the recommendation—I think it's number five—in the June 2008 standing committee's review of the problems of the past, and I believe that should be in this bill now. So I think everyone seeking some kind of status in Canada who files an application must be required to disclose that they use a representative.

Seventh, there has to be an investment in public awareness. A media campaign and government website updates must be undertaken to warn the public of the risks and of the criminality of both using unregistered consultants and committing immigration fraud.

Finally, number eight, there needs to be encouragement and even in appropriate cases immunity from prosecution for those who've been duped, for those who have themselves committed fraud, and for employees of unscrupulous consultants to come forward with their evidence against bogus consultants.

Thank you very much. It's been a privilege and an honour to be invited to share my thoughts with you.

[Imran Qayyum]

We certainly hope so.

I can speak on behalf of CMI. As an immigration practitioner and someone who competes, who is out there, who has gone through the standards, who meets the standards, who renews his membership every two years, and who holds himself out to be competent, I absolutely do. The biggest frustration--I come from a Pakistani community--is that we see the ads in our local newspapers. They're not in English, they're in Urdu, but we see them. And there's not much we can do about that, because the teeth are not there. So now with Bill C-35 and the penalty provision specifically, the teeth are going to be there.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today. We really appreciate you taking the time.

My first question is for Mr. Qayyum. In your report, you say you support the provisions of Bill C-35 to “close legal loopholes that have enabled ghost agents to thrive”, that for too long, these disreputable individuals have exploited these loopholes to take advantage of people. In fact, we know that ghost agents have caused a lot of human misery. Lord knows if they pay their fair share of income tax or what else they do. Then you expressed concern a little bit later that the regulatory review has cast a shadow over the profession, endangering the livelihood of fellows who work hard to provide service.

But my conclusion, based on my past experience, is that an improved system will give the public more confidence in consultants, and that it will enhance their chances of making a living. For example, if you look at organized real estate in Ontario, people used to make jokes about real estate agents and so on, but it's really a dynamic organization, and it has grown as the credibility of the agents has grown.

I just wanted to share that thought with you. I don't know if you have any comments on that. Please go ahead.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

As for the organization's mandate, before the break, when the hearings began, we held a discussion about whether CSIC's primary mandate was the protection of the public or the protection of the system's integrity. Competence is an issue here. What's your current take on this?

What mandate will be set out for the organization under Bill C-35?

[Nigel Thomson]

Yes.

So our fees come in, in total.... As you may be aware, the current Law Society of Upper Canada errors and omissions insurance will run in the neighbourhood of $3,500 for a lawyer to practise in Ontario. So we believe that our fees are competitive, given the size of CSIC. Obviously it's been raised by this committee that the size of the membership of CSIC does obviously impact on fees. A regulator has to meet a minimum requirement in terms of education, complaints and discipline, discipline panels, registration, and ongoing operations, but it's hoped of course that with Bill C-35 our membership will grow in the future.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Looking at some of the complaints of some members that I know you're glad to respond to, one of the concerns that has been expressed here has been that the fees are too high and that the focus is much more on penalizing and drawing fines from people than perhaps allowing more people to become immigration consultants. Financial accountability becomes a question. I know you've had a number of audits, but what sort of accountability do you have on board expenditures, on strategic decisions, on partnering with organizations like CMI? What level of accountability is there, or is there accountability? Is that one of the criticisms that you're willing to make around Bill C-35?

[Imran Qayyum, Chair, Canadian Migration Institute]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon. The Canadian Migration Institute is honoured to be here today to share our views on Bill C-35.

CMI is the voice of the immigration consulting profession. Since our inception in 2007, we have grown to more than 1,800 fellows, who can be found across Canada and overseas. With representatives from the immigration consulting, legal, and notary professions, CMI is larger than any other similar organization in North America.

Our mandate is to educate, accredit, and advocate on immigration law and policy. We have several chapters throughout Canada that provide regional support through accredited educational programs as well as advocacy on provincial issues.

CMI strongly supports Bill C-35's provisions, which will close legal loopholes that have enabled ghost agents to thrive. For too long, these unlicensed, disreputable individuals have exploited these loopholes to take advantage of prospective Canadians.

However, we do have serious concerns. While the new penalties in the bill give law enforcement agencies such as the CBSA and the RCMP the legal tools to put ghost agents out of business, there is no additional funding provided in the bill to enable these agencies to do this, meaning that consumers will still not get the protection they deserve.

Further, we remain unconvinced that this regulatory review to select a designated body is really necessary. Members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, most of whom are also fellows of CMI, have invested over $37 million since 2004 to build CSIC's sophisticated regulatory functions. These include rigorous membership standards, a thorough complaints and discipline process, and an intricate IT infrastructure. It would be foolhardy to throw away this investment, especially because we know for a fact that our fellows are satisfied with CSIC as it is today.

Just two months ago we commissioned a survey to determine how our CSIC member fellows feel about their regulator. The results clearly indicated that fellows think CSIC is an effective regulator.

These fellows are on the ground, dealing with CSIC on a day-to-day basis and closely following its activities. That puts them in a unique position to evaluate its suitability as regulator. They realize that CSIC is well governed, a fact that has been confirmed by independent reviews done by recognized leaders in governance. They realize that CSIC has been working diligently to combat ghost agents within the constraints of its limited authority. They see that CSIC does so by reaching out to warn consumers and engages in the tracking of ghost agent activity, and they appreciate that CSIC has held its members accountable through its rigorous complaints and discipline process.

While there is no denying that some CSIC members are dissatisfied, this extremely vocal minority does not speak for our fellows. In fact, this regulatory review has cast a wide shadow over the immigration consulting profession. It is endangering the livelihood of fellows who work hard to provide high-quality service to prospective Canadians. By questioning the competence of their regulator, the government cannot avoid endangering the public's confidence in immigration consulting professionals and the overall immigration system.

I urge the government to carefully consider these points. It has taken many years to build CSIC into what it is today, and consumers should not have to wait while the process of building a regulator begins anew. Further, without concrete funding for enforcement, the effectiveness of the government's crackdown on ghost agents cannot be guaranteed.

Merci beaucoup.

[Nigel Thomson, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Bonjour. Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here, given the challenges we had in getting here.

The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants welcomes this opportunity to appear before this committee on Bill C-35.

CSIC appreciates the action the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is taking to shore up Canada's immigration system. We are particularly pleased that the government is taking action on ghost agents, the most important attribute of Bill C-35 and the key failing of the existing legislation. CSIC has actively advocated with government for several years to close the loophole that has allowed ghost agents to operate.

Under the immigration and refugee protection regulations, CSIC is designated as the body that regulates immigration consultants, who, for a fee, represent, advise, or consult with a person who is the subject of a proceeding or application before the minister, an officer, or the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

CSIC welcomes the introduction of this bill, but there are a few shortcomings that need to be addressed.

First and foremost, the duty of any regulatory body is the protection of consumers. CSIC's primary focus continues to be the protection of vulnerable immigrants coming to Canada, those who will eventually become productive citizens. Before CSIC, there was no one to protect consumers of immigration consulting services.

Since 2004, CSIC has shut out 800 agents because they could not meet CSIC`s rigorous standards. We have disciplined 225 consultants for misconduct. We currently have 400 open investigations of complaints and 13 matters before CSIC's independent hearings panel. Further, we regularly conduct multilingual national consumer awareness campaigns. CSIC has been doing its job to protect future Canadians and has been successfully carrying out our mandate of educating, accrediting, and regulating our members.

With this in mind, Bill C-35 is a good start, but more needs to be done.

The proposed provisions look to close the loophole that currently permits ghost agents to prey upon uninformed consumers. We fully support this provision. CSIC has always advocated penalties for those who illegitimately hold themselves out as being qualified to offer immigration services.

The Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have the mandate to investigate, prosecute, and ultimately bring to justice those individuals who look to thwart the immigration system. We are concerned that they will not have the resources to do so.

No funding provisions have been made to carry out the enforcement mandate, nor has any funding been earmarked for the prosecution of ghost agents. Without the proper funding and other resources, the hands of CBSA will be tied and ghost agents will continue to plague the immigration system.

Finally, CSIC embraces the provision in the bill that calls for the regulator to be more accountable to government.

CSIC has concerns about the powers that Bill C-35 gives to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. For the first time, under the new section 91, the minister alone will have the power to choose who will regulate immigration consultants. The proposed legislation will give her or him the power at any given time in history to change the regulator with a simple notice in the Canada Gazette. This creates the potential to unduly politicize the regulator, contrary to the public interest when the regulator must be seen as neutral.

The regulator's independence from the minister is of paramount importance. CSIC is concerned that under the proposed legislation, the minister will have too much power over the regulator and over those who are representing vulnerable immigrants. Our members must be free to provide the best advice to their clients without fear of ministerial influence threatening their ability to act independently as authorized representatives. Furthermore, CSIC objects to the fact that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will have more control over immigration consultants than the minister does over other authorized representatives, including lawyers.

CSIC supports the provision to allow the Governor in Council to specify what information the regulatory body should provide to government, but this information needs to be provided to a department other than Citizenship and Immigration. CSIC recommends that the information be provided to the Minister of Justice. This would ensure the independence of the regulator while remaining accountable to the government in the interests of consumer protection.

Canada's immigration system, its consultant regulator, and consumers of immigration consulting services deserve more stability than this bill currently offers.

I want to assure the honourable members of the committee and all Canadians that CSIC will continue to fulfill its mandate to protect consumers through accreditation, education, and discipline of our more than 1,800 members. CSIC is doing its job. Let's build upon experience and expertise.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in meeting number 26, Monday, October 18, 2010.

The orders of the day are twofold. For the first ten minutes there is a motion from Mr. Trudeau, and, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, Bill C-35, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Mr. Trudeau, you have the floor. I believe you've already made your motion.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Very quickly, it's been mentioned here, and I would just ask you to clarify, that while the recommendation in the standing committee report was for a statutory body, the recommendation that's actually coming out of the report is to move in the direction that our piece of legislation, Bill C-35, is actually suggesting. Could I just get confirmation of that?

[Brenna MacNeil]

Just to reiterate and to be clear, there are two main parts of the broad strategy on regulating immigration representatives. Certainly Bill C-35 is the key element of that and is the subject of discussion here today. Just to reiterate, the public selection process is a complementary process and is part of the broader strategy. It's undertaken under current authorities. It's a separate process, but it is certainly a complementary process. As we've said, it's really to identify a governing body for immigration consultants. That is under existing authorities now, whether the bill goes forward or not.

I think I'd also like to mention that in addition to efforts to better regulate immigration consultants, we've certainly made additional efforts with respect to public awareness to warn people about fraud and the dangers of using unauthorized representatives. Service improvements have also been made to address the broader issue of whether people feel they need to use immigration representatives at all. Some of those service improvements Ms. Tapley spoke to in her opening remarks. They include movement towards e-applications and something called Visa Wizard, which will help applicants navigate the process, determine the best route for them to come, and respond to specific elements of the immigration process.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you. So, consultants should be overseen because you feel that there is a legislative gap, as provinces do not fulfil their duty when it comes to monitoring them. As a result, the federal government must do the monitoring, but it does not need to get involved when it comes to lawyers, since they are already overseen by the provinces. That is the basis of Bill C-35.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I have to stop you there. My question is really simple. Why is Bill C-35 aimed at overseeing consultants, but not lawyers? Why did you make that decision? I'm not saying that I think lawyers should have been included. I'm just asking why.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I know that they are excluded. I know the answer, Mr. Chair, but I want to hear what the officials have to say about this.

Why did the federal government not think it appropriate to include in Bill C-35 provisions concerning lawyers and notaries?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I will rephrase my question. Bill C-35 proposes a strengthening of the rules governing immigration consultants to ensure the integrity of the system.

Why did the department not consider proposing similar action at the federal level—in order to maintain the integrity of the system—for practising lawyers who also provide immigration advice for a fee?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

In our previous exchange, you confirmed that Bill C-35 was not aimed at protecting the general public, but at protecting the integrity of the immigration system. However, when the minister tabled the bill in the House and spoke about it in the media, he did in fact say that the bill's purpose was to ensure the protection of the public and of those involved in the immigration process. That's how it appeared in the news release and in the bill's title, which seems to indicate as much.

I understand that you cannot give your opinion on political issues—that's not your role—and I will not ask you to do that. However, can you confirm to the committee that, from a strictly technical point of view, the minister is erroneously claiming that Bill C-35 is aimed at ensuring the protection of the general public?

[Catrina Tapley]

Sure. Mr. Chairman, I'll start, and my colleagues can chime in to offer some additional detail.

In order to address the concerns of public confidence in the body currently governing immigration consultants, I think as the report from this committee had pointed out, the government wanted to move quickly. It was determined that the establishment of a governing body through stand-alone legislation would have been a lengthy, and I might also add a costly, process.

So the approach we've arrived at in Bill C-35 is really what we feel is the most practical and efficient, in terms of cost and time, to the regulation of immigration consultants. And I'd just point out as well—and then I'll ask Ms. Harder and Ms. MacNeil to comment—that governing bodies, whether it's stand-alone legislation or not, do have a responsibility for taking disciplinary action against their members, including the revocation of membership, which we see as a significant tool.

Like other governing bodies, the governing body for immigration consultants can provide for measures concerning the discipline of its members, similar to the process used by law societies in looking into complaints concerning their own members.

Madame.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

I thank you for that. I recognize that those are very high criteria, and my concern is that what we've seen with CSIC is an inability to draw sufficient funds from its membership to be able to deliver the high quality of service we are now asking of them.

Is Bill C-35 allowing for any extra moneys to be offered to the regulator to help offset the low number of members they're going to have, as compared to a professional bar association or a provincial bar association or larger regulating bodies?

[Catrina Tapley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are pleased to have the opportunity to address Bill C-35, the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, which would protect potential immigrants by strengthening the rules governing those who charge a fee for immigration advice.

The bill would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act--IRPA--so that only lawyers, notaries in Quebec, and consultants who are members in good standing of a governing body designated by the minister could provide advice or representation for a fee at any stage of a proceeding or application. This includes the period before any application is submitted or a proceeding begins, thereby closing a loophole in the current framework that regulates consultants.

Under current legislation, the involvement of consultants in the pre-application or pre-submission period is not regulated. By casting a wider net, unauthorized individuals who provide paid advice or representation at any stage would be subject to a fine of not more than $50,000, or to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years, or both. This would include undeclared ghost consultants, those who conceal their involvement in an application or proceeding.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canada Border Services Agency, and other enforcement authorities take immigration fraud seriously. By closing the current legislative loophole, we add another legislative tool for taking action against ghost consultants. The tools provided by the introduction of this legislation will support ongoing compliance, enforcement, and prosecution activities crucial to immigration program integrity.

In addition, Bill C-35 would give the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism the authority by regulation to designate a body to govern immigration consultants and to establish measures to enhance the government's oversight of the designated body. This body would also be required to provide information that would assist the minister in evaluating whether it is governing its members in the public interest. The information would also help ensure that members are providing representation and advice in a professional and ethical manner.

Currently, CIC is limited in its ability to disclose information about individuals who provide unethical or unprofessional representation or advice.

The bill would allow CIC to disclose such information to those responsible for governing or investigating that conduct. An investigation could be undertaken more readily and, where appropriate, disciplinary action pursued.

I would add, Mr. Chair, that unpaid third parties, such as family members and friends, would still be allowed to act on behalf of an applicant. Furthermore, under the new rules, there would be exceptions for certain groups, such as visa application centres and other service providers, when acting in accordance with an agreement or arrangement with the Government of Canada.

It is primarily the federal government's role to protect the integrity of the immigration program. The Government of Canada recognizes, however, that the provinces and territories play an important role in regulating the conduct of immigration consultants, as they have responsibility for consumer protection and the regulation of professions. ln this regard, Quebec's own recent amendments to its regulations recognize as an immigration consultant any member in good standing of the body designated under federal regulations. In addition, during the course of federal-provincial-territorial consultations, we also shared our proposed legislative amendments with senior provincial public servants, who raised no objections.

Canada's immigration system can be accessed at any number of missions in other countries or at CIC offices in Canada. Overseas or in-Canada applicants seek assistance from immigration consultants for a variety of reasons. Given the fact that Canada cannot directly investigate matters in other countries, the investigation and prosecution of third parties residing abroad is challenging. While much of the problem lies overseas and beyond our reach, it is anticipated that enforcement in Canada of proposed new offences could disrupt overseas networks by removing their Canada-based links. The Government of Canada will also continue to make use of bilateral and multilateral opportunities to address the fraudulent activities of unscrupulous immigration representatives abroad.

The international component was initiated during the minister's trip to India in January 2009, and further developed in his recent international meetings in Europe and Asia. During those meetings, the minister underscored the need for combined action to combat fraud, abuse, and wrongdoing in Canada's immigration system. Indeed, as the minister recently said, the Government of Canada will soon send a dossier on some of the worst fraudsters in the Punjab to that Indian state's government, which would follow up with appropriate enforcement action. Meanwhile, efforts to raise awareness of the risks of engaging crooked consultants will continue, including updating of websites in Canada and at visa offices abroad, to carry warning messages for potential immigrants.

Service improvements, including web-based tools and video tutorials, are also being developed by CIC and will make it easier for applicants to independently apply to immigrate to Canada.

One such web-based tool is the Visa Wizard, an interactive tool that, based on an individual's specific circumstances, provides specific instructions and forms that best fit their situation. It will be launched shortly.

CIC has also recently launched a process under existing authorities to identify a governing body for immigration consultants, as part of the broader strategy to better regulate immigration consultants.

A call for submissions from candidates interested in becoming a regulator of immigration consultants was published in the Canada Gazette on August 28, 2010, and interested parties are given until December 29, 2010, to deliver their submissions.

This selection process follows a notice of intent published on June 12, 2010, in the Canada Gazette announcing CIC's intention to launch a public process to identify a governing body to regulate immigration consultants.

Candidates must demonstrate that their organization has or will have the capacity to effectively regulate immigration consulting activities in the public interest. This enhances public confidence in the immigration process and preserves the integrity of the immigration system.

In regard to the investigative powers of the regulator of immigration consultants, governing bodies continue to be responsible for taking disciplinary action against their members, including the revocation of membership. Like other governing bodies, the governing body for immigration consultants can investigate the conduct of members where there is a concern that a member has breached a term of membership. This is similar to the process used by provincial law societies to look into complaints concerning their own members.

Most immigration consultants working in Canada are legitimate and ethical, but as the minister has said, it is clear that immigration fraud remains a widespread threat to the reputation and integrity of Canada's immigration system. Bill C-35 would strengthen the rules governing those who charge a fee for immigration advice, close loopholes in the immigration system currently exploited by crooked consultants, and improve the way by which immigration consultants are regulated.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are now ready to answer any questions the committee may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, no, it keeps me alert.

I'd like to call this part of the meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 25, Wednesday, October 6, 2010. Our orders of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, September 23, 2010, are Bill C-35, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I probably should have done that earlier, but here we are.

We have three witnesses before us who are all from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. I hope I pronounce all your names correctly. I'll take them in order. We have Catrina Tapley, associate assistant deputy minister, strategic and program policy; Sandra Harder, acting director general, immigration branch; and Brenna MacNeil, director, social policy and programs, immigration branch.

I would like to welcome all three of you today. You have done this before, so perhaps you could make some introductory comments from your perspective as to Bill C-35. Then, as you know, the different caucuses will probably have questions for you.

You may proceed, Ms. Tapley.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm going to rule that in order. I will comment that this will mean that this debate on Bill C-35 will be delayed. But we will proceed with your motion. It appears to be in order.

Yes, Ms. Chow.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Oh, of course, you can bring motions. We're getting into an area, and we'll make it clear. I think I've expressed my view privately to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj. The practice of this committee, since I've been chair, at least, which is about two years, is that we normally hear government bills first, and Bill C-35 is before us. We are now proceeding with that.

Ms. Chow has a couple of motions, quite frankly, that I think have been on the books since March. It is possible, if we find there's a break in proceedings for whatever reason--that witnesses aren't available or if something unusual happens--that the matter could be disposed of at that time.

Otherwise, members could bring motions continually, and essentially the committee could be hijacked. I'm not suggesting you're trying to hijack the meeting; I didn't mean it like that, but that could be the gist of it.

My suggestion is that you speak to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj. I would suggest that if your motion or any other motions wish to be debated--Ms. Chow, for example--we will have an opportunity, after we have concluded our deliberations on Bill C-35, to dispose of your motion and any other motions, or whatever else we want to talk about.

We have a private member's bill that's before us. It's up to the committee when we're going to deal with that. We have a study on wait times that we're right in the middle of somewhere. I have no idea when the committee wants to deal with that. We have Ms. Chow's motions. If the practice of the committee is normally followed, you follow all that. But anything's possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

No, I'm not going to let you debate it. I let you make the motion. We have set a schedule for Bill C-35 that is before us. We have witnesses before us.

With due respect to you, we probably should have debated this when we were dealing with the subcommittee report. Accordingly, I think the committee has really decided that Bill C-35 will be debated and we will hear witnesses until November 3 and at that time the subcommittee will meet again. It will again be decided what our next plan of action will be.

My suggestion to you is to privately discuss that perhaps with the parliamentary secretary. You never know, he might be prepared to give you all that information. But at this point I believe we should be proceeding with these witnesses who are before us today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Depending on how the vote goes.

Maybe I could just finish and then people could correct me, or whatever you want to do.

