Evidence of meeting #17 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Okay.
Is it often the case that people in the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants also have companies themselves, like the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants? Are there no conflicts in that? Then you have both, right, and then....
4:10 p.m.
Member, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'm a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, which is the regulator for immigration consultants. To be able to offer immigration services for a fee, you need to be a certified immigration consultant and member of CSIC, a lawyer, or a notaire in Quebec. CSIC is the regulator.
I'm not sure I understand your question, really.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Do you see a conflict? I thought there might be.
By May 1, you plan to wind down your share in Cannex.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
And you plan to sever your connections with the two new consultants, Julia Brodyansky and Gerd Damitz. When would that occur? Would it be before May 1?
4:10 p.m.
Member, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
The message I'm sending out to my clients is that on April 1 I'll stop representing them and the new representatives will start working on their cases.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
This would be the same for the clients overseas in the Philippines, for example? So it would be all your clients.
Perhaps I can ask Ms. Daley. I'm sure this is not the first time someone has an immigration or a consulting practice or is a lawyer who then gets appointed to the board. Is it the normal practice that they would give notice to their former clients to say they're selling the shares of their company or they're no longer working for that company? How does it work?
4:15 p.m.
Director General, Operations, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Obviously at the board, and particularly if you look at the statute, the statute says...and I'm going to speak more from the legal community. I'm also a lawyer, so I'm a little bit more familiar with the law society rules, but I've also looked at CSIC regulations.
For example, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act itself says that a certain percentage of our decision-makers must be lawyers. Clearly, over the years, some of them have come from the immigration and refugee business. That has been their practice.
The law societies as well as CSIC, because they're the regulating body, have the duty that you just can't abandon your clients. You have your professional obligations, so you can't get appointed on day one and walk out the door and turn the key and leave. There's a professional duty to the clients, and in that context, therefore, there is a period of time in which there has to be a mechanism whereby those professional obligations are met. Finding other counsel to take over the practice, dealing with the accounting, dealing with blind trusts, etc.--this process is a fairly common one.
As I understand it from talking to the new member, this is the process he's now going through with CSIC. Because his appointment is not currently in place, he's not currently a decision-maker and will not be until May 1.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
4:15 p.m.
Director General, Operations, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I really couldn't tell you that.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Does it take a few months? Sometimes in some of these cases...I know immigration lawyers who have huge numbers of cases that could be going to the Federal Court a year from now. So what happens in those cases?
4:15 p.m.
Director General, Operations, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I really can't give you an idea of how long it takes, but I do know most of the lawyers who have immigration practices and are dealing with the question of when a good start would be for their appointment are cognizant of that period of time. It really depends on their own knowledge of the situation. So I can imagine that if you're a lawyer in Toronto you would get a flavour for whether or not you had some colleagues who would be willing to move into your practice and move quickly, but maybe if you work in a more isolated community it would take you longer.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
That is seven minutes.
Order.
That's seven minutes of uninterrupted time, and I want to do the same thing as I did for Mr. Karygiannis and other members. We're going to cut it off at seven minutes.
There will be another round in which everyone will--
4:15 p.m.
An hon. member
You still owe me a minute, Mr. Chair.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For the record, I think when there's an appropriate point of order it needs to be made, although from my perspective I think we should err on the side of giving the person speaking the time they would have to speak; otherwise, through a series of points of order, you could cut a person off from speaking at all.
Keep that in mind, and I would certainly encourage ample time to be given notwithstanding the point of order.
Having said that--
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
--this is what we agreed to in the beginning, and I can only tell you the rules we laid down: that the witnesses from an organization be given ten minutes to make their opening statements and that, at the discretion of the chair during the questioning of witnesses, seven minutes be allocated. If at some point we want to make that rule more specific, that would mention points of order not be taken out, we can do that. After all, we are masters of the committee and we can do it at that time, certainly at the discretion of the chair.
Please proceed, Mr. Komarnicki.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Having said that, I certainly appreciate all members appearing before this committee.
I have looked at Mr. Volpentesta's resumé and I see you were an executive director with the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants, and I can see that the board's gain will be their loss.
Also, I see in the resumé with respect to Ms. Setton-LeMar that she was also a bilingual investigator with the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. Once again, the board's gain will be their loss. I have looked at your resumé, and certainly you have been involved in many matters relating to the immigration field. And in your case, Ms. LeMar, you have had legal experience, and I see you have worked on matters relating to alternate dispute resolution and so on.
In your case, Mr. Volpentesta, you've had experience on the disciplinary hearing side, the education standards review side, and certainly both those parts of the society's structure are important to ensure the consultants' area is enhanced.
So certainly if there's any argument, from what I can see, it's that you might be overqualified for your positions, but there are not any issues in terms of qualifications. From what I see here, I think you'll do an admirable job and you'll use your vast experience and background to advantage. We look forward to hearing the decisions you make as you go forward.
I realize there's been some question about whether or not you are involved in practice, your cases that are ongoing. But as lawyers or others would, you do have a practice that gives you the very experience that's necessary and therefore you'll wind down in some particular fashion--and it needs to be in a reasonable and constructive way--prior to the commencement of your term, which I understand is May 1, isn't it, in your case?
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I understand the Ethics Commissioner has spoken to each of you with respect to any issues that might relate to compliance or ensuring that you're okay from a conflicts point of view before you enter the job.
Is that so, and could you tell us? Either one of you can.
4:20 p.m.
Member, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, sure.
I received a call from a person who worked at the Ethics Commissioner's office, Ms. Plouffe. I had a conversation with her, and what she wanted to know in my particular case was whether or not I was aware that for a year after the end of the appointment I wouldn't be able to make representations to the board as a lawyer or to work in front of the board, and if that would present a problem. In my particular case it didn't present a problem, because I think I'm going in a different direction. I don't plan to be doing litigation again. So for me it's not a problem.
Then I got the package from the commissioner, which I'm filling out.