We also have two motions in the name of Ms. Chow. Perhaps Mr. Siksay could ask, when she comes on Monday, as to what her intentions are.

Finally, we have the wait times issue. I don't know where we are, about halfway through. I'm not expecting any debate now on wait times. I mention it because Mr. Wrzesnewskyj is new and Ms. Chow isn't here right now, but that will probably be one of the topics that we would raise.

My understanding is that Bill C-35, Bill C-467, and possibly Bill C-440 would take precedence over everything. They have to be dealt with, so it doesn't really matter; those are the matters we have to deal with.

Those are my comments.

Does anyone else have anything to say?

Mr. Trudeau.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Here we go again. There are a whole bunch of people I'd like to welcome to the committee. First of all, I'd like to welcome our new clerk, Ms. Julie Lalande Prud'homme, who will be looking after particularly me and other members of the committee. I welcome her.

We have a completely new Liberal group: Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Trudeau, and Mr. Wrzesnewskyj--and he'll teach me eventually how to say his name--welcome to the committee.

Welcome, Madam Beaudin. Mr. Siksay is just visiting. Everybody over here but Monsieur St-Cyr is new, and Mr. Uppal is new. So here we go.

Before we adjourn, I'm going to suggest we have a subcommittee meeting next Monday at this time, the location for which will be announced. My assumption is that we will be dealing with Bill C-35, which was passed in the House. It would seem to me that we would develop a work plan on Monday for probably up until Christmas. Certainly we need to determine the number of days we would spend for witnesses for Bill C-35, the number of days for clause-by-clause, and our estimated conclusion date for that plan.

I spoke to Daphne about the issue of witnesses. It seems to me we should have a list of witnesses for Bill C-35 from all four caucuses.

Unless someone objects, a week from today is October 6, and that should be enough time for....

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Every member of Parliament is probably in a position to bring to this place his or her experience with some of the difficulties people have had with regard to these matters, whether it be sponsoring immigration, visas, or in fact, refugee files. Canadians probably are not aware that members of Parliament's offices probably do more work on immigration than they do on any other aspect of being a member of Parliament. There is a tremendous volume of activity. Some offices, in fact, have several staff members who are permanently dedicated to citizenship and immigration matters.

It is also probably pretty evident that Canadians at large often do not understand the difference between immigrants and refugees. We saw that with regard to the latest situation with the ship that arrived carrying Tamil refugee claimants.

The point I would like to make, first of all, is that we need to educate everyone who has a responsibility, interest, or stake in our system of immigration.

As I mentioned in the question to the previous speaker, the issue of providing resources from the department is critical. This bill does not propose additional resources for addressing the issues that have been raised.

I share the concern of other members about the title. If it is a bill to make improvements in terms of the regulations guiding those who provide consulting information and assistance, that is fine, but I note that in the speech of the minister himself, when he moved the bill, he made the broad statement that people do not have to go to consultants. I do not know where exactly they would go, other than maybe to an MP's office, but I do know that there is not a spot they can go to in the department to have their questions answered in a way that is helpful to them.

I note that in the report from the committee in 2008, three of the recommendations popped out. One of them is recommendation number eight. Keep in mind that this is a standing committee of members of Parliament. It recommends that the government revise all of its websites at Canadian embassies and missions abroad so that they include consistent, clear, and prominent information about immigration consultants.

One would think that our missions abroad would have all the boilerplate information necessary to guide people. One would think that the departmental website would have all the information to guide people through the processes, whether it be for immigration, sponsorship, applying for permanent residency, or visas. Also, from our experience, some files are very quick and could take maybe a couple of years, but most of them take three or four years. I have files that are seven years old. I do not think Canadians understand that the system is such that there are people in the hopper who have waited for a determination, waited for answers, for several years. It is tough to get into this country, but it does not have to be.

I also note that in the minister's speech, he spent a lot of time talking about these terrible consultants and the forged documents, forged marriage certificates, and forged bank statements and all of these things. He never once mentioned the applicants themselves and the role they play in terms of making application with documents that they know, or ought to know, are not proper.

It is a tough country to get into, very tough. A lot of people have talked about the dream of getting into this country. The dream of getting into this country is self-evident. There is an understanding that one has to be true, full, and plain in terms of the representations made. Members will assure those who come to their offices after they have problems that if they have filed documents that are inaccurate, contradictory, or forged or that contain untruths or omissions, it is very likely that they are going to fail in their efforts to get into Canada.

In our offices abroad and in our embassies, those providing information could tell people, “Here is our experience. These are the characteristics of applications that are in good shape, are accepted, and are handled within a reasonable period of time. The ones that are not accepted, the ones that have the problems, have these typical problems. Here are the reasons you will not get in”.

Then what happens? Most members will tell you that people who run afoul of the process all of a sudden start going to members of Parliament thinking that for some odd reason, the member of Parliament will have some pull and will be able to fix a problem that has to do with providing incorrect, inaccurate, and fraudulent information. It is not just the consultants. The applicants have to take some responsibility for that as well.

One has to understand that people wanting the opportunity to come to Canada will probably take whatever advice they can get from whomever, especially if somebody is charging an exorbitant fee. That is why I agree with the second recommendation in the committee's report from 2008, which is that there be an independent body established, arm's length from the department, to regulate immigration consultants. Give it the tools, the authorization, and the statutory power to control a very important resource and address the problem of people getting bad, wrong, or illegal advice. The government did not take heed of that recommendation.

When our committees make these kinds of recommendations, one would expect that the government's response, whether it be a written response to a committee report or legislation brought forward, would respond to the situation it is trying to address and would provide the best possible solution that makes sense, given all the facts.

What we have in Bill C-35 is an effort to provide penalties for people who are found to have caused problems and who have acted unethically as immigration consultants. However, the tool that is being established is going to be established by regulation. Basically, the government is going to provide the mechanism to police immigration consultants, and it will be regulation.

The problem is that we are debating a bill and will vote at second reading on whether we want it to go to committee. It will go to committee, where there will be witnesses. They will discuss all the possibilities. They will make some recommendations and possibly propose some amendments to the bill. It will then come back to the chamber at report stage. Possibly there may be further amendments by members who were not involved at committee, and then it will go to third reading.

We have this process, but what the process does not have, in terms of House activities, are the regulations. If we do not know the regulations specifically proposed, how can we trust or have confidence that the establishment of some regulatory regime is going to, in fact, do the job? That is the problem.

One recommendation I would have for the committee would be that it ask the government to table and file with the committee the proposed regulations prior to their being gazetted and promulgated.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate today on Bill C-35.

We spend a lot of time talking about the importance of immigration to Canada, and rightly so. The difficulty, however, is that people almost have to be Philadelphia lawyers to figure out what the rules and procedures are in order to immigrate to Canada. There is no real consistency in terms of what we tell people at our embassies and high commissions, about what the job market is like in a particular field, how long it will take in terms of the process in general to come to Canada, or under what basis people can come to Canada. For many people here who want to sponsor relatives, it turns out that they think it is a right rather than a privilege.

Not understanding the process has led to people looking for consultants. In some cases a consultant is really not the appropriate term given the fact that many of these people have limited if any understanding. There are some very good consultants out there and there are obviously some bad apples.

The difficulty is that as members of Parliament we are charged with the responsibility of dealing with legislation. In 2008 the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration produced nine recommendations. Now the question I have for the government is, why were they not implemented?

One of the difficulties around this place is that when a standing committee deals with a particular issue, it deals with a stream of witnesses, debate, amendments and comes up with very concrete recommendations that are sent to the government, sometimes it is as if we have basically wasted our time.

Now I realize that in 2008 there was a federal election, but since then these recommendations have not been implemented. I think that is absolutely unacceptable when we look at the nature of the recommendations to fix part of the problem. This legislation before the House is not a panacea. It is not going to solve all of the problems. It is not going to solve all the backlogs. It is not going to deal with the financial issues in order to implement the kind of process that we need in place.

In my office alone, one person is dedicated solely to deal with immigration. Now I am not an immigration office. In theory I seem to be part of an extension of the department. In many cases the department is dealing with the applications that need to be dealt with. We have too many people applying and not enough resources to deal with those applicants. Fortunately, I am very blessed with a very committed, dedicated individual who really understands the process, after the last five years.

The difficulty is that people's expectations and understanding of what is involved is like night and day. Many of these people are victims of consultants and it all starts where they are applying. Do our embassies and high commissions have the kind of information readily available?

One of the recommendations in this report was recommendation no. 8. It clearly indicated in 2008 that we needed to have the most up-to-date information, that people really had to understand what was going to be awaiting them if in fact they came to Canada, in terms of language skill requirements, job opportunities, housing, et cetera.

The difficulty is that most people enter this process rather blindly. Because they think that there is sometimes a quick fix, they deal with consultants. Some of these consultants turn out to be more of a problem than a cure.

In 2008 the standing committee made nine recommendations. One of them which I think was extremely important was this whole issue of a stand-alone agency that would deal with this issue in terms of having the summary powers needed to do the job properly.

Rather than amend the Citizenship and Immigration Act, we need to have a body that has the power to deal with consultants both from a regulatory standpoint, and some colleagues have talked about the provincial process of many regulatory bodies, but also the power to investigate and the power to really come down on people who mislead, who in fact basically take money when no service is really rendered.

Immigration is supposed to be important to this country and yet we have a system that is broken, and I would defy anyone who would suggest otherwise. People just need to go to any constituency office of a member of Parliament in the greater Toronto area or the greater Vancouver area and they will certainly see the difficulties that members of Parliament deal with. That is because we do not have the necessary tools. We do not have a legion of staff that can deal with this. There often is a lot of burn-out because one person dealing with this in particular is very difficult. We hear the most tragic stories of people who want to come to this country for a new opportunity but, again, it is the issue of dealing with this.

The last Liberal government, our government in 2005, put $900 million toward trying to deal with the backlog, which really was not enough, as with the present government which was not enough.

I am sure many members of Parliament have been asked by people how to speed up the process or how they can be fast-tracked. Obviously we can fast-track when we can fast-track them all and we cannot fast-track anyone.

Will this legislation deal with the problem? It will only deal partly with the problem. We support it going to committee. A 2008 standing committee report has nine recommendations in it, part of which deal with the issue of consultants. If the government had implemented those recommendations, we would perhaps be onto something else today. The fact is that we continue to try to reinvent the wheel instead of asking what the major problem is here.

If in fact we had no immigration policy, how would we create one that would address the economic needs of this country and the kinds of issues that we as Canadians believe are important and be able to attract people to this country? Instead, we always deal around the edges. We do not deal with the problems per se.

A stand alone regulatory body, as recommended by the standing committee in 2008, is what is needed. It really needs those powers, as we have said. However, this proposed legislation only deals with part of that issue. It does not really deal with the significant governance issues that the standing committee looked at when it listened to the many witnesses who came forward. We need to deal with that.

We also need to be working with our international partners. We need to get better coordination in terms of everything from people smuggling to the fact that people set up shot overseas and say that they are a consultant. When they are asked what kind of regulations there are, they say that one can come to Canada and do this and that.

Many of the people who come to my office have been drained financially paying money to certain individuals who in the end tell them to go see their MP. In other words, let the MP now try to deal with the problem that they in many cases have created or clearly have not been able to deal with. We need to look at that. It is obviously part of the solution.

As we know, consultants are often not lawyers. They provide advice and the difficulty is that sometimes they are not up to speed on this.

I have held information sessions in my riding dealing with the process. One is absolutely dizzy by the time one listens to how this process works: how does one do this, can one appeal this and then there is another appeal, what happens if one comes under certain classifications. One has to be a Philadelphia lawyer to figure that out.

We have these ghost consultants. We have these people who say that they can solve one's problem. It goes back to the fact that people accept money to give advice which often turns out not to be very helpful.

When we have standing committee recommendations, the best thing the government can do today would be to embrace those nine recommendations and move forward so we can deal with other aspects of immigration. Again, within those nine recommendations we also deal with a stand alone body that would deal with this. I think that is part of the solution but it is not the total solution.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this bill on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada. I am also happy to say that our party supports this bill.

It is a very important part of any responsible opposition not only to constructively criticize a government when we think its policy direction is ill-advised or incorrect, but it is also very important, as a responsible opposition, to congratulate and support a government when it introduces legislation that is correct and addresses a very real problem.

I want to congratulate my colleagues on the government side of the House for bringing in Bill C-35. The bill goes a long way toward dealing with a problem that is very pressing in this country.

The short title of Bill C-35 is the cracking down on crooked consultants act, which shows the government's penchant for giving its legislation catchy titles, but the title captures what the bill is about. Bill C-35 prohibits unlicensed consultants in the immigration field from providing advice or submitting applications on behalf of potential immigrants. It gives the minister the power to establish a new body that would regulate immigration consultants through a tendering process.

New Democrats, in particular my colleague from Trinity—Spadina, have been pushing for legislative changes to eliminate unethical immigration consultant practices for a long time now. At present, one out of every two immigration consultants is not licensed. There are many horror stories of vulnerable immigrants being cheated out of substantial amounts of money, in some cases their life savings, and worse, having their chances for a new beginning in Canada destroyed in the process.

In the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, our party and the committee received two supporting reports with nine recommendations on this issue. These include legislative changes and, more importantly, enforcement and education efforts, which are vital to making this legislation workable in practice. Again my colleague from Trinity—Spadina moved a motion for concurrence in that report which, through the wisdom and efforts of members of this House, passed in the spring of this year.

As another member said very well, other than first nations people in this country, we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Almost everybody in this House owes his or her place in Canada to the courage of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or ancestors even further back. In some cases, members of this House are direct immigrants themselves, so it is an obvious point to make that Canada is one of the most multicultural countries on earth and one whose entire societal fabric is based on immigrants.

My own riding of Vancouver Kingsway is one of the most multicultural ridings in the country. Forty per cent of the residents of Vancouver Kingsway are of Chinese descent, from the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau. Eleven per cent of the residents of Vancouver Kingsway are South Asian, hailing from India, Pakistan and the Punjab. Ten per cent of the residents of my riding are from the Philippines. Five per cent are from Vietnam, Korea and a host of other countries. Indeed 70% of the people in my riding are visible minorities and are now the visible majority in my riding.

There are over 100 languages spoken in Vancouver Kingsway. It is truly a cultural mosaic, one that is vibrant, strong and healthy. Many people in Vancouver Kingsway are first, second or third generation immigrants. I would venture to say that the majority of people in Vancouver Kingsway are within one of those three categories.

Of course, we have to pause and examine the profound reasons that people immigrate to Canada. Everybody who came to Canada, I think, came here because they had a dream. Sometimes those dreams were to build a better life for their families. Sometimes they were seeking freedom to practise their religion. Sometimes their dream was to escape poverty and enter a land where they felt equal opportunity was available to them and their children. Sometimes that dream involved pursuing an education. Many students come to Canada hoping to obtain an education upon which they can build a better life.

We also have to remember that this country, Canada, has been built by immigrants. We have already heard mention of the fact that one of the most important nation-building projects this country has witnessed, the building of our national coast-to-coast railway, could not have been done without the contributions of Chinese Canadians. Those people came here and were subjected to horrendous racism, including legislated racism, but they persevered and helped build a strong cultural Chinese presence on the west coast of our country and, indeed, in every province across this land.

The story of my own relatives is a typical one.

In the 1920s my grandparents immigrated to Canada from Hungary. First my grandfather came with his brother. They landed in Halifax and ended up taking a train across Canada. They were dropped off in October on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan in a little place called Dewberry. He and his brother had to walk 21 miles from the train station to their end destination. They lived in a sod house for two winters. They cleared land under a government program whereby if one cleared a quarter section of land within two years, one would be allowed to homestead it and own it. My grandfather did that and three years later brought his wife over from Hungary. At that point they raised my mother who to this day still speaks Hungarian and has exposed me to that cultural history and tradition.

My father had a similar story. His grandparents came from Ireland, Wales, and Germany. I think I am a fairly typical Canadian who can reach back just a generation or two and touch countries across the world.

What all immigrants have in common is courage, trust and faith. Their stories also can be heart-rending because many immigrants experience the reality of separation from their families, loneliness, insecurity and indeed poverty when they arrive here. Statistics in this country are rife with the difficulties and specific challenges that particularly face first generation Canadians.

Bill C-35 is targeted at protecting those immigrants, and that is critically important. It protects immigrants from unscrupulous immigration consultants who would prey on those people whose dreams make them vulnerable. They prey on these people for the most unjustifiable reason: pure money.

I want to pause and say that there are many professional and ethical immigration consultants practising in this field across the country, particularly in British Columbia. There are many diligent immigration consultants who provide intelligent and well-earned advice and help people from all over the globe access Canada's immigration system. I think those consultants join with us in Parliament today in wanting to keep their profession one that is well regulated and full of integrity. Those immigration consultants realize they have an interest in doing so. I want to point that out in particular because when we talk about a profession, we must recognize there are many people of integrity as well as those whose professional standards leave a lot to be desired.

I have met many excellent consultants. I have met people like Rose White and Bob White who have come to my office several times and given me their opinion on all kinds of immigration issues. Rajesh Randev helps hundreds and hundreds of people come to this country but who otherwise would be completely mystified by the process.

Cecile Barbier, a person who lives in my own neighbourhood, a recent immigrant from France and a lawyer from that country has taken immigration courses, so that she can also put her knowledge to work, helping other people. These are the kinds of immigration consultants who want to have a law in this country that makes their profession a regulated, respected one.

There are important organizations in British Columbia that also do critical and pivotal work for immigrants: SUCCESS Immigrant Settlement Services and PICS provide absolutely essential services to immigrants from every corner of the globe.

I think we have heard from all MPs. I do not think there is a member in the House who cannot stand up and tell stories about Canadians and residents of their ridings who come to their offices with terrible problems with the immigration system that they face. Sometimes I joke that I do not have a constituency office; I feel like I have an immigration law practice.

I would like to give an example of an issue on which I dealt with the immigration minister just yesterday. A resident in my riding is a citizen here with her husband and daughter who is from Colombia. She has had her mother and her brother visit here on temporary resident visas, in other words, visitor visas. Her younger sister has applied to come here just to visit her sister for three weeks and she was turned down three times. This person in Colombia is a woman with a law degree. The first time she was turned down she was in university and she was turned down because she did not have the income. Then she got her law degree and she was turned down the second time because she did not have a travel history.

This is of course a vicious cycle in which many people find themselves. How do we get a travel history if we are turned down for a visa because we do not have a travel history? This is the third time this person has applied for a visa. She was turned down this time because a visa officer in Colombia misread her application and said that she did not have sufficient income from her employer when the figure and the employer were listed right on her paperwork.

These are the kinds of typical problems that MPs face every day. These are the kinds of problems that immigration consultants could help with if they are regulated, trained, and held to a standard of professionalism that they want and need.

In my constituency I deal with immigrants every day that I am in Vancouver. People from the Philippines tell me that the number one export of the Philippines is not a good; it is people. I deal with Filipinos every day who come into my office, trying to engage in family reunification, trying to bring aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and cousins to Canada so that they can build their families.

We must realize in this country that in many areas of the world family is not defined as one's parents and children; it is defined as one's aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and grandparents. That concept of extended family is critically important to many people.

People come into my office who hail from China, where the rate of refusal on spousal sponsorships from places like Beijing is approaching 50%. That means almost one out of every two people from China who are married and are making applications to bring their spouses over are rejected.

People come into my office from India who are consistently rejected when they try to bring relatives over to attend a wedding. This is particularly a problem in Chandigarh, which has about the highest rate of refusals of temporary resident visas, TRVs, in the world.

These are the problems my residents face every day and with which they come to their MP for assistance. Our offices processes hundreds and hundreds of these cases every year through the hard work of my constituency assistants, Theresa Ho and Christine Ackermann . They help these people. They go out of their way and do yeowomen's work to help these people with their problems. These are people who do not have money to pay an immigration consultant or a lawyer. So they come to us.

I have also had people come into my office who have been victims of unscrupulous immigration consultants. One of the most heart-rending situations is when people come to this country, work one, two or three jobs, undergo intense pain by being separated from their families, work for years, save up money working jobs for $8 and $9 an hour and after working two or three years, save $3,000 or $4,000, which they give to an immigration consultant because they think that person will help bring their relatives over, only to discover that person abused their trust.

They lose their money, do not get the results they want and, worse, in many cases the applicant's record is permanently marred so that their relatives can never come over. That is wrong and is something that cries out for immediate rectification by sound legislators. I want to congratulate the government for bringing in this legislation, which I think goes a long way to addressing this.

What we must ensure and be vigilant about as parliamentarians is that this legislation is sound and that it works. It does not do any good to bring in legislation that cannot be actuated in practice. We need to ensure that we establish a regulatory process that has teeth, one that licenses immigration consultants and establishes sound standards, so we can ensure that any people calling themselves immigration consultants in this country have the proficiency and professionalism required to carry out their duties in a proper manner.

We must ensure there are adequate enforcement measures because standards without enforcement are of no use. We must ensure the immigration consultants in this country know that if they try to practice without licences or provide services they are not entitled to provide, they will be caught and there will be consequences.

We must also ensure that the public knows about it. We need to ensure that every person wanting to access the immigration system in this country can go to a website and see at a glance, like is done in Australia, who are the licensed immigration consultants, who are not licensed, who has made application and failed, and those who have a black mark against them. These are all critical components of a sound piece of legislation that ensures it does not just amount to words on a paper but actually makes a tangible difference in people's lives.

I also want to comment briefly on the government's attempt to bring in legislation that the previous Liberal government failed to do. I hear members of the Liberal Party talk about this legislation, but, of course, when they were in power, they did not get it done. After numerous consultations and hearings, the former minister, the member now for Eglinton—Lawrence, set up a regulatory body that had no teeth.

The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants had no power to enforce regulations or to prevent unlicensed consultants from practising. To make matters worse, that organization was not required to behave in a democratic, efficient or transparent manner. I am glad to see that members of the Liberal Party standing up today are supporting this legislation after having the opportunity of 13 years in government and failing to do so.

In fact, in many respects what they did was even worse, which was to set up a process that did not work. That breeds disrespect and sets back policy development because people look to a regulatory framework that does not work as proof that a regulatory framework is not valid or needed, and that is not the case.

I want to, once again, indicate that New Democrats stand behind immigrants in this country. We want them to be able to unify their families, we want them to be able to have a fair, fast and efficient immigration system. We will join with the government and all members of the House in helping to ensure that immigration consultants in this country practise in a manner that is professional and helpful.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-35. I listened yesterday to some very good speeches regarding the bill and some very good ideas. I might say at the outset that this bill is long overdue. I hope this Parliament lasts long enough for us to get the bill to committee and see that it does find its way through the system and into law.

As the last speaker indicated, this is not an issue that just came up in the last seven years. It might have taken the Liberals up until the last seven years to recognize this as a problem, but I can tell members that this was a rampant problem back in the 1980s.

When I was elected provincially in Manitoba in 1986, one of the concerns we had at that time as a provincial government was how to regulate the immigration consultants. In order for us to come to grips with that issue and deal with it, we had to find out just how big the problem was because immigration consultants were everywhere.They were not just lawyers doing it. In fact, lawyers were probably in the minority in terms of participants. We had many travel agents doing immigration consulting on the side. We had all sorts of people from all walks of life involved in one way or another in the immigration consulting business and charging big fees. As a matter of fact, some of these people were so well connected that they knew people on the Immigration Board who, in those days, were political appointees and oftentimes local, well connected people. Of course the immigration consultants would develop a rapport with them and try to get special considerations. I realize that the government has gone beyond that stage and tried to take steps to make that process a little better than it was.

I see this as a work in progress. I do not feel that proceeding with the bill and passing the bill will solve the problem because whenever in society there are large monetary rewards available for people to access, they will find a way to do it. Therefore, no matter what rules we set here in Parliament, there will be unscrupulous people who will find a way around whatever rules we set.

However, while it is late in the game, it is good that we are coming to grips with it. I am very happy that we are concentrating on the problem, and whether this solves the problem or even part of the problem will be something we should applaud. We certainly need tough rules against people who take advantage of vulnerable people. We not only need tough rules but we also need tough enforcement.

For the last several hundred years we have had immigrants coming to our shores for a whole number of reasons. If we look back in history we find the early explorers, starting with Leif Eriksson, I believe, but certainly Christopher Columbus and other explorers who were out to find new resources and new lands for their kings. It became a policy of kings to expand their empires by looking for more resources, whether it was new trade routes, new products, furs or gold. There have been various stages of immigration over the years.

We know, for example, in parts of Australia, where I was a number of years ago, many of the original immigrants to the Tasmanian area were from penal colonies. People were taken from prisons in Europe and sent to those colonies.

We had stages in our history when people were involved in the gold rush. Just south of Manitoba is the Black Hills area. The gold rush in that area brought thousands of immigrants to our country. There was the California gold rush and the Yukon gold rush.

The member for Timmins—James Bay talked about how people came here for jobs and for a better life.

Many people came here because of religious persecution in their home countries. They came here during certain periods when their governments back home were treating them badly, and that was their way to escape. People came here because of political problems in their home countries. There are numerous reasons why people have come to our country over the years.

Many people from China came to Canada to help build the railway. Perhaps John A. Macdonald would never have been able to get the railway built had it not been for Chinese immigrants coming in by the thousands to do what was essentially a very dangerous job. Many of them died during the process.

People have observed that there were fewer rules for immigration in those days. Several hundred years ago, people could simply come to our country and essentially get in, but today we are dealing with many more rules that have been brought in by different governments.

The Liberals, by virtue of the fact that they have been the government for most of the last century, have, in fact, been making the rules. To their credit, they have certainly encouraged immigration over the years. People with another view have said that they created the problems with the present immigration system that we are now trying to solve.

Several members have indicated that MPs' offices are deluged with immigration questions and immigration problems. Generally speaking, if that is a problem, that is an indication of a systemic problem within the government. I can think of other problems, on a provincial basis, for example, that people in large numbers have complained about to their elected officials, and finally, the political system wised up to the fact that something needed to be done about the problem to move it away from elected officials, because it is not really our job as elected officials to be running government programs.

One of the things I was surprised about as a new MP was that many MPs' offices are spending inordinate amounts of time and effort on immigration problems. Immigrants will oftentimes tell me that when they had a problem, it was their MP who solved it. When we are using up so much of our time on one particular problem, we have to deal with the problem through new laws and new enforcement and major changes.

This is not a problem that has developed in the last half dozen years, or even in the last 10 years. This problem was very much alive 25 years ago, and probably long before that. Why all governments have taken so much time to come up with a solution is really a big question.

The member for Winnipeg Centre made a fabulous speech yesterday on this subject, and he dealt with a number of areas. His riding is in the core area of Winnipeg, and he sees a huge number of immigrants who come to Manitoba.

The Manitoba government had enough foresight about 10 years ago to come up with a provincial nominee program, which, by the way, has attracted about 15,000 immigrants in the last year or so. The program has been a winner since the NDP government of Manitoba actually set it up. As a matter of fact, it was so successful that the government of Nova Scotia looked at it, studied it, and I believe adopted, or copied, the program.

The same thing happens all over the country. When there is a good program in a province, in Quebec, for example, other provinces will take a look at it. This program developed in Manitoba got such immediate, positive results that the Nova Scotia premier at the time, John Hamm, a Conservative, took a special interest in this area and came to study the program.

The member for Winnipeg Centre points out that when many immigrants first come into the province, initially they settle in his riding, so he has had a first-hand view of the immigration problems. He also sees the consultants at work. He indicated that he uncovered a situation, and I am sure that there are many such examples, where consultants were telling people that for $3,000 they would get them a letter from the person's member of Parliament, as if that was going to be their ticket through the process. That was one of the examples he discovered. The question is how many more examples of people paying these huge fees for something that, in fact, would have been free have gone undiscovered.

Before the member for Winnipeg Centre was the terrific member that he is for that constituency, that seat, for a very brief period, was held by the Liberals under Mr. David Walker. I know that he too had a lot of time to spend on immigration problems. As a matter of fact, my wife tells me very often the story of when she was trying to get her father in from Peru. They went to Mr. Walker's office, and he did a terrific job of getting them through the paperwork and the problems they had getting her father into Canada.

The question is whether MPs' offices have now become the official funnel through which all immigration issues and problems have to pass. Perhaps it is better that they come to the MPs' offices than to the immigration consultants.

The fact of the matter is that the immigration consultants catch them at an earlier stage. The immigration consultants are sitting in positions as travel agents. They are the ones selling the tickets.

The previous member who spoke before me made some good points. Yesterday the member for Winnipeg Centre talked about issues with the temporary worker program and how that program is being abused and profited from by some consultants. CBC did a big exposé about 20 years ago about immigration consultants in Manitoba who were involved in the immigrant investor program. The members will know all about that program and how it works. It basically attracts richer immigrants to the country.

These immigration consultants were not just operating here in Canada; they were operating outside Canada. They were travelling over to, in this case, I believe, the Philippines and were operating out of there. They were running ads in the paper in the Philippines with pictures of the immigration consultant shaking hands with or standing by the mayor of Winnipeg at the time.

I guess, as a politician, you have to be careful who you get your picture taken with, because you never know how, when, or where it is going to be used. The mayor of Winnipeg at the time was a wonderful gentleman, and he was very surprised to find out that his picture was being used in another country by an immigration consultant who was attracting people by showing that he had credibility with the mayor. If the immigrant wanted easy access into Winnipeg, this was the consultant to deal with, because here he was in a picture with the mayor of Winnipeg.

He took a lot of people for a lot of money. They employed him to fast-track them into the country, but in addition to that, this guy was also a real estate guy. He was selling them businesses that they had not seen other than through pictures. In one case, he sold a bakery in a rundown building in a rundown part of town for probably double or triple its value. When the immigrant investor ended up in Canada, they found themselves in a very difficult situation, because not only had they paid this guy consulting fees, they had also overpaid for the bakery they were buying. This is just one example. There were other examples.

The member from the Conservatives who was just commenting now knows of what I speak, because he was around in those days. He knows that this immigration consultant had connections and friends in his own provincial party. They were working together as a group. There was a group of them. These people were not people that any political party would want to be involved with. However, you cannot stop people from joining your party, and in some cases, you do not know why they are joining your party. These guys were smart enough to know that if they could connect with local politicians, mayors, and provincial and federal politicians, it was good for their business. It was a good business practice.

Of course, CBC did its job in exposing this person, but by then the damage had already been done, and these investors had lost most of their money.

This is the kind of activity that gives the country a bad name, because these people have friends back home, and they will certainly relate their experiences of coming to the country. When we are trying to attract immigrants, this is not a selling point if you run the risk of dealing with these types of fraudsters.

The member for Winnipeg Centre pointed out yesterday that the goal was to have a certain percentage of immigrants come to Canada on an annual basis. In actual fact, I think in only a very few years have we actually met the target. I do not think we have ever met the target. We have come close to the target in only several years.

The fact is that the government is on the right track with this particular bill. I am not one to not give the government its due when I think it is on the right track. In this case, it is on the right track. I just hope that it stays around long enough to get this bill through the process and does not prorogue Parliament again or call a quick election because it sees some short-term, quick opportunity on the gun registry or any other idea that kind of hits the government's fancy as the days progress. I hope that we apply ourselves.

We saw what happened under Lester Pearson. For six years of minority government, a lot of things were accomplished. The Conservative government has been around for five years and what does it have to show?

I would suggest—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, other than our colleagues, who are first nation members, you, I, and all of our colleagues in the House have something in common: we are the descendants of, and in fact some of us are, immigrants to Canada.

Yesterday in the House of Commons we heard speeches on Bill C-35 from two such members. The member for Newton—North Delta told his particular story of a young man arriving on Canada's shores as an immigrant from India and what an incredibly inspiring story that was. The immigrant from India, with virtually no money in his pocket, had a deep desire in his heart to build a new life in a new land. Who could have foretold that 25 years later he would be here, among us, in the House of Commons as one of the legislators of laws for this great land?

We also heard a speech yesterday from the member for Eglinton—Lawrence who also arrived as a new Canadian 55 years ago as part of a wave of Italian Canadians who arrived in Canada in the fifties, sixties and seventies. He mentioned that while he was speaking in the House, his grandson, a third generation Italian Canadian, was watching his immigrant grandfather address this august chamber, the House of Commons.

What incredible stories of Canada's potential, of Canada's promise. This has been the story of Canada right from the first days of Confederation. In Canada's first House of Commons there was a member elected by the name of Alexandre-Édouard Kierzkowski, a refugee from Russian imperialism, and a member of Canada's first House of Commons in 1867. That has been the story of Canada, wave after wave of people arriving on these shores.

The French, who settled and, along with the existing first nations, created something unique to Canada: a new first nation, the Métis. After the English, soon after Confederation there was a large wave of Bukovinians, Galicians, and Ukrainians who transformed the bush of the Northwest Territories into the golden wheat fields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Chinese arrived to build our railroads, those ribbons of steel that bound our geographically vast land into a cohesive oneness.

More recently, as I have mentioned, the Italian Canadians and Portuguese Canadians arrived in the last half century and transformed our cities, cities such as my home town, Toronto. They transformed those cityscapes and created those jewels, the most liveable cities on the planet: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. What this speaks to is a system that is dynamic. Our multicultural mosaic is not static; it is a constantly evolving multicultural mosaic. That is Canada's promise and strength.

Unfortunately, over the last number of years our immigration system has been suffering from dysfunction. In fact, I would even say it has reached the point where the system pretty much does not work.

In the past there have been two types of newcomers to Canada. There have been the refugees, going as far back as the Loyalists, the underground railroad, and more recently, the Vietnam and Iraqi war resisters. Even my grandparents landed in Canada, on freedom's shores, as refugees from communism, from the horrors of Stalinism. There have been the refugees and there have been the economic immigrants who saw Canada not just as a free land but also as a land of opportunity, having departed from lands where at that point in time, unfortunately, opportunities were limited. In Canada the opportunities were limitless.

The waves of people that landed on Canada's shores landed here because Canada is a free country and, as a consequence of that freedom, it is a prosperous country. All of those people had something in common. They came here with a willingness to work hard so that they could build a future for themselves, for their families and for future generations. They succeeded and they contributed back into their communities and to the greatness of our country.

Unfortunately, we have a current refugee and immigration system that has ceased to function. It creates confusion. It creates a situation of shattered dreams for hopeful new Canadians, new immigrants to our country. In this confusion, and in desperation that is fed by the confused system that we currently have, the ones who step in are the charlatans, the ghost consultants, who prey on impossible dreams and make impossible promises. They prey on the most vulnerable.

As my colleagues have said, I also am supporting this bill which deals with crooked consultants. I am supporting sending the bill to committee to further refine it. But let us not lose sight of the bigger job at hand. That job is to fix our immigration system. We need a new act.

Let me mention specific cases to show how desperate the situation is for potential new Canadians and the circumstances the current system forces them into.

Marya Kunyk arrived on a work visa as a live-in caregiver. She had to work two years over a three-year period to be able to begin the process of becoming a Canadian. Just a year after arriving and working on fulfilling that obligation, she was crossing at a crosswalk and was hit by a car. It was a horrific accident. The driver was found guilty, but Marya today has a shattered body, literally. Parts of her body have been replaced with pieces of steel.

What is the system doing to Marya, who needs continuing health care and physiotherapy so that she can once again become a functioning productive member of society? The system is deporting Marya back to a country that cannot provide the health care she requires. The system is deporting her because she is not fulfilling the obligations of her contract that she work two full years. It is just common sense. She has not been able to fulfill the obligations of that contract. She was hit by a car through no fault of her own.

Is it any wonder that there is so much desperation among new Canadians that they turn to these crooked consultants, these charlatans who prey on that desperation.

In another case, Iryna Ivaniv is a young woman who has been trying for over six years to bring her husband to Canada from Ukraine. She has four young children, Canadian children. I will read from a letter that she wrote to the minister:

1. We have four young children who are Canadian citizens: 6-year-old; 3-year-old; and 5-months-old twins. They have a right to have both their parents raise them....

2. Our twins were born premature. They're under pediatric constant supervision and need medical care which I do not feel could be obtained in Ukraine in satisfactory manner.

3. All our children are registered to start school and daycare from September 2010. I must stress that Canadian children 6-year of age must attend school under The Education Act.

What has happened in the case of Iryna Ivaniv? Just in the past two months, her husband has once again been denied the opportunity to come to Canada to unite this family.

How does this happen? Through an access to information request, I have been able to get the notes of the decision. It is astounding. The decision states that Iryna Ivaniv is still in possession of Ukrainian citizenship and can therefore freely access all health and social services in that country. She is not a Ukrainian citizen; she is a Canadian citizen. Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship. She is a citizen of one country.

How is it that decision-makers who do not even understand the rules are making the decisions?

Further on the decision states that the children would benefit from being sent from their country to Ukraine so they could be with their extended family, so there would not be disruption to the children's life separation from their grandparents, and it is significant disruption that we have caused because in Ukrainian culture, extended families are traditionally important.

My goodness. We would take Canadian children away from their mother, their Canadian grandparents, their Canadian uncle, deport them, and send them to a country half a world away.

These cases clearly illustrate how dysfunctional the system has become. Is it no wonder that people prey on the desperation of people such as Iryna, on the desperation of people such as Marya.

Let me also reference a statistic from the public database of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration regarding the processing time for skilled workers from Kiev, Ukraine. In 2009, 80% of the cases were finalized in 83 months, which is 6 years and 11 months.

What employer in Canada will wait seven years for an employee that has been hired from a foreign country to arrive? What about the people in those countries, under the skilled worker class of immigration, who are waiting not several months, but year after year after year? What has happened to Canada's promise?

As I said earlier, Canada's dynamism and greatness has been built by the waves of people who have arrived on Canada's shores. We often reference the incredible natural resources of this vast land. Yes, we have been blessed with natural resources unlike any other country in the world, but our greatest resource is our human resource, the deep reservoir of human capacity that we have.

Canada is unique to the planet in having people who have an intricate understanding of every culture of the world, who speak every language of every people on the planet. In a future global village, what an incredible advantage that gives us.

That promise has to be reinstated. Canada cannot become a land that is static, that loses its dynamism. Yes, this particular bill addresses one issue, one small part of the dysfunction, and that is why we are supporting it. However, I certainly hope it does not distract us from the job at hand, and the job at hand is to put in place a new system. Canada's future is at stake.

The House resumed from September 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand today in the House to speak to Bill C-35 which is set to bring long overdue regulations to the industry of immigration consultants in Canada. This is very important legislation for my constituents of Newton—North Delta and one that inspires great personal interest for me, as well.

When we talk about the immigration process in Canada, the discussion represents a range of issues much larger than forms, applications and interviews. What we are ultimately talking about are the hopes and dreams of people looking to come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families.

As an immigrant to Canada over 25 years ago, I can personally recall how emotional it was to step onto Canadian soil with desire, determination and the will to succeed. So, when I hear off cases where people filled with this spirit of optimism have been taken advantage of and bilked of thousands of dollars, it makes me very angry.

I will now talk about the current situation and how ghost immigration consultants, as they have been labelled, operate with impugnity.

These particular individuals are known as ghosts within the industry because all their activities take place before the submission of an immigration application, keeping them off the radar and unregulated. Their names never show up on the documentation and oftentimes, these consultants do not even bother to show up at the hearings even though they have already pocketed the fees they have charged in advance.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in its current form, has no ability to crack down on the pre-application stage, and this is where immigration applicants become victims in the hands of those who provide bad advice and offer false promises. Sometimes these false promises include fast-track approvals and high-paying jobs. Sometimes applicants are not even eligible for a visa but are told differently by their consultants. These consultants sometimes advise applicants to lie about their past or to fill out their forms improperly so that they are charged with misrepresentation later on.

Ultimately, all of these ghost consultants, more often than not, lead to two outcomes: the rejection of the application and the loss of thousands of dollars of an applicant's hard-earned money. This is a phenomena that has been going on for decades in Canada and the most recent developments to correct the industry's problems have not been effective.

The establishment of an advisory committee by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration in 2002 led to a set of corrective options. However, the creation of a self-regulatory body to regulate immigration consultants in the fall of 2003, namely, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants or CSIC, has not provided an adequate solution to the problem that arises from the acts of these consultants I am talking about. In fact, some might argue that the conditions within the industry have continued to deteriorate over the past seven years. The problem with the CSIC is that it really has no teeth or enforcement capacity to take the proper measures to crack down.

It also became clear in the standing committee's hearings surrounding the proposed changes that CSIC clearly does not have the confidence of immigration consultants right across the country.

Furthermore, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has little ability to disclose information on those who provide unethical or unprofessional representation or advice.

Bill C-35 represents a series of very positive steps because of the sweeping changes they will bring to this unregulated industry. The bill is proposing that a new entity be established that has the ability to properly license its members; to regulate, conduct and look into the complaints; and to have the government intimately involved in its affairs to ensure that investigations occur and the necessary disciplinary actions are taken.

It is about time that providing professional immigration consultation without the proper authorization and certification is a criminal offence.

It can only be done by looking at the examples of other self-regulatory bodies as earlier speakers have pointed out, such as the associations for lawyers. I personally belong to the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia. I am also a member of the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors that regulates us and disciplines us if we do not perform according to the standards and guidelines it has set.

It is about time that we bring in an association that would regulate those consultants so the prospective immigrants to this country are not ripped off. It is about time that the industry had a governing body that all consultants could participate in, where being a member of that society would only let them practice in that way.

It is also time for the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to have an ability and oversight to step in and take the appropriate steps to ensure that this new governing body is improving the industry and the conduct of those calling themselves professionals.

While I support Bill C-35 at this stage, I also want to make a note about the current state of the immigration system in our country because the blame for these unscrupulous practices must also fall on the government.

I want to cite a column written in the Toronto Star by Allan Thompson on July 17 of this year. Thompson correctly pointed out that in introducing this legislation, the minister:

--comes across a bit like a doctor, cracking down on the symptoms of an illness, rather than treating the illness itself.

He went on to state that:

--because many of those people are ill-served by the system itself. Because they lack information or the ability to access a confusing and opaque system, many of these anxious applicants turn to unscrupulous consultants--

This is a topic that I have been speaking about for many years. The immigration system as a whole is not user-friendly.

I can give perfect examples in my office or any other MP who has an immigration population in their riding. Our staff are working around the clock to deal with the system. There are no clear guidelines from the minister to the overseas officers that are deployed there. The people who want to come to Canada are on a point-based system. There are 29 new categories that the minister brought in. If they do not fall in the 20,000 applications then they have to receive a market labour opinion that says they have to raise employment in Canada via these consultants who are charging thousands and thousands of dollars to get them that letter and that approval.

Also there is a backlog that has only grown larger since the government has come to power. Severe funding shortfalls prevent adequate numbers of staff both here domestically and internationally.

Immigration applicants are treated as little more than numbers that can be picked, chosen, and often discarded because of the abundance of applications. Information is difficult to navigate both in terms of ease of access, linguistic diversity, and response time for inquiries.

Even on the temporary resident visas that people are applying for every day, we hear from the officers overseas that they have to give proof of relationships in one day. The second month they will see the information about all the siblings that are living in this country. Every day the list is growing and there is nowhere to find on the government website all this information that would be helpful for those individuals when they are filling out the application that could also help when these people are being ripped off by these consultants.

For many other reasons the system is failing and pushing anxious applicants and their families into the hands of those who are looking to abuse their trust and exploit their vulnerability.

To conclude, I want to endorse Bill C-35 as a vital step forward in ensuring that the people are treated fairly when it comes to receiving help for their immigration applications, but I also want to stress that if we empower those tasked with administering our system with support, resources and guidance, then the system would naturally provide the best defence against the kinds of individuals that Bill C-35 is looking to protect us from.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to add by voice on Bill C-35, the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

The only thing I would add is the word “immigration” consultants. I think that clarifies it.

It has been stated by my party that we will be supporting the bill at second reading to send it to committee. That is where we are going to be able to do a lot of fine tuning. From what I have read in some of the notes, this bill needs a lot of fine tuning. I will cover some of the areas where I think we need to address some of these concerns.

Immigration, as mentioned by many other members, is really the foundation of our country. I remember speaking at Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate in my riding many years ago. We talked about immigration. As I said to the audience, young men and women, when we look at every one of our family trees, at some point in time one of our ancestors, whether it be our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, arrived on these friendly shores from somewhere, aside from our first nations people.

It has been a great mix. It has been the formula for making this country one of the best countries in the world to live. If anything, some years ago, for seven consecutive years, Canada was recognized as the number one country in the world. I believe that we are number two now.

Nevertheless, there have been problems. Policies, such as our immigration policy, are evolving. The member from Winnipeg Centre talked earlier about today's immigration problems. The immigration of today is different from the immigration of 20,30,50, and 60 years ago. Fifty years ago we did not have a temporary workers program, for example. We did not have such an extensive refugee program. We did not have a board, per se.

If we look at the trends of yesterday, we would look at vast numbers of family reunification, such as war brides, for example. Things have changed.

I am glad that this is coming forward. Many years ago, as I mentioned earlier, when I was elected, in 1993, I had a private member's initiative that addressed some of these issues that came from an industry that I was in, which was the executive search consulting business. I related the rules and regulations that governed that industry to the immigration consultant industry.

Let me provide some examples. In order to operate our business, we had to be licensed by the provincial government, and we had to be bonded. There were guidelines, and there were specific rules and regulations that we had to abide by. If we violated those regulations, that licence came right off the wall, preventing us from earning a living and preventing us from running our companies.

What I think needs to be done here is a clear definition, clear guidelines, and clear rules but also clear, stiff penalties. In addition to that, we need to have a mechanism to enforce those penalties. Otherwise, it all goes for naught.

I am concerned, though. This piece of legislation talks about the creation of a body that will be reporting to the minister. I do not agree with that. I think that is wrong.

The minister has nothing to say about running this body. It should be a totally independent, arm's-length body, with rules and guidelines as set out by legislation. It is not for the minister to interfere in any way, shape, or form. That is not how it works.

In the case of these immigration consultants, let me also point out that it is not just a federal piece of legislation that is going to help us resolve some of these issues. We have to work with the provinces. It affects them too. It is a two-way street.

On that issue, let me just go off track for a moment and point out that in our province of Ontario, we have a minister of citizenship and immigration. We can understand a minister of immigration, because provinces, too, have their own immigration procedures and policies.

The Liberal government allowed provinces to provide immigration facilities according to their needs. They were able to identify their specific needs and recruit as required. But what is puzzling is the fact that provinces do not give citizenship. It is my understanding that the federal government provides citizenship. I would ask the provinces to maybe look at that.

The intent of the legislation is positive, and if properly amended may still produce some good public policy. That is why we are supporting it. We see a lot of good work and a lot of goodwill around the committee table.

I remember former immigration minister Elinor Caplan; I can mention her by name because she is no longer a member. She was a good immigration minister. The member for Winnipeg Centre talked about the abuse that goes on abroad. He is right. Minister Caplan spent her time visiting our embassies and our high commissions in different parts of the world because we in Canada had observed that abuse was going on. Did we address it? We did. Did we improve the situation? We did. Did the problem go back offline again? Unfortunately it did.

Former minister Lucienne Robillard was also a good minister of immigration.

Some of these areas that we are talking about today, like enforcement and regulations and the body that was formed, all came from committee work, all came from consultation.

I remember having the minister in my office in Scarborough Centre many years ago. The local communities expressed a lot of concerns. As a result, the independent consultant body was created. It remains in existence today.

The member for York West did a great job in her time as a minister of immigration. But the numbers were growing each year, the 1% that the member for Winnipeg Centre talked about. It is great to achieve. The member was also right that there is a lot of competition going on out there today in a lot of these countries.

I remember being at the European Parliament many years ago when it was talking about its difficulty in attracting skilled labour. We had a problem here in Canada just a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, Canada, maybe not as much as other countries, had experienced some difficult times. We could not get enough people, so we had to bring them in from Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries.

I have a policy in my office. I refrain from dealing with an immigration file that is in the hands of a lawyer or a consultant, because I too, along with many of my colleagues on the Liberal side, have heard of the abuse that goes on. We have heard about this over the past couple of days in debate. Let me give the House an example.

A person wants to bring in his wife and children and all of a sudden he is approached by some so-called immigration consultant, who comes to our offices and seeks information. Unfortunately, the applicant is ignorant, and I use that word in a good sense, meaning that he does not know that he can approach a member of Parliament and seek help.

We also heard earlier today about how our offices have become inundated with a lot of these files because these individuals reach out to us. We have an obligation as their representatives to address their concerns as best we can.

My colleague from Don Valley West told us about staff being tied up on these issues. All of a sudden they have to squeeze time here and there, maybe to address a pension issue, a disability issue, a passport issue, or whatever. If we are going to take on all of these responsibilities, and we have no objection to doing so, maybe we should be looking at the budgets of members of Parliament so that we can dedicate staff to address these concerns.

Our birth rate in Canada is not that high, and it is down in many other countries as well. If we are going to grow and sustain the social safety net that Canada is so recognized for, then we need immigration. We need input.

Let me get back for a moment to this board. That is my greatest concern in this piece of legislation.

When I read in the documents that this board would be reporting to the ministry and the minister, that caused a lot of concern for me, and I am sure many of my constituents and others felt the same way. The minister has every responsibility to try to bring forth legislation, send it to committee, have the members of the committee bring in witnesses, seek input and guidance, and work to fine-tune this legislation. Surely to God, the minister has no business having this board report to him. It should be totally independent and at arm's length. Should people have to compete to be selected to run this board? No.

Let me simplify it. Anybody who wants to work as an immigration consultant, which I do not think is the exclusive business of lawyers, should have the proper training, a proper course to go by. They should make themselves aware of the legislation, seek a proper licence from the ministry and the province, because it is a business. They would charge a fee for service according to specific guidelines, and then there would be a board to make sure that these guidelines are followed, to ensure that immigration consultants do not violate the rules that the ministry and the board set down.

The moment those rules are violated, these individuals should be penalized with stiff, enforceable sentences. The worst-case scenario is to yank their licences off the wall and shut them down, period. It would be a totally independent mechanism. That is how I suggest this system should operate.

When the member for Bourassa was the minister of immigration, he moved into that area and made a quantum leap forward. Almost every minister under a Liberal government, let me point out very proudly, moved this file forward in a positive manner. Never have I seen a perfect piece of legislation. We do the best we can today, and if something unfolds three or five years down the road, then we have to make adjustments. That is exactly what was happening under a Liberal administration.

When the cuts were made, I agreed with the member for Winnipeg Centre that trimming needed to be done, but I pointed out then, and I will point out again today, that the system was working better. Somehow it was working better.

What I found unacceptable, and I am sure my colleagues on the Liberal side would agree, is this: when a constituent said that he or she was having a family wedding, or that a family member had passed away, or that he or she had not seen a brother, a sister, or parents for a long time, and the constituent wanted to sponsor these people to come over for a holiday, the way these applications were being put in abroad and assessed was problematic.

Let me provide a scenario. Somebody from country A goes into one of our offices. The person is as nervous as can be, forgets maybe to add one word, and all of a sudden that person is denied. I believe the Immigration Act has to change to address the way our offices work abroad. Do the offices want to give members of Parliament a little more? Fine, they can set guidelines. Maybe they should take it totally away from us, but that is taking a service away that MPs get voted in to perform, namely, to serve their constituents.

I encourage the minister to look at how we can work with our offices abroad. I am sure the minister's intent in addressing this horrible situation is to address the abuse that has gone on throughout the years. I personally have heard horror stories and I will provide an example.

An Albanian mother and daughter some years ago approached me from St. Irene's, the church that my dad built, and my dad told me I had to help this family. They were not even in my riding, but they came to see me. The story I heard raised what little hair I had left.

This mother and daughter were working three jobs, day and night, cleaning, doing anything they could. They were using a lot of their earnings to pay a person who was like a paralegal, nothing wrong with the profession, but she portrayed herself as an immigration consultant. Meanwhile for four or five years it dragged on until, by God's will and some good fortune, they came to my office and we addressed their concern. It really was a simple issue. It was a matter of communication, getting paper documentation for them. Today, several years down the road, they are a happy family. They are working for themselves. They are contributing to our system and glad to say they are Canadian citizens. There are many other examples that I could talk about.

The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is a good idea. It is a body that could be empowered with more tools to oversee the enforcement of the legislation. That is as a result of input from a Liberal government. Was it the right thing? Maybe it was the right thing at the time. Maybe today, four or five years down the road, it needs to be changed. Circumstances have changed.

However, I do not believe a competition has to be put out, that a board has to be established that reports to the minister. Members and the audience will say I have said this twice, but I am saying it again because I see great danger in reporting to the minister. In essence, the minister would have absolute say, period. The minister could do anything he wanted. We know he can do anything he wants as a minister, but surely this is not transparent. The board should be able to work totally independently.

There was a comment made that lawyers should be looking after these immigration files, as they know better and there is technical data, and so on. With the greatest respect to the profession, I do not think that is the only way to go. An individual could approach a lawyer if he wished to, but if an immigration consultant is properly trained, then he or she should be able to do the work properly. If proper guidelines are set, then we as members of Parliament might feel much more comfortable in dealing with these people.

I know I speak on behalf of my colleagues on the Liberal side. We hesitate to deal with these so-called immigration consultants, primarily because of the horror stories that we have not only heard but also, in essence, experienced. It is not a matter of $100 or $500. It is thousands of dollars. It is shameful. It is unacceptable when these people come here wanting to start a new life and get taken for a ride. It is unacceptable when an individual in another country who wishes to immigrate to Canada walks into one of our offices and is not even given an interview. That is another area the minister has to look at. Sometimes a person cannot even get in the door of one of our offices or embassies and the application is turned down.

There are offices in our embassy in one specific country where the moment the applicant comes out the door the so-called consultant says the person will be given one-stop shopping, guaranteed. The person is promised a ticket and a visa for a fee. That is unacceptable. Those are some of the areas the minister also has to address.

In closing, on behalf of the Liberal Party and our critic, we will support sending the bill to committee. That is where a lot of good work will be done, where good input will be provided. We will bring in witnesses and seek their guidance, and at the end of the day we will come up with a piece of legislation that will help our country continue to grow and grow properly.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join the debate on Bill C-35 on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Winnipeg Centre. As a representative from that inner-city core area riding, I can say that the issue of immigration is top of mind and foremost on the minds of many of my constituents, as many are new Canadians or recent immigrants to this country and many still need settlement services and other immigration services whether they are sponsoring family members or seeking a visitor's visa for a family member to come to this country for a wedding, et cetera.

I want to begin on a comment by my colleague from Don Valley West who quite accurately pointed out, and I will paraphrase him, that the rise in the immigration consultant industry is directly proportionate to the deterioration of our immigration system and the services that people used to be able to get free of charge from their government. They are now increasingly frustrated with backlogs, bureaucracy and incomprehensible delays to the point where they more often than not, and more and more frequently, wind up at their MP's office seeking some kind of relief from what seems to be an incomprehensible immigration system. So I agree with my Liberal colleague that the reason we are wrestling with this matter today and the reason we have had such a burgeoning new industry of unscrupulous immigration consultants is because desperate people are taking desperate measures trying to get access to basic services that used to be quite accessible in this country.

We should begin our study of the bill with the knowledge that there has been a catastrophic failure in the immigration system, backlogs of years and years at a time. For a country that was built on immigration and seeks and relies on immigration for any growth whatsoever, we should take note that we were at zero population growth years ago. Without immigration we would be shrinking. I sat on the immigration committee when we did a study that projected where Canada would be without immigration. Within 50 years without immigration, if we just continued at our zero population growth, we would be 18 million people. In that same period of time, the city of Minneapolis would be 18 million people because its country is growing. So the whole population of Canada would be equal to the city of Minneapolis in the year 2050 without immigration. I share that only to illustrate the point of how vitally important it is.

In the province of Manitoba we have taken great measures to attract more immigration. I am happy to report that we are now up to 12,000 to 14,000 new immigrants per year in a province of 1,000,000 people. Almost all of them come to my riding first because my riding is the inner-city core area of Winnipeg where there is affordable housing, not great housing, frankly. There is a great problem with insufficient housing for these new arrivals, but it is where they start out. So an awful lot of them come to my office with their immigration problems.

I have declared publicly that my office is an immigration consultant-free zone. They are not allowed over the threshold of my office. I will not have them. I will not breathe the same air as them. I will not let my constituents be robbed by them. They will not get in my office. That is how fed up we are with them. I have stories, Mr. Speaker, that would curl your hair about some of the rip-offs associated with this.

I have had examples where an applicant seeking a simple visa was charged $3,000 on the promise that he would get a letter from the member of Parliament to assist his visa. This is what we learned after the fact. The guy was selling access to my office, and this is why I declared an absolute moratorium, a no-go zone. They are not welcome and not allowed in. But people are desperate. They are frustrated and vulnerable. There are all kinds of barriers, first of all, in terms of language or unfamiliarity with the culture, or inaccessibility to the bureaucracy.

In some places the exploitation takes place by members of their own communities who have those language skills and the misinformation begins there. However, the need for control and regulation is so blatantly paramount and obvious that I welcome Bill C-35 and its attempt to deal with crooked immigration consultants. I do not think that is the formal name of the bill, but the way we have it in our speaking notes is Bill C-35, an act to deal with crooked immigration consultants. I do not think that is overstating things at all. When the Minister of Immigration introduced the bill, he used words like loathsome, bottom feeders, reprehensible. I share those views and then some.

I travelled with a former minister of immigration to Hong Kong and Beijing and to some of the foreign missions, the Canadian foreign embassies that deal with great volumes of immigration. Part of the problem with the illegal or crooked immigration consultants is abroad where hopefuls line up at those foreign missions.

I talked about the problem with access, the waiting lists and the backlog. There are people who sleep night after night in front of our immigration offices at foreign missions just to get in the door to get the paperwork necessary to apply for some access to our country. The need and the demand far outstrips our legitimate ability to cope with it.

I am not saying that coming to Canada is a right, that everyone should have instant access to come here. I am saying our intake process is so flawed and in some way, sometimes, and I am not saying this to cast aspersions on the staff of our foreign missions, the intake process at that end is corrupted and is vulnerable to foreign consultants operating in those countries. We know it for a fact. We have seen the billboards in the Philippines, “We can get you into Canada”. Even the Government of Canada trademark logo is abused. It is advertised in this way, “For a nominal fee, we can get you into Canada”, and the Government of Canada's logo is at the bottom of the billboard. It is not put there by the Government of Canada. The phone number is some immigration consultant who will probably sell a person a pile of documents that other people can access free of charge, online or by coming down to the Canadian Embassy or High Commission.

That is the extent of the problem. It cannot be underestimated, but it does compromise and, I think in a way, calls into question the legitimacy of our immigration system if a significant proportion of applicants get access to the documents or get access to visitors visas or whatever, using what I believe is a corrupt process, and that is the fraudulent measures which many of these immigration consultants employ.

I note there is a bunch of recommendations from the immigration committee when it studied this issue. I have to point out that there are great gaps in between what was recommended by the all parliamentary committee and the measures the government has chosen to put into Bill C-35. I am sure some of those shortcomings will be addressed when the bill gets to committee. I am sure the opposition parties at least will make note that recommendation 4, for instance, of the report is not found in Bill C-35. I am not pointing this out as criticism, even. I look forward to perhaps amending the bill so it does satisfy some of the legitimate concerns that were raised by all parties at the committee process.

MPs offices have become de facto immigration offices. Every speaker that has stood has talked about the full time staffers that they have in their offices who do nothing but deal with immigration problems. We have immigration clinics on Mondays and Wednesdays when the office is just full of people.

The waves of immigration coming to my part of Canada now are coming from parts of the world where language is a problem and cultural barriers are a huge problem. Most of the new arrivals now are coming from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, war-torn countries that are not stable. They are not used to dealing with a normal bureaucracy and they do not have, frankly, the skills, the training or the tools.

Part of what needs to be addressed, in the context of trying to stamp out crooked immigration consultants, is to deal with the root cause of the problem, which is people without the requisite skills getting access to the bureaucracy and a bureaucracy that is unnecessarily complex and in some sense virtually broken.

A lot more could be spent on settlement services and helping new arrivals cope with the bureaucracy through guidance, through language training and through better access to advocates. I know the Refugee Council of Canada is swamped with work. It simply cannot give adequate representation of advocacy for all the people who come in.

On that subject, let me point out that we are very concerned about the way the new arrivals on the boat full of Tamil refugees are being treated. The government seems to be sniffing around and contemplating the idea that people who arrive as a group should be treated differently somehow from people who arrive as individuals. I put it to my colleagues from the Conservative Party, it is a slippery slope to apply the rights of the refugee and immigration act differently to people just because they arrived en masse. Each should be treated as if they set foot on Canadian shores as individuals. That is not exactly in keeping will Bill C-35, but it is along the same lines.

The shortcomings of the immigration system are also clearly illustrated in western Canada. We consider Winnipeg to be part of western Canada, notwithstanding the CFL has us lumped in the eastern conference. We are bitter about this, but I will not dwell on it here today.

However, labour brokers are second only to the immigration consultants, and some of them do both. These labour brokers, who are undermining the entire construction industry of western Canada, are often labour consultants, as well, who charge a fee and then get temporary foreign workers.

This is where the current government of the day is at fault. These temporary foreign worker permits are given away like free baubles with a purchase of gas to where crooked labour brokers, who are immigration consultants at the same time. They go to genuine contractors and tell them that they do not have to pay $30 an hour for a labourer because they have 30 guys on temporary foreign worker permits. They tell them to lay off all their Canadian workers and they will put temporary foreign workers on the job, which will save them a fortune because the workers will not give them any trouble. If they do, they will be kicked out of the country.

This is epidemic across western Canada and it is undermining the entire construction industry. We have non-union contractors complaining en masse. I meet with those contractors and they complain to me that they are being destabilized.

I would welcome the opportunity to share the facts I have with the parliamentary secretary because he would be shocked at what is happening all across western Canada with these labour brokers.

We just built the Winnipeg international airport. Where did the tradesmen came from? Lebanon. The last job they had was in Latvia. The whole kit and caboodle of them were packed up by the same labour broker who got temporary foreign worker permits to bring them to Winnipeg to build the new Winnipeg international airport, while 100 unemployed carpenters were shaking the fence, trying to get in because they were unemployed. People would not believe what is going on out there. The parliamentary secretary could use a tour through some of those problem areas, too.

We have to crack down on a lot of these aspects of a broken immigration system. It may have been a good idea to fill legitimate job shortages with temporary foreign workers three and four years ago, when there was a surplus of work. We are in the middle of a recession and we are still bringing in 50,000 temporary foreign workers who take legitimate jobs away from Canadians, and these are not immigrants. These are foreign nationals who leave the country with those pay cheques. How does that benefit anybody? It is madness and it goes hand in glove with the immigration consultants who are milking the system by charging vulnerable people exorbitant amounts of money for services that should be readily available to them through a well functioning bureaucracy.

Not all people helping immigrants are charlatans. We should start from that basic premise as well. There are legitimate consultants and immigration lawyers who are serving a valuable function within the system, but they too will tell us that the system is not what it used to be.

We have never achieved our immigration goals of 1% of the population per year. The closest we ever came was in the Brian Mulroney years, when we let in 220,000 or 230,000. We are close to that level today. There is a myth that in the grand old days of the Liberal government, more people were let in. In actual fact, in many of the Trudeau years, 90,000 or 100,000 a year was the norm. I do not know where this myth came from, that it was the Liberals who threw open the doors to Canada. In the Mulroney years, more were let in, and we have only just come to that level once or twice in recent years. We are still nowhere near the 1% per year that has been set as a realistic target of we can absorb and what we need. That would be about 300,000 per year.

We are the lucky ones when people choose to come to our country. There is competition around the world for immigrants and for economic migrants, et cetera. We are out there actively trying to attract people to come to Canada. That is the stated policy, but our actions seem to contradict our own stated policy because we throw up hurdles and barriers to the point where people are frustrated and stymied. People who are qualified and would make legitimate immigrants look at their options around the world. They look at what it takes to move to Canada, to Australia and to the United States. Not all of them choose Canada because it is difficult to move here.

I recently helped a nurse specialist move here from Australia. She was trained in New Zealand. We need these advanced practice nurses in our country. It took 18 months, and that was after the job offer. We really do have problems to the point where it is no wonder people will look to anyone who can provide them with assistance to try to get through the quagmire of the bureaucracy of our immigration system.

I remember when we were at the Canadian embassy in China. We were in Fuzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. They showed us some of the clever forgeries on immigration documents. They can reproduce almost anything and these forged documents are often what are selling for a premium price in terms of getting access to Canada.

I do not think we catch them all. There is more work we could do to enforce the system. I am not suggesting making it more difficult, because it is difficult enough as it is. However, there are checks and balances that we are leaving unchecked and unbalanced in terms of legitimate, honest people trying to get in and also the fraudulent examples that are being coached and guided by these expensive immigration consultants operating at home and abroad.

While we are busy working to fix the system, the one thing we could do is provide more assistance in our immigration offices in our country and take some of the burden and pressure off MPs offices. It is not really our jobs as members of Parliament to run an immigration office, yet that is what many of us end up doing about two-thirds of our time. Granted, we help a lot of nice people weave their way through the quagmire.

The way the Liberals balanced the budget in the 1990s and the early 2000s was by cutting and hacking and slashing the civil service by 30%. First one trims the fat, but when the fat is already trimmed, some cuts do not heal. Some of these cuts have not healed. The government cannot cut the civil service by 30%, increase its volume of work by 30%, and then not have something fall apart and break.

What happened here was that the government left a gaping hole in service in that immigration department. That void, that vacuum, is being filled by an unscrupulous mini-industry of immigration consultants.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his input into this process and also his confirmation that in fact his party will be in support of getting the bill to committee to obviously look into some of the issues that he has identified today, but I am a little unsure about his concern, at least at this point, with respect to his point about statutory.

The way it exists now is not nearly how it is going to exist after Bill C-35 is passed in terms of the regulatory board, so I am a little unsure as to what his concern is with respect to statutory, because this will be a board that obviously reports directly to the ministry and to the minister and will be given authority to do so. It will be given authority to actually regulate the industry and its position will become permanent based on that organization applying to the ministry, and a number of organizations obviously will. The organization chosen to be the overseer will in fact become the regulatory body.

So I am not quite sure what his concern is, but I would suggest that it certainly is something the committee will be studying once we get the bill through second reading and get it to committee.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak today to Bill C-35, a bill which I prefer to call an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a more formal name than that which it has been given by the minister. Even though I think part of the bill is meant to be a cracking down on crooked consultants, the bill actually has more than that purpose.

I want to discuss for a few moments today some of the important concerns that I have regarding the bill.

I understand that our caucus will be supporting the bill at second reading so we will have a chance to amend it and improve it at committee. I hope we can take seriously the considerations of all members, including those members from Quebec who have some jurisdictional concerns. Other concerns have been raised regarding the resources that are required to make these particular amendments effective.

It would seem to me that the bill needs to deal with two particular problems. One is the consumer protection portion of the bill with all of the concerns that everyone in the House knows about, which are immigrants, potential immigrants and people seeking help with the department being abused by scoundrels in the business who are much less than honourable.

The danger there is not only the effect that has on potential immigrants or those with immigration questions, but also on bona fide, excellent consultants who are doing their work honourably and effectively and are being tarnished with the same brush. Therefore, there is that concern around the consumer protection issue of this.

There are also concerns around the governance issues that we have seen over the last number of years since the institution of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. I do not think I am the only member who has been approached by individual consultants as well as members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants in a formal way to express concerns about the procedures, transparency and governance issues by the society itself.

I am hoping that we can address that. The concern I have is the reluctance of the government to actually put in a statutory, regulatory body that has teeth, resources and effectiveness in doing this regulatory work.

I come at that from my experience as a member of a regulatory body at the provincial level and that was as a member of the Board of Funeral Services in the Ontario jurisdiction. That body was responsible for the licensing of funeral establishments as well as the licensing of professionals. It was one of the many professional boards that was a regulatory body for an independent profession.

I am hoping the government can look at ways that we can apply some of what has been learned from some of the provincial bodies to this federal body.

I have searched for other examples of professional bodies at the federal level that are regulated federally and I could not find any. Perhaps I will get some help on that because I have just started that search to see if there are any precedents. Failing that, however, I looked at the provincial precedent and it seems to me that a provincial regulatory body has several things that it needs to do. It licenses and certifies professionals and ensures their training is adequate. It maintains that training regime by having continuing education requirements and opportunities. It licenses the establishments or the businesses that may employ those licensed professionals. It provides public education for consumers to know their rights to ensure that they are actually involved in the process. It also has a rigorous complaints process as well as a disciplinary process that is effective and has some teeth to it so that consumers know they can make a complaint and have it actually acted upon by that professional body.

Those are statutory bodies. They are not merely dreamt up by the minister and accountable to the minister. They are arm's length, functional, regulatory bodies that are meant to ensure that we have consumer protection and we have professionals who are acting in the best interest of all Canadians and potential new Canadians.

My concern is that this bill will not be as arm's length because it is a creation of the minister as opposed to a statute. I think that has some concern for us in the ongoing way that this will unfold.

When we look at the issue, it seems to me that we have been hearing these concerns for a number of years. I will take as much blame as I need to from this side of the House for not having effectively established a body that was meant to regulate this profession. However, we have learned. The current board has improved somewhat but I am still concerned that it does not have an arm's length relationship with the training board, the Canadian Migration Institute, and that has implications with respect to the same people who are on the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, which is the regulatory body.

This is a small profession with somewhere between 1,800 to 6,000 professional consultants working on immigration procedures. While that may sound like a lot, it is not a large body to actually ensure that the training opportunities are there and that they are kept current. The department will need to provide some more resources to ensure that our consultants are part of the public good. That is missing in this legislation. The very training and licensing functions need to be absolutely clarified in the legislation to have an expectation, as well as the membership of this body.

I am also concerned about the way the government is proposing we establish this board. Normally a board would be established by statute with a certain number of members who are part of the profession and then some members from the public. I was a public member of the funeral board in Ontario. The majority were actually licensed members of the profession with a smaller number being interested, hopefully competent members of the public, to ensure that the public interest was broadly defined. That is also missing in this legislation.

It seems to me that the government is kind of privatizing this by issuing out a request for people to bid on becoming the regulatory body. This is unprecedented for me. I do not understand why the government would put out a request for proposals, privatizing a regulatory function, and opening it up to the most successful bidder, including one that people already have concerns about, which is the existing body. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could answer this for me because I have concerns about understanding how that is done. It would seem to me that this should be a statutory body with a clear mandate from the Parliament of Canada, arm's length from the government, with a relationship with the department for transparency. Members of that board should be appointed by order in council. That would be my desire for this as part of a regulatory body.

The hon. members of the Bloc Québécois have offered some concerns about jurisdictional issues. That would also be a concern to me because other provinces are beginning to have more involvement in the immigration selection process and therefore we will need to be concerned about how the provinces are regulating the profession as well.

Underneath some of this concern is not only unscrupulous consultants. They are a concern and we know about them. It is not only governance on the current board and transparency and accountability to the members of the association for the betterment of consumer protection, but also a basic understanding that some of these consultants are finding work because the department is failing in its job.

Those of us who have large multicultural ridings know that half our work in our constituency offices is related to immigration procedures. Actually, we have underpaid immigration consultants working in our offices, and that is a great concern for me.

The great concern for me is that the system is broken, it is not working. We have queues of up to seven years. People are applying for citizenship and they are not getting hearings in our high commissions and our embassies around the world because our embassies and high commissions are understaffed. The department is understaffed with officials to review cases. We have backlogs with respect to security issues, which we want to have done effectively. We want immigrants coming to Canada to have been cleared for security reasons. We obviously want them to be effective in the workforce and to be part of the Canadian mosaic. That is the goal of our immigration system.

However, as long as we have procedures that are not effective, inefficient and keep people waiting a long time, we are creating a market for immigration consultants that perhaps should not be there. If there is that market, then we want it to be a regulated profession with an arm's length, effective body with the resources in it to ensure that the Canadian consumer, the potential Canadian immigrant, is well served, is effective and will be part of a Canadian society for which we can be proud.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to speak to Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act.

I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote to send Bill C-35 to committee for further study. Our party has decided to give the bill a chance, to see if we can improve it in committee. Those watching us at home are trying to understand how the House of Commons and its committees work. We now have the opportunity to explain that the bills introduced here can always be improved in committee. After we hear from witnesses and examine the evidence they have given, we can propose amendments to the bill, which are voted on by the committee members and then reported back to the House of Commons.

We have noted that too many immigration consultants have been acting fraudulently and getting away with it. After all these years, the federal government still has not managed to effectively regulate this area. The failure of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is irrefutable proof of that.

We believe that the committee should examine the issue to determine whether a new regulatory body is needed, one that is better monitored and can crack down harder on corrupt consultants who provide services related to federal immigration programs.

Since the regulating of professions falls under Quebec and provincial jurisdictions, the Bloc Québécois is worried that a federal act to create and establish an organization to regulate immigration consultants will interfere in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. This is important. Every day, Bloc Québécois members, who have been elected by the people of Quebec, proudly stand up in this House to defend the interests and values of Quebeckers. An example of those values is respect for our jurisdictions. How professions are regulated is a matter of provincial jurisdiction. The Bloc Québécois will make sure that the government understands this in committee.

The Quebec government demonstrated its jurisdictional authority by passing a regulation concerning immigration consultants. This regulation will come into effect on November 4, 2010. Quebec is often at the forefront of numerous initiatives that are then borrowed by other Canadian provinces. We have always said that when Quebec is its own country—and we hope that will happen sooner rather than later—it will have good neighbours and good relationships with those neighbours. It will continue to create exemplary legislation, as it is doing now, that can be emulated by Canada.

We hope that the Government of Canada will learn from the Government of Quebec. To do this, the federal government must recognize Quebec's jurisdiction as well as that of the provinces so that it is clear that crooked immigration consultants will be replaced by a professional body. This body will then be regulated by Quebec since this falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.

On June 9, 2008, the Bloc Québécois convinced the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to pass a recommendation that Quebec immigration consultants be officially recognized under Quebec laws instead of being forced to join the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

The Bloc Québécois is always true to itself. Our excellent critic, the member for Jeanne-Le Ber, did a wonderful job making the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration understand that it is important that the Canadian government officially recognize Quebec's immigration consultants, who will be governed by a regulation as of November 4, 2010.

Even though Bill C-35 would better regulate consultants who deal with immigration matters that come under federal jurisdiction, the Bloc Québécois has serious concerns about the power the minister is giving himself to be able to designate a regulatory body in federal legislation. Overlapping jurisdictions never works well, needless to say.

This was particularly evident in recent months, even for over a year. The federal government decided to interfere in the securities market by establishing a national securities commission. And yet Quebec has its own securities commission as do the other provinces. The Canadian system was recognized for having weathered the recent economic crisis—a financial crisis that hit stock exchanges around the world— better than others.

Naturally, it is still rather difficult to understand that, once again, the federal government wants to replace something that works with a centralized, national body even though the effectiveness of the Canadian system has been acknowledged internationally. The passport system allowed every province, Quebec as well as the other provinces, to have their own securities commissions. This provided security during the stock exchange crisis.

Even though the Minister of Finance is practically hoarse from ranting that it is a voluntary system, he knows very well that corporations will be encouraged directly to join the Canada-wide system.

The federal government is always trying to chip away at the powers of Quebec and the provinces. That is fine if it does not bother the provinces; however, we notice that Alberta also has a great deal of difficulty with this. It seems to want to stand its ground, which seldom happens. It usually bows down to the federal government. However, in this case, Alberta seems to want to oppose the national securities commission.

Once again the Bloc Québécois will be vigilant. Above all it does not want Bill C-35, the so-called Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, to infringe on provincial jurisdictions. In fact, as I was saying earlier, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is a dismal failure. Clearly, Quebec and the provinces should be allowed to provide good, effective oversight of immigration consultants.

What is more, our party is of the opinion that there should be closer consideration of the committee aspect. Our concern is that Bill C-35 would require information to be communicated between members of the Barreau du Québec or the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the federal government. We have to take a closer look at this aspect of the bill in order to ensure that it does not conflict with Quebec's laws and to maintain the integrity of the Barreau du Québec and the Chambre des notaires du Québec.

As a notary by training, I can provide a little lesson in law. As hon. members know, in Quebec notaries are jurists who specialize in the contractual aspect of business and individual relationships. That is the objective. The Civil Code of Quebec is based on the Napoleonic code. That is a particularity of Quebec. I am always surprised to see colleagues who are notaries with a federalist bent, when the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the notary profession are a true reflection of this diversity, this difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada. We are the only province to have a chamber of notaries and notarial training. This training is obviously French-based. Notaries are highly respected professionals in France. Again, because the Civil Code of Quebec stems from the Napoleonic code, the notary profession is a direct link to these ancestral laws that Quebec held onto, which is not what happened in the rest of Canada. The rest of Canada has the common law, while Quebec has the civil code.

If it is decided that the Barreau du Québec and the Chambre des notaires du Québec are to report to the federal government, we must ensure that Quebec's rights and jurisdictions are respected. That is the objective. As for the Chambre des notaires du Québec, we all agree that the federal government has no knowledge of or jurisdiction in the matter.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the federal government encroaching on Quebec's jurisdiction in any way. It will ensure that Bill C-35 does not give the minister any power he is not entitled to.

We are talking about immigration consultants. One interesting way of reducing the number of crooked consultants would be to transfer part of these powers to Quebec lawyers or notaries or to lawyers in the rest of Canada who are regulated by professional codes.

If we consider what is happening the field of law, there are a few lawyers and notaries who have been caught. However, since there is a process to follow and an established structure, they were disbarred and can no longer practice. That is not the case with the federal structure, which is why the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, which was somewhat regulated, was a failure. It was not a recognized profession.

There needs to be a new way of training consultants. They should report to the Chambre des notaires du Québec, the Barreau du Québec or other provincial bars. It would be an interesting path to take.

These professions are governed by Quebec's professional code. Members of the Chambre des notaires du Québec and the Barreau du Québec are governed by Quebec's professional code. We have to make sure that any new power granted to a professional association respects Quebec's jurisdiction and that of the provinces.

I would like to go over some background to Bill C-35. On June 8, 2010, the government introduced Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I will give an overview of the bill now.

The minister will be able to designate a governing body to regulate and oversee consultants' activities; this organization will replace the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

Only consultants approved by this body or members of a provincial bar or the Chambre des notaires du Québec will be allowed to charge fees for immigration advice, with some exceptions: students-at-law acting under the supervision of a member and entities and persons acting on their own behalf in accordance with an agreement with the government, such as visa application centres and other service providers.

All individuals who “knowingly represent or advise a person for consideration—or offer to do so—in connection with a proceeding or application under this Act” are guilty of a criminal offence punishable by two years in prison, a $50,000 fine or both. This offence already exists in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Consultants have to be recognized by an organization. If they knowingly advise people, they will be committing a criminal offence.

The law provides for information exchange between different levels of government. The designated organization will have to supply information set out in regulations to allow the minister to determine whether the organization governs its members in the public interest.

Regulations will govern information sharing by enabling the department to disclose professional or ethical information about members of provincial bar associations to the designated organization or to the person responsible for investigating a consultant's conduct.

We must ensure that discussions between the federal government and the members of the Barreau du Québec and the Chambre des notaires du Québec respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces at all times.

On August 30, 2010, the government published a call for submissions from applicants interested in becoming the regulatory body for immigration consultants.

I should point out that in this bill to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the provisions apply to persons who are the subject of proceedings or applications pertaining to immigration and refugee matters, not citizenship matters. The Citizenship Act does not provide for the same regulatory powers as the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. However, Bill C-37, introduced last spring, would provide regulations, in particular, by increasing penalties for consultants who fraudulently help individuals obtain citizenship.

Bill C-35 and Bill C-37 amend different acts.

In short, Bill-35 expands the range of activities governed by the act. In current federal regulations, the government can only take action when the application is submitted or at the beginning of a proceeding. Under Bill-35, the authorized representative commits an offence if he represents or advises a person for consideration in connection with a proceeding or application under that act, or offers to do so. This addition would make it possible to regulate—and punish, if an offence occurs—all forms of representation and advice at any stage, including that provided by unauthorized consultants, who might be involved before an immigration application is submitted.

All those who solicit work, that is crooked consultants, ask for payment in return for helping people with immigration proceedings.

We have seen some abuses—and the media have certainly jumped on them. Some people have been swindled out of a lot of money, sometimes the only savings they had, when seeking permission to immigrate to Quebec and Canada. I believe we must intervene.

The Bloc Quebecois wants to point out that Quebec also has powers in the area of immigration. All we want is for Quebec and provincial jurisdictions to be respected. Earlier I gave the example of securities commissions. The government wants to centralize exclusively provincial powers into a Canada-wide federal organization. That is what is going on with securities. Yet that system is what got us through the crisis. The Prime Minister keeps telling us over and over again that Canada has come out of the crisis exceptionally well, better than any other country in the world, as we heard again today in question period. It is not necessarily thanks to the Conservatives. It was a financial crisis, primarily a stock market crisis. It was thanks to our financial system and the fact that our banks were not allowed to merge.

I was one of those who opposed the Canadian bank mergers, so that they could not turn around and acquire American banks and contaminate all of the investments made by our citizens. That is one of the reasons we were able to get through this crisis relatively well. Furthermore, the stock market system allowed each province to have its own securities commission. When we have 10 such bodies, we can monitor things better than if we have only one. However, it is difficult, because the federal government is always trying to take powers away from the provinces. We will ensure that Bill C-35 does not have this unfortunate tendency to take power from Quebec and the provinces, in this case concerning immigration, and in particular, power over crooked consultants. Quebec is ready to take charge in this important area, since we already have legislation that is about to come into force on November 4, 2010. If all other Canadian provinces were to do the same, all of our immigrants would be better protected.

The House resumed from September 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to engage in this particular debate.

I want to pay tribute, first of all, to all those members of Parliament who have already intervened. Some of them were critics of mine when I was the minister of immigration. I know that the current Minister of Immigrationwill relish the thought of having a former minister make some submissions. He will probably say that nothing has changed.

However, people have made some pretty insightful suggestions. The people who come to mind, of course, are the member for Laval—Les Îles, the member for Burnaby—Douglas, who just spoke, the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges, who has yet to speak but who was an ardent critic of mine and of immigration, and of course, all other members of the Liberal Party who used to be the greatest critics of the system and the substance of the system, as we have gone through. I doubt that there is another topic, another department, that has more experts in this House than this one.

I am going to add my voice, humble though it may be, on this issue, simply because I agree with the member for Papineau, our critic on this matter, that the bill should go forward to committee, where it will get the appropriate scrutiny from all those people who have a wealth of experience and expertise. That will give the Canadian public a feeling of comfort that what they are getting is a bill that has really received the scrutiny of this House and Parliament.

I know that the Minister of Immigration has counted on the support of members of Parliament from the official opposition to get some of his issues through the House, and I know that he looks forward to continuing that kind of relationship. I am sure that other members on this side of the House will be only too happy to collaborate in a fashion that will produce a desired outcome.

Many of us here have a tendency to be academic or expert on some things, because that is the way we are in this House. We stand here and we pontificate on things.

I would like to give members a bit of a human element.

I have a young grandson. He is probably watching right now. If he is, I want to be able to point to him. I do not know if he is or not. That little boy, who is going to turn five tomorrow—his name is Stefano—had the good fortune of having, and still has, four grandparents who were born abroad. Each and every one of those four had the kind of difficulties we constantly debate in this House with respect to immigration. Their issues were, and continue to be for those who are like them, issues not of process but of substance. They want to know that the current government, the Government of Canada, actually seeks them out and wants them to come here.

Stefano and his brother--I think they are watching this right now; I hope they are, because I want to say happy birthday to Stefano--have the good fortune of having grandparents who had the good fortune of being able to come to this country to be part of the building of everybody's dream. That is what immigration is. It is not a process. It is about the realization of an ambition and a dream that individuals and their families have for fashioning a future not just for themselves but in co-operation with and in collaboration with a collective in another place, a place that they will turn into their home. Canada has become a home for so many people from so many other places.

I am one of them. I had the good fortune of having parents who had the wisdom to move. They wanted to move. It was a challenge for them. They had to deal with consultants. I did not know. They did not call them consultants then. It was just somebody who gave them a hand who said , “If you go to the Canadian Embassy, you might be able to go to Canada, because they want people. They want people who are going to build Canada. They want people who want to become part of a country that is going to be something more than what we have here, no matter where 'here' is.” Along the way, there were people who took advantage of their desire to have a better life for them and their kids.

We do not want people to take advantage of those who want to come and build this country. The reason we do not want that is not because we have compassion for people in need. It is not because we feel sorry for those who are victims of the unscrupulous. It is not because we think it is wrong for someone to take advantage of another. It is because we think that is inconsistent with those values that make us Canadian.

We do not want people's first experience with this country to be one where they come into contact with those who profess to be expert on how to enter this country and make those people pay dearly to come here.

We do not want our offices to turn into nothing more than processing centres for those who would sell expertise whether real or not as the one expression of Canada that they must then overcome when they come here.

I said a few moments ago that I agree with my colleagues that the bill should go forward and let the committee deal with this. I know that the minister will be happy to hear this.

However, I look at the bill and we have now had four and a half years of a government, some of whose members had become the same kind of experts that I talked about a moment ago. If there was a problem in the process, we have had this amount of time to actually deal with correcting the measures in process. This House cannot simply be one that is dedicated to process. This House has to be representative of the collective ambition of the Canadian public for its country.

For all those who were born here or who came here, we used to call them naturalized Canadians, we have evolved. We do not call them that any more. For all those who were born Canadians and those who have become Canadians, they are all part of that collective ambition that wants a place in the world in which all Canadians can feel they have a portion, a stake, a share in the country that everybody would like to emulate or be a part of.

We need to discuss in this House what that immigration plan is for Canada, how it fits in with the industrial strategy, the social strategy, the political strategy of a country that is evolving, that is developing, that is still becoming. It is not just being. It is not just there. Every day brings a new challenge. Every day brings a new goal. Every day brings a new struggle for people to identify with, to overcome and then to reap the satisfactions associated with saying that we have accomplished something for ourselves and with and for our neighbours.

The bill says that we are going to take care of those people who abuse the system by giving bad advice.

It seems to me that a former minister, the Hon. Elinor Caplan, used to be criticized a lot by her own caucus colleagues when we were on that side of the House some 12 years ago. She talked about this precise matter. She said, “We have to stop those snakeheads, those human smugglers from abusing people abroad and from abusing relatives of those people here in Canada. I am going to travel abroad. I am going to go to Beijing”. That was becoming a big source area for many of our immigrants. She said, “I am going to go to other places, like India and the Philippines, because that is where most of the people are coming from. I am going to see if I can get the co-operation of those governments in order to pursue those who are so unscrupulous that they would take advantage of their people”.

Keep in mind this is about taking advantage of people who would become part of Canada but who are not yet a part of Canada. This is about dealing with people who would try to abuse or take undue advantage of a Canadian system in order to abuse people who are outside our borders even more.

I noted that the minister agreed with that, in essence, in response to a question from my colleague from Laval—Les Îles. He said that we have to co-operate with foreign authorities in order to pursue and prosecute those who take undue advantage of others, even if it appears to be more acceptable in other places than it does here, because, of course, we have the rule of law. It is one of the values that draws people to this place. In other places that particular value is less ingrained and so people work within different parameters.

We say we are going to get rid of unscrupulous consultants. Some of my predecessors and some of the current minister's predecessors tried the same thing. One of the measures undertaken at the time was to provide educational material to those who would have become consultants, in other words, have them work with the department and the legal societies in order to come up with a body of expertise that would be acceptable to our functionaries abroad and in Canada.

We even went so far as to give them their own regulatory authority. Do you know what that means, Mr. Speaker? I know you relish this sort of thing. What happens is governments say that they have to put together an organization, but people are mature enough, educated enough and responsible enough to make the decisions to make that organization function properly, in other words, for their members but also for the people that they would serve.

Why do we say that? We say that because there is a basic principle of law in all western societies that is called caveat emptor, buyer beware. But we try to make sure that all the vendors adhere to a particular policy, a particular set of standards that make us proud but reinforce as well all of the values that we build as a society as we invite more and more people, like Stefano's grandparents, to come to this country and to build it. That is what we do.

We established a set of laws to make sure that nobody contravenes Canadian legislation, but we give them regulatory authority so that they can govern themselves. That is what they wanted and that is what we gave them. We worked with them.

The law societies, of course, were not completely sure that they wanted to have the consultants in place. However, there is a fine line between accepting the criticism as valid from one group against the other. It must be recognized there is a competitive spirit between the two of them. What they need to do is look at that market. I think last year some 230,000 people were given their permanent residency to this country and there were tens of thousands more who had to go to those people for the expertise to develop their applications for other types of visas. One can understand there is a commercial issue here.

I listened to the debate this morning on Bill C-17. I listened to it yesterday as well. There are those who are still following the debate. I see there are some very hardy folks in the gallery and my compliments to them for trying to fashion out what it is that parliamentarians do when they talk about building laws that fashion this country and give us a Canadian identity. My compliments to them for spending at least a few minutes to hear what it is that we have to say.

Bill C-17 talked about building a new regulatory framework in order to make sure that we could fight off the terrorists that we see everywhere. As one member of the NDP from Vancouver indicated, it was in essence beginning to limit the civil liberties in order to fight off the perceived evil that is out there. The Minister of Justice said yesterday that it was not all that bad because it is the law the Liberals had when they were in government after 9/11 and which lapsed in 2007.

If one wants to accept there was a crisis that created a need for legislation, that crisis must have lapsed by 2007 because there was a sunset clause built into the bill. It is now three years later. One is tempted to ask what the crisis is. The crisis is that the government needed to give an impression that notwithstanding all the other economic and social difficulties in this country, its priority would be the creation of a psychological environment that says we are under threat and these tough guys are going to put in legislation that lapsed some three years ago.

It might offend some people who think that civil liberties should be maintained, but after the $1.2 billion boondoggle at the G20 summit and the turning of Toronto into an armed fortress for the sake of a 72 hour photo op, the Canadian public is right to be skeptical about whether this is the message to have.

Some might ask what that has to do with this bill. For those people who are still watching, they should think about what the bill says. It is no longer about the process that I talked about a moment ago. This is Bill C-35, which means there has only been 34 other bills presented since the government got elected in 2008. Imagine that. For all of that time we have been dealing with legislation that did not come from the government. Where is the government's vision of Canada? However, the title of the bill is the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

What are we doing now? We are trying to consolidate all of the issues associated with process under the direction of the Minister of Immigration .

I know that the minister's heart is in the right place when he wants to talk about reforming the entire system, but please, this sort of thing makes it absolutely difficult to take the government's initiative all that seriously. It brings all of those functionaries who are outside the bureaucracy into an ambience where they are responsible to the Minister of Immigration for the kind of livelihood they earn. What is even worse is it tells everybody they represent that the ultimate person, the ultimate individual that controls what happens with their applications is actually the Minister of Immigration.

How can we have any kind of confidence in the independence of representation when everything they do is dependent upon the Minister of Immigration? That is like going to a different set of bureaucrats. That is a little like asking CRA officials to authorize who will fill out our income tax forms, and if we want to do it ourselves, we really cannot.

We need to make the process more fine tuned. But the biggest issue here, and I hope that my colleagues will keep this in mind, is what is it that the government of the day proposes for immigration other than nipping and tucking at some of the processes and procedures that have already been nipped and tucked to death?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or, as the refugees from the Hallmark greeting card operation that are in the Conservative caucus call it , the cracking down on crooked consultants act. I do not know where these snappy titles come from but I think the minister is taking direct responsibility for that. It is good to know that the minister has other job opportunities waiting for him should this one not work out.

However, it is important legislation and it is something for which many people in my constituency of Burnaby—Douglas have been hoping for a long time, that government would take the issue of the service that Canadians get from immigration consultants and the service that prospective Canadians get from immigration consultants seriously. There have been very many problems with this over a long period of time, so it is good that there is finally a specific proposal on the agenda as far as that proposal goes.

The bill would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to change the manner of regulating third parties and immigration processes. Among other things, it would create a new offence by extending the prohibition against representing or advising persons for consideration for pay or offering to do so to all stages in connection with the proceeding or application under the act, including before a proceeding has been commenced or an application has been made.

The bill also would exempt from this prohibition members of a provincial bar or the Chambre Des Notaires Du Québec and students at law acting under their supervision. It would exempt member of a body designated by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and it would exempt entities and persons acting on the entities behalf acting in accordance with an agreement or arrangement with Her Majesty in right of Canada.

The bill would also give the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism the power to make transitional regulations in relation to the designation of a body to regulate the process of immigration consultants, to regulate immigration consultants, which is a very important piece of this legislation.

That is more the sort of legal language. The government has proposed that all advice supplied for a fee be provided by an authorized immigration representative. This individual would have to be either a member in good standing of a provincial or territorial law association or the body governing immigration consultants.

Unpaid third parties, as the government points out, such as family members and friends, would still be allowed to act on behalf of an applicant. Furthermore, under the new rules there would be exceptions for certain groups, for example, visa application centres and other service providers, when acting in accordance with an agreement arrangement with the Government of Canada.

The legislation would also provide the minister with the power by regulation to designate a body to govern immigration consultants. Also under these amendments, the onus would be on the current body governing immigration consultants to provide key information to assist in the minister's evaluation of whether the body is governing its members in the public interest and whether consultants are providing representation and advice in a professional and ethical manner.

There is an attempt to clean up loopholes in the system and to establish a new governing body or an effective governing body for immigration consultants in Canada.

When the government announced these measures, it also announced some non-legislative measures. We have heard from the minister again about those. The government has talked about strengthening public awareness, including raising awareness of the risks of engaging a crooked consultant and updating websites in Canada and abroad to carry warning messages for potential immigrants and various service improvement. Web based tools and videos are also being developed by CIC to make it easier for applicants to independently apply to immigrate to Canada.

The minister has also pointed out and reiterated again today the effort to co-operate with foreign governments to address the issues of fraud that happen not on Canadian soil but in countries, as the minister has indicated, like China, India and the Philippines, and to engage police authorities there to crack down on fraudulent activities by consultants operating in those countries. This is a very important aspect of it and I hope the government puts the appropriate resources toward ensuring co-operation between regulatory bodies and various police agencies to ensure that this kind of crackdown can occur and can occur both here in Canada and in countries where consultants are being hired.

It would be great if in some way we could cut down on the need for this industry, and there are a number of ways we could do that. One of them is by ensuring that we do not have the huge backlog in immigration applications that we currently face. One of the reasons we drive people to talk to a consultant is the fact that their applications take so long. When people see an application sitting for years with no action on it they begin to wonder if they have not done something wrong and begin to think they need assistance through this process. It drives them into the hands of immigration consultants, and often into the hands of an unscrupulous immigration consultant. If we were really serious about ensuring the effectiveness of our system, we would work to get rid of that backlog and to make sure that the system functioned smoothly and effectively.

We should also simplify the forms. We drive people to a consultant when we make the form difficult, when it is hard for them to understand. Maybe we need to make forms that are more appropriate in different cultural contexts and have different forms in different contexts that get us the same information, but we need to make sure that people find it easy to make the application and provide the information that is required. That is something we could do that would reduce their reliance on a third party to assist them.

Another route we could go to ensure that people feel that they have an alternative is visitor visa appeals. Often people apply to have a friend or relative visit them here in Canada and that is turned down with very little explanation. If there were an appeal system in place, people would feel less of a need to approach a third party to help them with that application for fear that they may have done something wrong, that they are missing something in the process, that there is information they should have to ensure a successful application. If they felt as well that there was recourse should they not have a successful application, it would also reduce the number of people who feel that it is absolutely necessary to engage a third party in dealing with their failed application or with an application that they perceive to be more difficult. So there are a number of things we should also be doing, as well as this legislation, and I hope some of those get the attention, and continued attention, in some cases, of the government.

We have looked at this for many years and there have been many attempts to deal with this issue of ghost consultants, of crooked consultants, of unscrupulous immigration consultants. I am glad that the government has apparently taken it seriously.

When the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration looked at the whole question of immigration consultants and studied the situation of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants it noticed a number of issues that needed to be addressed about the operation of CSIC, about that body that currently attempts to have some role in the regulation of immigration consultants in Canada. There was a long list of observations the committee made about the functioning of that and we have heard this afternoon in this debate some of those issues that were observed. It noticed that CSIC membership fees were too high and that it was prohibitive and was interfering in the effectiveness of the organization. It said that CSIC membership examinations were prepared and marked in a questionable way, so that there were questions raised about the viability of the examination process. It said that CSIC failed to develop an industry plan, something that is crucial especially in this new and developing industry, this expanding industry where so many people's hopes about their future are caught up and can easily be manipulated by unscrupulous people.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration also noticed that CSIC decision-making lacked transparency and was not conducted democratically. So internal functioning of the organization was a concern, as well as the fact that the CSIC board of directors was not accountable to anyone. It noted that there was no possibility for CSIC members to call a special meeting of the society. It said that compensation for and the spending of CSIC board members was extravagant, ill-advised and unaccounted for. It pointed out that CSIC board members are in conflict of interest because they created and currently serve on the board of the Canadian Migration Institute, a related for-profit corporation. So there were many concerns raised about the governance of the current organization, CSIC.

The standing committee also noted that many members of CSIC had little choice but to pay $800 each to buy an outdated educational video in order to obtain sufficient continuing professional development points to maintain their CSIC membership. Even the upgrading of skills, the ongoing professional development of the organization and how it provided that, was a concern.

It noted that CSIC does not communicate with members or provide services to members equally in French and English, which is a very serious problem for any national organization seeking to regulate an industry dealing with immigration in Canada.

The ability of members to voice concerns about CSIC was limited since the CSIC rules of professional conduct were amended to make it a professional offence to undermine CSIC and compelling members to treat CSIC with dignity and respect. Even trying to deal with problems within the organization became a problem in itself, and the ability of members to raise concerns was limited by the operation of the organization.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration finally noted that the CSIC website was set up in such a way that members could not send bulk email messages to all other members. The inability of CSIC members to correspond with other members of their profession was limited by the organization itself.

Clearly there are serious problems with the existing organization. I think many people will be relieved that the government is now seeking to establish a different organization and the minister has put out a request for proposals to deal with the establishment of a new regulatory organization, because there are very serious issues that need to be addressed in how such an organization would operate to best serve Canadians who are engaged with the immigration process.

We know the standing committee made recommendations out of its study of ghost immigration consultants. It made nine recommendations and we have heard some discussion of them this afternoon.

Earlier I talked about the need to simplify immigration applications, and that was one of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in its report on ghost consultants. The committee recommended that Citizenship and Immigration Canada review existing processes related to the most common types of immigration applications, with a view to simplifying them whenever possible.

That goes hand in hand with making sure that the application forms themselves are easily understood. Again it goes to the hope that most people could engage this process without the assistance of a third party, without the need for some kind of professional to shepherd their application through the process.

Staff in my office have seen many problems with immigration consultants over the years. Like the member for Trinity—Spadina, I spent many years as a constituency assistant before I became a member of Parliament and worked with many people on immigration problems. I was often appalled by the bad advice, bad assistance and expensive bad advice that people had received.

In checking with my office today to ask staff members what was their sense of the problem of unscrupulous immigration consultants or immigration consultants in general, they pointed out many problems that have come up in terms of their work with constituents who have immigration applications under way.

In terms of some general concerns, they noted that immigration consultants seem to hold on to information until they are paid, sometimes meaning that people miss important deadlines in the application process. My staff has experienced the situation where immigration consultants have asked for additional amounts that they had not indicated earlier, so there were new charges and expenses that had never been explained to their clients.

Staff members noted that sometimes immigration consultants give bad information, sometimes obviously bad information that anyone who was appropriately trained or had even minimal experience with the immigration system would know the answer to. My staff also pointed out that, in their experience, often immigration consultants have delayed relaying information to the embassies and sometimes back to constituents and the people applying.

Staff members noted that they have seen no consistency in the amount that people are charged for the services of an immigration consultant and that there does not seem to be any clear standard. Sometimes people have paid very large amounts of money for very simple services. They particularly note the significant charges that people have paid in a number of cases for assistance with visitor visas, which is a fairly direct and simple process.

My staff have seen a number of cases where immigration consultants have been problematic for people in my constituency and their families and friends who have been engaging with the immigration process. My staff have related some specific stories to me and I will relate them to the House to give some sense of the kind of situation that people are facing.

One of my constituents had a spouse who was a refugee claimant in Canada. The immigration consultant first charged her around $5,000 to put in a humanitarian and compassionate application and an extension application. When those applications failed, the consultant advised the spouse to fly back to the country of origin and return to Canada by air without actually having an authorization to return, which can take up to a year in any case. Since the person was advised to do this, he tried it and he was deported again from the airport, complicating his case in a very serious way. When the sponsor tried to contact the immigration consultant again, the consultant retracted his original advice, saying he had never advised that. So the situation this family ended up in is a very serious one. Once someone is deported, it is a very serious matter and something that was completely unnecessary. It is very expensive to get this kind of bad advice.

Another story that was important to my staff from their experience of working with people was another couple whose permanent resident application from South Asia was being done through a consultant. The consultant held on to important information because there was a delay in the receipt of a payment.

The applicants' medicals were expiring in three weeks and the embassy asked the consultant if they wanted medicals redone or if it should issue a three-week validity visa in the hope that the people could reach Canada within that time. Because there was a delay by a relative of the couple in making a payment to the consultant, the consultant told the embassy to issue three-week visas, which expired by the time they reached the applicants. This meant that the applicants had to start the application process over completely from the beginning. It was incredibly frustrating for that family who had gone through a rather lengthy immigration process, successfully as it turns out, only to have it messed up at the end by an immigration consultant who was less than helpful to them when push came to shove, when they really needed assistance from someone who they anticipated knew the Canadian immigration system, had some professional ethics and professional standards, was well trained and could assist them appropriately in this process, a process that is so crucial to so many families and to our communities and our society.

There is a lot that we could be doing, and I am pleased that we are debating this bill today. I am glad that it is going to go to committee where witnesses can be called and where further discussion can be had about it. It is absolutely crucial that we get our act together on this. The situation with immigration consultant regulation in Canada has gone on too long and it has caused too many problems for too many people. So it is good that the government has placed this on the agenda.

I hope that through the process of committee hearings and continued debate on this legislation we can end up with a bill and a regulatory body that will serve the needs of Canadians and the needs of those people who want to come to Canada to start a new life and contribute to the building of this country.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada to discuss Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, introduced by the government. These changes should tighten the legislation governing the activities of consultants who help prospective immigrants, refugees and other individuals who want to enter Canada and remain here.

First, I would like to congratulate the minister on this initiative. I believe the government's action is laudable and the intent well-meaning. We agree, in principle, that there are people all over the world who prey on unsuspecting individuals, individuals who want to immigrate, or even prospective refugees who want to come to Canada. These people, in retribution for money or other services, act as consultants to these prospective immigrants.

As has been mentioned by my other colleagues, and I am the last in a long list of people who have spoken on this bill, Liberals have been calling on the government to take action as a result of the 2008 parliamentary report from the special advisory committee.

We know that many prospective immigrants ask for the services of these individuals as they prepare their immigration to Canada and we know that prospective immigrants rely on unregulated global consulting firms. We are not necessarily talking about an individual working from a small office or home. We are talking in some cases of actual global networks of consulting firms that are helping each other and inventing laws as they go. These consulting firms consistently give advice on international laws and specifically Canadian immigration laws for very exorbitant fees.

Not only do these consultants provide fraudulent advice but they often make empty, unfeasible promises that cost their clients dearly. When I say these promises can cost their clients very dearly, I mean they can cost a lot of money but also they sometimes cost potential immigrants dearly by inducing them to tell lies that can result in Canada’s gates being closed forever to them.

As commendable as the minister has been on this bill, I would like to bring up some specific questions. For example, how does the government intend to control unscrupulous consultants operating offshore without interfering with the sovereignty of the country?

I know the minister mentioned that he just came back from India, China and other countries particularly in Asia and said the government of India was willing to co-operate by amending its laws to regulate immigration consultants. What I worry about, and I would certainly like to hear something from the minister on this, is how the monitoring and evaluation of these consultants can be carried out in countries where there may not be an infrastructure in place.

I read a lot of the ethnic newspapers here in Canada. Many of them are in the ethnic language, but there are also lots of ads that appear in either French or English. I see the number of immigration consultants that proliferate everywhere. I am not always sure there is an infrastructure in place in the country of origin to actually control what is going on over there. That is one question.

The other one is, how many countries are we talking about and is it really feasible for the government of the country of origin to actually control what is going on with these immigration consultants?

The other problem is one that I saw when I visited India many years ago, and that is the proliferation of false documentation. The minister referred to this in his speech.

There was talk about birth and marriage certificates, death certificates, professional diplomas and so forth. Sometimes these certificates do not seem genuine, but very often it is virtually impossible for us to tell whether they are genuine or not. So what can be done to prevent this proliferation of certificates?

My colleague, the MP for Papineau, has reminded members of the House about the vulnerability of individuals seeking to enter and remain in Canada. I am not going to repeat his words. These were very important words because it shows us again how unscrupulous people in Canada and elsewhere prey on the vulnerability of people who come to this country wanting to make a better life for themselves, who are not always refugees but people willing to sometimes invest money in this country and yet, because of lack of knowledge, can be preyed upon by these unscrupulous consultants.

I would like to remind the House that the initial initiative came from the former Liberal government, which in 2002 created an advisory committee to identify the ongoing problems within the immigration consulting industry. This committee's task was to identify the issues and propose ways to regulate the industry.

In 2003, there was a very large debate on this subject and a regulatory body was established called the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants with the mandate to act as a regulatory body for the governance, education and, most importantly, accreditation of immigration practitioners.

Bill C-35 suggests creating a designated body. I want to stop right there and say that a basic question remains. Why does the government want to create a new body in Bill C-35 to replace the old one?

We all agree that the old body had some major faults. I will describe them in a few minutes, but the question I want to raise is why can we not just improve an existing institution rather that totally destroying it and replacing it with a new one with all new regulations? Why not try to improve what already exists and take advantage of its institutional memory and the experience of its members to move forward?

There have certainly been some problems with the creation and operations of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. For example, there was the entrance examination for members that was drawn up and evaluated in a way that seems rather dubious. There were also some decisions made by the society that lacked transparency. It was seen to operate in a way that was often not very democratic. There were also some remarks such as the lack of accountability on the part of its board of directors. I would not want the board members to feel individually targeted. I am referring to the way in which the institution operated and not particular individuals. There were also conflict of interest problems with the board, especially with the people who created the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants and are still members of it.

Certainly, as I see Bill C-35, members who are now coming into the debate ought to step back and ask the questions. One question among many is, how important is corporate memory in the development of an organization and in the development of this particular organization?

It is important that we have corporate memory that we can carry on. At the same time, and I do underline this, I am not saying that nothing should be done. We should be build on what already exists. It would be fruitful, and I mentioned this, for the standing committee to ask how we can possibly merge the CSIC strategic plan and its original reason for being established in 2003 with the corporate strategic plan and vision of the Canadian Migration Institute, which is actually part of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

I have other concerns with the CSIC. For example, we can look at the outdated training material. Members of the society have spoken to me about this. It needs to be redone. We have talked about communications in official languages. As the critic for francophonie for my party, I am very aware of the need to do all the work and to publish all the work on the web and elsewhere in the two official Canadian languages.

Another concern that has been raised in the standing committee's report is the limited ability of members to voice concerns about the CSIC since the rules of professional conduct were amended making it a professional offence to undermine CSIC and compelling members to treat CSIC with dignity and respect. We should be allowed to criticize without it being thought that we are undermining.

Once again, this government is not known among Canadians for its openness and keen sense of accountability. It cannot be said that it sets an example of good governance.

The government has withheld information from the commissioner of inquiry studying detainee transfers, for example. It consistently blocks freedom of information requests from the public. I do not want to go further in this vein. We need to have more information because other members can certainly share their own experiences of government secrecy and the shutdown of communication.

I want it to be made clear that I am not condoning any alleged concern that members of the public may have with the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants and the operations of the organization as outlined in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration 2008 report. I am drawing a parallel.

I would like to come back to the fact that we must build on our experience, meaning that in this case we should not be dismantling an institution; rather, we should be using our knowledge of what is working and what is not to keep what works and improve it.

The main problem we may also seem to be dealing with is that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, CSIC, which is a non-profit corporation, has made it mandatory, and I think rightly so, to have those who want to be accredited to go through an education process before that can take place. However, we know from comments we have heard that this education process is incomplete and that it has to be ameliorated, once again, building on what we know, on the weaknesses that people have indicated to us.

There is also, as I mentioned before, a perceived conflict of interest of members of the board.

The Canadian Migration Institute, which is an arm of the society, is the body that carries out the accreditation in order for an individual to be recognized as a certified consultant.

Surely, I think that this is no different from other professional bodies that regulate and certify professionals for a fee.

There are arguments regarding members of the board of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants who now sit on the for profit board, the Canadian Migration Institute, the CMI, a wholly-owned group of the not for profit CSIC, as I mentioned before.

I would like to say once again that although the Liberals approve this proposed legislation in principal, because we need Bill C-35, there must surely be other ways of resolving some of the issues that I highlighted here today.

I would like to reiterate that it was the Liberals on this side of the House that started investigating and implementing regulations for the immigration and refugee consultant industry. I am speaking on behalf of all the members here as well as those who are not here. We want this endeavour to succeed, and we believe that we are more than halfway to our goal.

We intend to work with the government to ensure that those who want to come to Canada can get the help they need without having to rely on unscrupulous consultants.

We offer our expertise in the spirit of the kind of remarks that I making here in this House.

We would like to see a wider public input into what the accreditation body could look like and how its policies can be reframed. I hope hearings of the legislative committee studying this bill will not be rushed. What I hope, in fact, is that this bill will be accepted by this House, that it will then go on to be studied by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which will ameliorate it, and that while the standing committee is studying this bill, it will take the time to hear from Canadians from all parts of the country.

We must hear from those people who have been used by unscrupulous consultants. The minister asked my colleague, a few minutes ago, whether he had any knowledge of people who had actual experience of being used by unscrupulous consultants. I think that is an important question. It is an important question that the consultative committee will have to ask of the witnesses.

However, again, I ask the question, why do we have to destroy an administrative body in order to re-establish another one? Why not start from what we know of the old one and build on that?

Finally, we would like to hear from Canadians on how we can make our immigration laws simpler. I welcome the intervention of the minister who said just a few minutes ago that he is working on this global approach. I hope that the global approach will not mean that there will not be a possibility for us to intervene when we think the decision taken is the wrong decision. However, he is working on a global approach and I hope that global approach will make it simple and accessible for those prospective immigrants so that they do not feel the need to go to an immigration consultant, and that they, and here I am in agreement with the MP from the NDP, are not taken advantage of as is the case sometimes. So the recourse to consultants and the recourse to MPs, we hope, will be much less than what it is now.

I also hope that all the concerns raised in the 2008 standing committee report will be reflected in the government's present vision for the re-established body.

So, the process has started. We want to get it right. We feel that we are more than halfway there.

Again, I reiterate that we intend to work with the government to ensure that those who wish to enter Canada can get the assistance they need without the use of unscrupulous immigration consultants.

We support Bill C-35. We hope that it will receive the votes needed in order to send it to committee for further study.

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

Mr. Speaker, crimes against immigrants cannot and should not be tolerated. For far too long, we have been soft on those who prey on the most vulnerable, prey on those who have dreams to make Canada their home. The media is littered with stories of potential immigrants who pay some consultants thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, and are taught to lie and end up having their applications destroyed because they were given poor advice. The New Democratic Party of Canada has been pushing for tough and effective legislation to crack down on these unscrupulous and crooked consultants.

Many years ago, in the early eighties, I was an assistant to a former member of Parliament, at that time the NDP critic for immigration, Mr. Dan Heap. During my time with him at the constituency office, I saw a wall of potential immigrants being cheated out of thousands of dollars and having their dreams of being able to stay in Canada destroyed.

Working at that time with the Globe and Mail, I had my mother carry a concealed tape recorder to look at some of these unscrupulous consultants. This was in the early 1980s. Subsequently, there were a series of articles in the Globe and Mail that documented many cases where she was given the wrong advice or overcharged. Back then, we were hoping that something would be done.

Unfortunately, even in the 1990s, nothing much was done and matters became worse and worse until 2002, when the House of Commons immigration and citizenship committee conducted a study, and then in 2004, when the former Liberal government enacted legislation and set up an organization. Unfortunately, the advice from the immigration department and the community was ignored and the organization had no power to regulate. The agency that was charged with protecting the vulnerable newcomers did not improve the situation. In fact it got worse. The Liberal government just never got the job done.

The bill before us today, Bill C-35, is a step in the right direction. Consultants must be licensed in order to charge fees or act on a person's behalf. The Canadian Border Agency must be given resources to enforce this law. We could have the best law, but if there is no enforcement, it would not be worth the paper it is written on. Immigration officers must be trained to detect fraud. They must be trained so that sufficient information is given to applicants and there is no need to hire an expensive consultant or a lawyer for straightforward immigration applications.

At the immigration committee, we have studied this issue for many months and we have issued two reports. During our travels, we have heard that the existing organization, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, has a lot of shortcomings. The membership fees are too high and membership examinations are prepared and marked in a questionable way. We also heard that CSIC has failed to develop an industry plan. We heard that their decision-making lacks transparency and is not conducted democratically. We heard that the CSIC board of directors is not accountable to anyone. This is the board body that was established in 2004. There is no possibility for CSIC members to call a special meeting of the society. Compensation for CSIC board members, like their spending, is extravagant, ill-advised, and unaccounted for. CSIC board members are in a conflict of interest, because they created and currently serve on the board of the Canadian Migration Institute, a related for-profit corporation.

We heard that many members had little choice but to pay $800 to buy an outdated educational video in order to obtain sufficient continuing professional development points to maintain a CSIC membership; that the ability of members to voice concerns about CSIC has been limited since the CSIC rules of professional conduct were amended, making it a professional offence to “undermine” CSIC and compelling members to treat CSIC with "dignity and respect”; and finally, that the CSIC website is set up so that members cannot communicate with one another by sending bulk email messages.

These are allegations, complaints that we have heard. The committee, after this long study, decided to take action. We issued a report recommending that we find some ways to protect the most vulnerable; that we establish a new corporation with the power to license its members, examine their conduct, and resolve complaints; and that the Government of Canada remain involved in its affairs until it is fully functioning.

We also recommended that a regulator establish no-cost complaint procedures to support immigrants with precarious Canadian status in lodging complaints. That is important, because some of those who are the most vulnerable feel that if they complain, they will get deported, which means that their case would not be examined by the immigration department. We have to establish complaints procedures for these immigrants. Part of the recommendation said that we have to inform immigrants that their complaints to the regulator will have no negative impact upon their immigration applications.

Moreover, we recommended coordinated investigations and enforcement of the law. We wanted a lead agency to be named to coordinate investigation, communication, and enforcement efforts within four months after the 2008 report. It is unfortunate that this never quite happened, but I sure hope that if this bill passes a lead agency will be named as quickly as possible to make sure that the law approved in Parliament is enforced properly. If not, it would be a real mistake.

We also recommended that the CSIC website should contain a list of authorized representatives practising in this country .

In November of last year, I moved a concurrence motion on these recommendations. The House of Commons supported these recommendations and supported the concurrence motion, so the intention of this House is clear. We want new regulations, new legislation to protect the most vulnerable. We want clear enforcement guidelines. We also want to make sure that education will continue so that potential immigrants, even if they are overseas, will understand their rights and know how to go about filing a complaint.

The new regulations would provide the minister with the power to designate a new body to govern immigration consultants, and we need to make sure that this body is picked in a way that is transparent, and that this body is legitimate, democratically run, and willing to go after those who are violating the law.

We note that under their rules of conduct, a consultant must never “knowingly assist in or encourage any dishonesty, provision of misleading information, fraud, crime or illegal conduct”. Yet through the Toronto Star series, we have noticed that a number of CSIC members allegedly gave wrong information and told people how make up a story to get into the refugee claimant process, even though they had no such refugee experience. They end up giving the entire immigration system and refugee claimants a bad name.

It is important for the minister to continue monitoring a new body to ensure it behaves in a way that will protect the most vulnerable because if not, lives could be ruined.

One day I hope immigration regulations can be clarified and simplified in a way so potential immigrants do not feel they need to hire someone to submit applications for them. I also hope the laws will be applied in a way that immigrants do not feel is arbitrary. They should be transparent so immigrants know where their applications are. Also the whole process should be on the Internet so applicants can tell how far along their applications are, how much longer they have to wait, what their application numbers are and whether they have submitted all the right documents.

I note the minister has just returned from Australia, which has that kind of processing. Because it is e-filed, immigrants can tell whether all the documents are done in a way that is appropriate. This kind of processing would be transparent and immigrants would not need to hire a consultant, a lawyer, or even come to a member of Parliament to get a status update of their applications.

Also one day I hope visitor visas or refugee claims are done in a way that is clear. Then migrants or potential visitors who want to come to Canada will not feel they need to hire consultants. After all, we are supposed to serve those who want to come to Canada.

Why is this important? It is critically important because we know some of these immigrants have a choice to go to other countries and we want the brightest and the best to come to Canada. If they keep hearing all these horror stories of relatives, neighbours or friends who have been ripped off by the most unscrupulous consultants, they will not have confidence in Canada's immigration system.

I also note that Australia's website shows almost every month which immigration consultants have been de-listed, for what reason and which new consultants have been listed. Those kinds of lists on the Internet are kept up-to-date so any time people want to hire a consultant, they will know clearly who is qualified and who is not. I certainly hope this would be the kind of system we would go toward.

Last, it is critically important that through the Canada Border Services Agency there would be some kind of investigation of the type of fraud now being committed by some of these consultants. Those who are victimized will then feel they have a chance to speak out. If the investigation of their claims proves their case was completely messed up because of bad advice by unscrupulous consultants, their claims should be re-evaluated.

In the meantime, on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada I will continue to carefully monitor the progress of the crackdown on crooked consultants and scrupulous consultants so that all crimes directed against immigrants will be severely punished.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about Bill C-35, which deals with the important issue of immigration consultants.

This has been a long-standing issue. There are people committing fraud and profiting from others' naïveté, and this has always been the case in all areas. And even though we as parliamentarians or citizens fight daily to lessen its presence, the problem will most likely continue to exist. You only need to watch television shows like J.E. or La facture to see that this is true. There will always be people who will abuse others to try to make a lot of money in a short amount of time.

That said, there is something different about immigration. The people going through this process are much more vulnerable than the average person, which means that there are many more people trying to take advantage of them. This issue has become very troubling.

MPs, especially those of us from urban areas, have all heard stories about people who have had unfortunate dealings with immigration consultants, with people who defrauded them, gave them bad advice or took their money. I would say that this is the tip of the iceberg because the people living in our ridings are those who have been able to navigate the process and settle in Canada. There are many people living in other countries who were fleeced by such consultants and whose voices we seldom hear. That is just as worrisome.

Why are these people more vulnerable to fraud than the average citizen? Because of their ignorance of the legal system and their rights as citizens. Even though they are not Canadian citizens, anyone who lives in Canada is protected by Canadian law. Immigrants often have a vague idea about the country they are going to. It is often a dream and some people are prepared to make sacrifices to make it come true.

Many people do not immigrate for themselves but do so for their children. They hope to give their children a better life and are willing to make many sacrifices. They find themselves dealing with disgraceful people who tell them that they can easily obtain permanent resident status, a visa and Canadian citizenship, but that it will be expensive. They claim to be good consultants with the necessary contacts and say that they are needed in order to follow the procedures.

That is obviously not true; they are taking advantage of the immigrant's ignorance. In theory, anyone should be able to immigrate to Canada without using a consultant or someone paid to help them. Some people feel reassured. The department probably has some work to do in order to simplify the process and make people feel comfortable navigating the immigration system by themselves.

In general, I tell people that they do not need to spend a fortune on immigration consultants and that they can apply on their own. I often tell them that if they have legal problems or a special legal situation they can see a lawyer or notary, who will be more qualified to help them with the process.

So, lack of knowledge is the first factor. Another factor is often the political culture. Some people come from countries where corruption is common and where many things happen through nepotism or shady deals. Something like that seems to happen here sometimes, even in this Parliament.

Generally speaking, I am sure everyone would agree that we have far fewer problems here than in certain other countries, where that is the norm and that is how things are done, and where one must know a politician to make things happen.

Some people therefore believe that someone from the political sphere needs to intervene directly in order to move their file along. So consultants claim, either truthfully or more often falsely, that they know the right people to help someone get his or her visa and become a permanent resident. Once again, that is obviously absurd, since there is no need to know any one particular person to immigrate to Canada. One must simply meet all of the criteria and make the application. Although the system is not perfect, generally speaking, no matter who examines the application, the decision should always be the same.

In addition to the lack of knowledge about Canada's legal reality and the political perceptions that they may bring from their home country to a destination country, there is a third factor, namely, the bonds of trust that certain consultants abuse when dealing with people of the same ethnic origin. Some consultants will use the fact that they went through the immigration process themselves and will tell their clients that they can do the same thing for them, because they are of the same ethnicity, come from the same country and are now successful immigrants. People will blindly trust such individuals, and that is clearly abusive. We looked at this issue in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, because we were told that this is a very common problem. We are therefore very concerned about this issue.

The committee did a comprehensive review and prepared a report with a number of recommendations. The first recommendation made by the committee—not the last or second last—was that in the committee's opinion, consultants working in Quebec who make applications in Quebec should be officially recognized under Quebec laws. Canadian laws should therefore take into account this reality and ensure that a transfer is made to Quebec with regard to regulating the profession, in order to address the specificity of Quebec in terms of its immigration powers under the Canada-Quebec agreement, and because of its specific professional system. Furthermore, Quebec is its own nation with its own particularities and it is important that Quebec has control over this type of tool and the way immigration consultants are governed.

This recommendation exists. I hope that the parties that supported it will continue to defend this same position and defend Quebec's right to govern its immigration consultants. What is more, the Government of Quebec subsequently developed supplementary rules to take these characteristics into account because the need truly exists. Immigration consultants in Quebec need to speak French and must pass an exam on aspects of the immigration process that are specific to Quebec, such as the Quebec selection certificate. They will have to know related standards and how to assess and evaluate individuals in Quebec. It is quite different from the system used in Canada.

When the Quebec government put these regulations in place, it referred to the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, which already exists. That was the fastest and simplest option, but we must think seriously and take this opportunity to be even more effective, since this society will probably disappear and be replaced with something else.

In Quebec, there could be an association governed by Quebec laws, and in Canada, there could be another association. This model would be more effective, and would be in line with the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Why am I talking about the importance of giving Quebec control? It is a matter of jurisdiction under the British North America Act. Quebec has exclusive jurisdiction over regulating professional associations. I would like to quote an excerpt of the brief presented by the Barreau du Québec to the advisory committee on immigration consultants:

Although the provisions of the former Immigration Act allowed the federal government to create a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal, and allowed a barrister, solicitor or “other counsel” to represent individuals for a fee, that is not the case with the issue of establishing a college of consultants and establishing strict regulations to govern a profession. The Barreau du Québec believes that the creation of a college of consultants is not constitutionally viable.

Bill C-35 does not change anything. As it stands, the federal government essentially governs those who make representations on behalf of their clients to the federal government, but it does not truly have control over a person's ability to act as an immigration consultant and to provide advice for a fee.

But with Bill C-35, the government wants to take things further. We are not opposed to the intent, because we agree. However, by taking this further, the government is getting very close to creating a professional association. That completely interferes with the Quebec government's jurisdiction.

I would like to quote Quebec's criteria for establishing a professional association or order:

(1) the knowledge required to engage in the activities of the persons who would be governed by the order which it is proposed to constitute;

(2) the degree of independence enjoyed by the persons who would be members of the order in engaging in the activities concerned, and the difficulty which persons not having the same training and qualifications would have in assessing those activities;

(3) the personal nature of the relationships between such persons and those having recourse to their services, by reason of the special trust which the latter must place in them, particularly because such persons provide them with care or administer their property;

(4) the gravity of the prejudice which might be sustained by those who have recourse to the services of such persons because their competence or integrity was not supervised by the order;

(5) the confidential nature of the information which such persons are called upon to have in practising their profession.

These five criteria are clearly fulfilled in the case of immigration consultants. It requires knowledge—point 1—which must be governed by an appropriate order. People who work as consultants are very independent, and it is difficult for an outside person to assess their work if they do not have the same qualifications. The fundamentally personal nature of the consultant-client relationship is obvious.

Clearly, serious negative consequences can befall those who get bad advice. Their lives can be turned upside down and their plans can come to an abrupt halt. Confidentiality is also a factor.

As we can see, this is all about Quebec's jurisdiction, so much so that Quebec felt the need to establish its own regulatory system. The federal system, even with Bill C-35, cannot guarantee that specific elements of Quebec immigration law will be taken into account.

They also use the term “shared jurisdiction” and talk about how this does not fall under federal jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is one thing, but what about competence? Is the federal government competent to do this?

The abject failure of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants proves that the federal government does not have the competence to do this because it does not have the necessary expertise. In Quebec, the Office des professions du Québec oversees all professional groups. The regulations are a hundred or so pages long. The laws are substantial and provide real powers to investigate, intervene and sanction. The federal government does not have that. It would have to start from scratch and come up with all-new legislation for something that Quebec is already equipped to deal with. Personally, I do not think that is an efficient way of doing things at all.

The Bloc Québécois is concerned about the transfer of information proposed in the bill. In committee, we will ask questions about whether this bill goes too far in terms of what it wants lawyers and notaries to transfer to the federal government. Does this respect Quebec's legislation regarding confidentiality and the transfer of information? We will take a close look at that.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will be supporting this bill—at least at second reading—in order for it to be considered in committee. This is an issue we care about. We agree with the government and the other parties that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is not working. It has serious governance and transparency problems. I have seen student associations that were much better managed than this outfit.

I have personally tried to obtain information and have been routinely prevented from getting my hands on it. Members come and see us regularly complaining of the association’s exorbitant fees. They also complain of questionable policies, overly bureaucratic offices, outlandishly high fees, cronyism, general meetings where only the chair speaks and folks can only give input by way of email. In short, it is not a glowing record and there is nothing to inspire people’s confidence. The association has very serious governance issues and it fails at winning over its members and giving the profession a credible and professional face.

In closing, I would like to talk about the bill’s title. The government is carrying on its ridiculous tradition of giving bills ludicrous titles. In this particular case, the title is, “The Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act”. The title in English is even more ridiculous. That has to stop. They will tell me that what I am saying is of scant importance and that it has no bearing on anything, but as parliamentarians, we pass laws that should be objective and not subjective.

What will the next step be? A good budget and a good piece of immigration legislation? It does not make sense. We will settle this matter in committee, and I hope that the government will stop grandstanding and making grand gestures. Rather than giving bills really menacing sounding names and saying that they are going to stiffen penalties, they need to get out there in the community. Even if the penalties were 10 times stiffer, without people to enforce them and prosecute, there is no point.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is a real pleasure to rise today in my new capacity as official opposition critic for youth, citizenship and immigration. I have had a number of opportunities already to address youth issues before the House, and to speak today on citizenship and immigration and more specifically on Bill C-35 regarding the regulation of immigration consultants is both an honour and a challenge. For how we deal with the twin issues of youth and immigration today will define how successful our country will be tomorrow.

This House is currently wrangling with great verve over paperwork regarding rifles and on whether we got a good deal on some airplanes, and although these and other issues are legitimate and pressing, I fear that when we expend as much energy as we have on what seems urgent, all too often we find ourselves neglecting that which is most important.

The work we are doing here has its place in the long history of this beautiful country, which is still young. Instead of always trying to handle things on an ad hoc basis, moving from crisis to crisis, we should pay more attention to building for the future. One of our greatest responsibilities in the House is to prepare the next generation, and the next generation means our young people and our new arrivals.

We are a country of immigrants. Regardless of whether our family timelines are measured in millennia, centuries, decades or weeks, we are all bound together by a common dream of building a better life for ourselves and for our loved ones. That is why it can be so disheartening to see the politics of division, cynicism and fear take up so much space in our national narrative when we need to be drawing on the politics of hope, shared values and vision to be worthy of all that previous generations have fought for, created and given to us today.

Discussions and debates on immigration have been as much a part of Canadian politics as anything else we have struggled with as a nation, and it is always amazing to see how much the best among us have always said the same kinds of things. To go back 150 years, a few years before Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee was pushing for a common Canadian patriotism, unhyphenated and shared by all who live in this land regardless of origin. I think it would be right for us to remember his words now:

Dear, most justly dear to every land beneath the sun, are the children born in her bosom and nursed upon her breast; but when the man of another country, wherever born, speaking whatever speech, holding whatever creed, seeks out a country to serve and honour and cleave to, in weal or in woe, when he heaves up the anchor of his heart from its old moorings, and lays at the feet of the mistress of his choice - his new country - all the hopes of his ripe manhood, he establishes by such devotion a claim to consideration not second even to that of the children of the soil. He is their brother delivered by a new birth from the dark-wombed Atlantic ship that ushers him into existence in the new world; he stands by his own election among the children of the household; and narrow and unwise is that species of public spirit which, in the perverted name of patriotism, would refuse him all he asks...

A few decades later, Wilfrid Laurier said:

My countrymen are not only those in whose veins runs the blood of France. My countrymen are all those people—no matter what their race or language—whom the fortunes of war, the twists and turns of fate, or their own choice, have brought among us.

Our country was created by people of multiple identities, and we have become strong not despite our differences but because of them. Our future, the future of our society and our economy, even the future of our planet, will depend entirely on our ability to work together, not to erase our differences but to accept them and recognize that the only way to meet the challenges facing us is to make use of all the diverse perspectives and views around us.

Everywhere around the world we are living globalization that brings multiple nationalities, identities, cultures, religions and languages into conflict within established states. The temptation when times are difficult is to play up our differences, to point fingers at identities or others and choose to divide for gain rather than bringing together. This is a path that will lead us into great peril when we think of the tremendous challenges we are facing as a planet, whether it be around the environment, poverty, human rights or just around the simple challenges that are going to derive by having to live together, nine billion of us, in a limited space.

Canada can and must demonstrate that national identity is not about our colour, language, religion or even culture. Our national identity is based on a shared set of values, values of openness, compassion, respect for each other and the rule of law and not only a willingness to work hard to succeed, but a desire to be there for each other in times of difficulty, to be there for the most vulnerable among us. This is what defines Canadians from coast to coast to coast and the more we play up those differences, the less we are able to rise to the level that the challenges will require of us.

That is why it is so important that we get our approach to immigration right, both in the House certainly but also as we collectively reflect upon it in homes right across the land. We must stay away from the easy polarizations. We are dependent on immigration for our economy, but we have an example to offer to the world. That means we need to get it right, which is why we, on this side of the House in the Liberal Party, are pleased to see Bill C-35 on immigration consultants. It is an issue that speaks to the very justice of a country of which we are so proud.

Imagine citizens of faraway lands taking it upon themselves to seek better lives for themselves and their loved ones. Maybe they make the decision for negative reasons, such as war, oppression or famine, or maybe they make it for positive reasons, such as seeking opportunity or being filled with hope and dreams. They take the difficult decision of uprooting themselves from all that they know and lived through to travel across the oceans to begin a new life.

It is a moment of tremendous vulnerability and uncertainty and it is perfectly normal and natural for them in that situation to look for help, to try to figure out how they are going to be able to make it to a land where they are not sure about the customs, they have trouble with the language, maybe they do not even understand the process. In that moment of tremendous vulnerability when they are asking for help, unfortunately they can make decisions that will not help them but lead them into losing their dreams altogether.

I am sure all of us in the House have met well-meaning constituents, people who come to us for help, who took the advice of unscrupulous consultants and fudged the truth in their applications or misrepresented something about their desire to come to Canada. As a result, they have an indelible X on their file that will mean that any dream they had of becoming part of this great nation, this community that we build toward the future will be washed away.

In my constituency office in the short time since I was elected I have seen over 500 immigration cases and too often they are complaining about the cost of the process. It is not the cost of the application fees and the medical evaluations and it is not the frustration with the hard work that our civil servants in our missions abroad do. It is worries about the cost and the frustration that comes with having spent exorbitant amounts of money on people who promised the world and could not deliver.

This was a problem that came through for many years in the House, which is why, in 2002, we established an immigration committee to look at this situation. We then created the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, an independent, federally incorporated, not-for-profit body, operating at arm's-length from the federal government, responsible for regulating the activities of immigration consultants who were members and who provided immigration advice for a fee. Unfortunately, CSIC was not given the power to properly investigate and prosecute disciplinary matters. It did not have statutory powers to audit, subpoena or seize documents and did not have the resources to properly police immigration consultants.

Since its creation, unfortunately we kept witnessing ongoing problems with unscrupulous individuals operating both in Canada and abroad as immigration consultants, cheating immigrants with inappropriate fees. These ghost consultants continued to be a problem and legitimate consultants were concerned that these crooked individuals put a stigma on the entire profession and made it difficult to do their jobs and protect vulnerable immigrants in their time of great hope and need.

In 2008, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration published a report that made nine recommendations to improve the process. First, the committee recognized that Quebec would remain responsible for managing the consultants within its own borders.

In respect to a new approach to regulating consultants, the committee recommended that more investigatory and punitive powers be provided regarding those members who do not deserve the confidence placed in them by people who want to come to Canada.

The committee also wanted to improve the government’s ability to supervise the work done by these regulators. In addition, it recommended that communications with potential applicants should be improved, because these people are so vulnerable.

It is in response to this report that the government is now introducing Bill C-35.

The government claims that Bill C-35 would close loopholes currently exploited by crooked consultants and would improve the way in which immigration consultants would be regulated. The proposed draft regulation will amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act so that only lawyers, notaries and authorized consultants who are members in good standing of a governing body authorized by the minister may provide advice or representation at any stage of a proceeding or application.

This is important because currently the act does not regulate the activities of consultants during the pre-application or proceeding phase. Although not in the draft legislation itself, the government has publicly stated penalties would include a sentence of up to two years in jail or a $50,000 fine, or both. While this is positive, rather than introducing stand-alone legislation to permit the creation of a statutory body to regulate immigration consultants as was recommended by the Citizenship and Immigration committee, the government has decided to amend IRPA to change the manner in which third parties are regulated. It has launched a public selection process whereby organizations, including the current regulator, are competing to be selected to be the arm's-length regulatory body. The legislation provides the minister with the power to designate a body through regulations, not legislation.

Many stakeholders have expressed concern that the decision to change the regulatory body through regulation rather than through stand-alone legislation will not result in the necessary governance and oversight required for the new body. There is also concern that the new body will still not have the power to sanction immigration consultants who are not members, nor have appropriate enforcement powers regarding its membership.

The bill also would allow Citizenship and Immigration Canada to disclose further information relating to the ethical or professional conduct of an immigration representative to those responsible for governing that conduct and would expand the time for instituting proceedings against individuals from six months to five years.

These are positive changes. We are still very concerned about the resources that have not been made available to the regulatory body and to the Canada Border Services Agency, for example, to enforce sanctions against ghost consultants and legitimate but wayward ones. We are concerned about the missing legislation that might give more teeth to the body to reprimand its own members.

I am, however, in favour to sending the bill to committee because I believe in the safety of our future Canadians and of the family and friends of our new Canadians. I will be voting in favour because I want to ensure that we protect vulnerable immigrants from unscrupulous individuals who use the immigration process to cheat people out of their life savings.

I will be voting in favour in the hopes that we, as a Parliament and members from all parties, can work together in committee and bring the amendments that will make the bill better into a law that will be in the best interests of Canada. Canadian and more precisely the residents of my riding of Papineau want this Parliament to work together. It is in this spirit that I will support the bill because, simply put, a big part of our shared Canadian identity is ensuring that we do all we can to protect the most vulnerable among us.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

moved that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, as Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, I am pleased to have this opportunity today to launch the debate on Bill C-35, the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act.

I am proud to rise to support this important legislation, which would allow us to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to strengthen the rules governing those who provide advice on immigration matters for a fee.

As hon. members know, the great values that govern Canada, namely freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, make our country one of the primary destinations of choice for immigrants from all over the world. Unfortunately, Canada is also associated with the emergence of practices which, for too long, have been synonymous with unscrupulous behaviour in the immigration industry.

We all know that applicants for immigration to Canada do not need to use the services of an immigration representative in order to immigrate here. The Government of Canada treats everyone equally whether or not they hire a representative to deal with Immigration Canada in their application to visit or move here. However, because moving to a new country has its own challenges and because immigration procedures often seem complex, many prospective immigrants seek the services of a consultant for help in navigating the process of immigration.

Now while most immigration consultants working in Canada are acting professionally and ethically, the unfortunate reality is that there are a number of consultants who are acting dishonestly or even illegally to try to profit from people's dream of coming to Canada. This is one of the biggest issues that new Canadians raise with me from coast to coast. In many meetings with various ethnocultural communities across Canada, I have heard numerous unsettling stories of people being taken in by dishonest immigration consultants or unethical representatives.

These are people who take sometimes thousands or tens of thousands of dollars from individuals. I heard a story from a man of Chinese origin who had given over $100,000 in cash to a crooked consultant who had falsely guaranteed him immigration to Canada as an investor immigrant. I have also heard of students giving people sometimes over $10,000 to guarantee them status in Canada and in return get nothing. Often these crooked consultants will knowingly submit counterfeit documents in support of an application with careless disregard that our ministry officials are likely to identify the fraud, reject the visa application and often that will injure the person's chances of visiting or coming to Canada for at least two years. The crooked consultants do not care because they typically have the cash in hand and have already made their profit.

There are literally thousands of such representatives, from unauthorized consultants to labour recruiters and student agents both in Canada and around the world. We want people to know that despite what some unethical representatives might say to prospective immigrants, no one has special access to the Government of Canada and all applications are treated the same. It is important to underscore this because many of the bottom-feeders in this industry will imply to people that they have some kind of in, some kind of special access to decision makers in the Canadian immigration system, and that is never true. It is important for people both here and abroad to understand that.

It is also important for prospective visitors or immigrants to Canada to know that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If someone is offering guaranteed immigration status in Canada for a fee, go the other way, in fact, run in the opposite direction. Immigration fraud takes many forms. Immigration applicants in all immigration categories may engage in fraud against our system and some seek assistance from crooked consultants or other third parties such as labour recruiters or document counterfeiters.

I was recently in India where our officials briefed me showing me hundreds of examples of the thousands of counterfeit documents they get that are produced by this industry: fake bank transcripts; fake academic transcripts; fake banking statements; and fake marriage, death or birth certificates, just name it. Some of them are quite crude but, again, often the counterfeiters and the crooked consultants do not care because they have already done their business.

Some fraud happens here but much happens overseas. Some examples include lying to an officer on an application form or counselling economic migrants to file unfounded refugee claims. A related concern is consumer fraud where crooked consultants, labour recruiters or student agents charge exorbitant fees to applicants or promise services that are never delivered.

I returned this morning from a visit to our top immigration source countries, including India, China and the Philippines, and my second visit to India since becoming minister, where I met with senior officials from the state of Punjab and discussed progress made to date, as well as our continued co-operation on this issue.

I received a commitment from the federal ministers of the Indian government to bring forward significant amendments to their immigration act, to help crack down on unscrupulous immigration advisers in India. As well, I managed to secure a commitment from the minister of public security in China that he would appoint a special high-level representative to work on a task force with us in combating immigration fraud in that country.

And so, we believe that we are making progress in this respect.

To give members an idea of the scope of the problem, we have in our visa office in Chandigarh, Punjab, what our officials call a “wall of shame”, with countless examples of the thousands of fraudulent documents, including fake marriage certificates, death certificates and travel itineraries. Each one of these documents represents a broken dream. It represents somebody who paid money, often thousands of dollars, and ended up getting tricked by a consultant in return.

I have also seen first-hand in that city billboards put up by consultants with a ripoff of the Government of Canada wordmark offering guaranteed visas. As I say, this is something with which we must deal.

I also expressed my concerns during my trip to the Philippines, where I met with the president and senior government officials, where unscrupulous consultants and agencies are also a major problem. I received assurances from officials in that country, as well, that they too will support our efforts.

The Government of Canada is determined to protect the integrity of its immigration program against fraud. We are determined to crack down on immigration scams, dishonesty, false promises and unethical practices, and we are also determined to take action against the individuals who engage in fraudulent activities.

First, we launched a public information campaign to help potential immigrants learn how to protect themselves against false claims made by crooked immigration consultants and other representatives.

We have also posted warnings and notices in 17 languages to raise awareness on our website and in all our offices and missions abroad.

We have also held meetings in city halls to consult people from every region of the country, to listen to their stories about crooked consultants, and to ask for their suggestions on how to protect Canada's immigration system against scams and dishonesty.

In May 2009 Citizenship and Immigration Canada hosted on its website an online questionnaire to gather information from individuals who have used representatives in the immigration process. The goal was to provide the department with information about the nature and scope of fraud in the immigration process, and to help form our efforts to tighten the rules governing representatives and prevent wrongdoing.

The response showed how widespread the problem truly is, with many prospective immigrants and new Canadians detailing their experiences. Listening to victims and stakeholder groups this past year has given us a clearer picture of the nature and scope of the problem and their direct input has informed our efforts to prevent fraud. I would like to thank all of those who participated.

It is pretty obvious that fraud remains a major threat to the integrity of our citizenship and immigration programs, and that it adversely affects all of us.

We must act to protect potential immigrants and the integrity of Canada's immigration program. Bill C-35 provides an opportunity to do so by cracking down on crooked immigration consultants.

The changes we propose would strengthen the rules governing those who provide advice on immigration matters and representation services, or who offer to do so. These changes would also improve the way immigration consultants are regulated.

These changes are in line with the amendments that we proposed in the Citizenship Act in order to regulate citizenship consultants.

Bill C-35 would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act so that only lawyers, notaries in Quebec and consultants who are members in good standing of a governing body designated by the minister could provide advice for a fee at any stage of a proceeding or application, including the pre-application period. After all, anyone who provides immigration advice for a fee is acting as a professional and so they should be members in good standing of an authorized regulatory body.

While the current legislation regulates the activities of consultants from the point of view of the submission of an application or proceeding, it does not regulate their involvement in the pre-application period. This is important because it means that unscrupulous consultants are not currently obliged to disclose their involvement during that pre-application period, and this is where the most exploitation occurs.

Our government's proposed legislation closes this major loophole by requiring that all advice or representation supplied or offered for a fee be provided by an authorized representative, who would have to be a member in good standing of a bar of a province, the Chambre des notaires du Québec, or the body designated by the minister to govern immigration consultants.

This would make it an offence for anyone other than an authorized consultant, lawyer or notary to conduct business at any stage in the proceeding or application. By casting a wider net unauthorized individuals who provide paid advice or representation at any stage would be subject to a fine and/or imprisonment.

In addition, the bill before us would allow my ministry to disclose information relating to the ethical or professional conduct of a representative to authorities responsible for investigating that conduct, which would typically be the Canada Border Services Agency or on citizenship matters, the RCMP. This is something that should be obvious but is not actually provided for under the current act.

Above all, the proposed legislation responds directly to concerns and recommendations raised by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration of this House in its report entitled “Regulating Immigration Consultants”, which was presented in June 2008. The report itself was based on broad consultation with the public.

I heard concerns like these myself and it is apparent that a new approach to the regulation of immigration consultants is needed.

That is why the proposed legislation would also give the minister the authority to designate a body to govern immigration consultants and establish measures that would enhance the government's oversight of the designated body.

The body regulating consultants must regulate effectively and must be held accountable for ensuring its membership provides services in a professional and ethical manner.

Accordingly, information from the designated body would be provided to the minister, and this is something that does not currently exist, to ensure that the integrity of the immigration system is maintained. This information would permit the minister to evaluate whether the body is governing its members in the public interest. Concerns about the lack of such public interest focus have been raised by the parliamentary committee and many others.

According to a unanimous 2008 report by the standing committee, complaints were also heard from a number of immigration consultants across the country, many of whom expressed great dissatisfaction with the way that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, or CSIC, is currently governed.

That is why I have already taken steps to address this problem, a problem that poses a significant threat to the immigration system and that has created a lack of public confidence in the regulation of immigration consultants in general.

In the Canada Gazette on June 12 of this year I announced CIC's intention to launch a public selection process to identify a governing body for recognition as the regulator of immigration consultants under the existing immigration and refugee protection regulations.

The notice of intent invited comments from the public on the proposed selection process. That process is now underway following the publication in the Canada Gazette on August 28 of a call for submissions from candidates interested in becoming the regulator of immigration consultants. Interested parties have until December 29 of this year to deliver their submissions.

What we are looking for is a regulator who can support Canada's immediate and long-term immigration objectives while working toward maintaining and building confidence in our own immigration system.

The successful candidate must show that it can effectively investigate the conduct of its members and sanction those who do not play by the rules. It will also need to understand the importance of ensuring that consultants respect Canada's immigration laws, and the rights and best interests of newcomers.

Once an entity is identified, if necessary, a regulatory alignment may be proposed naming a new governing body. In this case transitional measures would ensure continuity of service for both consultants and their clients during the transition period.

The other non-legislative improvements related to the proposed changes include continued efforts to make potential immigrants aware of the dangers of hiring crooked consultants.

Improved services, including web-based tools and practical videos, are being developed by CIC and will help people submit an application to move to Canada totally on their own.

I can also assure hon. members that the Government of Canada will continue to use bilateral and multilateral opportunities to deal with the issue of fraudulent activities by immigration consultants abroad.

As I mentioned earlier, the international component to addressing crooked immigration consultants was initiated during my trip to India in January 2009, when I raised this issue in Chandigarh with the chief minister of Punjab, and was continued in my recent trip.

We have all heard the horror stories about people falling prey to the deceitful schemes and machinations cooked up by crooked consultants. The media across Canada has done an excellent job of shining a light on these injustices. To give an example, the Toronto Star's “Lost in migration” series was particularly hard-hitting and eye-opening.

As we have seen and heard, prospective immigrants often shell out exorbitant amounts of money, sometimes their entire lifesavings, in order to get a promise of a high-paying job or fast-tracked or guaranteed visas. As is so often the case, would be immigrants find out too late that they have been deceived.

These cases of fraud and deception are too common, but they should never be considered inevitable. That is why the government is committed to addressing immigration fraud in all forms and working to better regulate immigration consultants. That commitment was reiterated in March in the Speech from the Throne.

I would like to conclude by stating that this important piece of legislation has been widely praised, including by victims and legitimate immigration consultants. For example, the president of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants said, “We have been calling for such changes for a long time, and are in full support of them”.

Bill C-35 has also received positive attention from the media on June 9. The Globe and Mail stated in an editorial that it makes “--a significant shift from the previous system of self-regulation of the immigration consulting industry”. The Toronto Star said that, “Cracking down on crooked Canadian immigration consultants is a great idea and [the government] should be congratulated for taking that step”.

We are confident that the amendments we are proposing to make to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act through this bill would better protect people from crooked consultants, and the damage and misery that they cause.

I hope that I can count on my opposition colleagues to work with the government constructively to ensure its speedy passage through this House because we have an obligation as legislators, as government, and as Parliament to defend the vulnerable, to ensure that Canada maintains its best reputation as a country open to newcomers, but to ensure that it is done in a system that is based on fairness, the rule of law, and the protection of the vulnerable. We believe that this bill takes a great step forward in that direction.

Immigration

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, every year, thousands of would-be immigrants and visitors to Canada are exploited by unethical, crooked immigration consultants who sometimes take thousands of dollars from people, exploiting their dream of coming to Canada, and return no services or, even worse, counsel people to commit fraud that hurts their chances of coming to Canada.

This government is taking action. We have introduced today Bill C-35, an act to crack down on crooked consultants and make it a crime, punishable with up to two years in prison, for people to act as consultants if they are not properly registered. We are also taking other measures to ensure a proper accounting of these--

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)