Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 31st, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

It's not a point of order. However, it is a valid point given the fact that we have agreed we will study three different matters as our committee goes across Canada: temporary foreign workers, immigration consultants, and Iraqi refugees.

I would ask members to confine themselves as much as they can to these three topics. We will have fewer interventions and fewer points of order as we go forward. Please, I ask your cooperation. We all met and decided what we were going to talk about, and I incidentally had to go before the all-party committee of the House of Commons to get permission to travel on these three points. It was difficult to get permission to do it. I had to go at it for 40 minutes, and it was based on the fact that we would do three studies. So while it's not a point of order, it's a valid point that we should confine ourselves to the three.

Mr. Telegdi, I'll take that out of your time.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I'll just make the point that when an issue is raised by the presenters, I am completely within my rights to question on that issue. When we talk about what committee would be appropriate to have this thing go forward to, it's being sent to the finance committee, as everybody knows, which is the wrong committee.

The point I was getting to is that for somebody to become an immigrant, they have to make, first of all, an emotional investment. This applies to all those issues. Secondly, they have to make a physical investment. Thirdly, they have to make a financial investment. What we are in danger of doing is sending out a message to the world that if you want to get to Canada, you have no rights, it's a lottery, and you might be better off buying a 6/49 ticket. Then what we're going to have is that people will choose other countries, which are governed by rule of law and not by ministerial discretion.

As I said before, the whole thing around the temporary workers and trying to wrap it up in strippergate is not really an issue, but it makes good political theatre, which is being shamelessly exploited.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to question you on this in the future, in terms of the Canadian immigration bar, because obviously I don't sit on the finance committee. We will have a fight to get it before this committee. Let me put the question to you, Mr. Stojicevic, in terms of what I just said. In terms of the chilling effect for trying to get immigrants into this country when there is an international competition going on, how do you see it from the perspective of the immigration bar?

[Alex Stojicevic]

If I may, and I'll try not to comment on Bill C-50 within the parameters here, but Bill C-17 is effectively wrapped in the same language. Mr. Chan talked to you about 45 workers who didn't get visas from the Canadian consulate in Shanghai. He raised that in his testimony. What he didn't say is that the minister's office intervened in that case and had 20 permits issued. I know this because this is a case out of my law office. I'm not suggesting for a minute that this government and this minister aren't sensitive to specific issues where there are ministerial instructions or where there are laudable objectives from both ministerial instructions and/or a change that would give more discretion over which categories are going to be processed. But that's an example of the minister—under the current act, the current legislation, and the current framework—assisting in the facilitation of a visa, of a series of visas, where there was some element of controversy.

So to suggest the system now isn't responsive to those kinds of problems is simply incorrect. And that begs the question, from our perspective, of why you need this legislation then. This minister has made it abundantly clear that she will entertain full public consultation, etc., on any changes, but who's to say that the next minister won't?

To me, to the member's point, that's actually the problem. From the perspective of the end-user who doesn't read the Canadian media every day, this system becomes a lot less transparent and a lot less objective. If we're relying on the minister's staff and on the department officials to continually update information, you're making a system that is complicated right now that much more so.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

You also mentioned the need for transparency. How can you have transparency if you don't have legislation that you can refer to? Let's not kid ourselves. When you say it's the minister, we all know it's the bureaucrats; it's not the minister. The minister doesn't know enough in these cases and relies on the advice of the bureaucracy. Essentially we're giving the department over to the bureaucrats without having the proper transparent political oversight and accountability.

[Alex Stojicevic]

I take the point the member is making. The issue again is policy goals. If you look at it, we have regulations now that outline the various different kinds of categories they're supposed to process. What is being contemplated, ultimately with ministerial instructions and the new bill that you've all agreed not to talk about, is unfortunately a system in which that's being modified. It's the first time in Canadian history we're going to have regulations that say these are the categories you have to process, and yet it will be at the minister's level of discretion to pick and choose which ones they're going to follow.

I'm not certain that it's not appropriate, that some of the things the minister is doing are not good strategies. Again, there is a huge backlog that needs to be addressed. The question is, do we need to entrench in law her ability to actually direct out in the field as opposed to going with what's already in place now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Mr. St-Cyr.

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

I'm going to go quickly to leave some time for Mr. Carrier.

Mr. Stojicevic, with regard to Bill C-50, even though that's not our subject as such, if people outside Canada have less trust in our system because they consider it more arbitrary, doesn't that risk encouraging illegal workers to circumvent it on the pretext that it is unreliable? Isn't that a danger?

[Alex Stojicevic]

I don't know that that's a conclusion that one necessarily comes to. It's going to come down to what Member Telegdi said: how good are they going to be at getting out the message on which processing cases they will handle and which they won't?

Does it increase the risk of what you're talking about? I think it does potentially. Again, it comes down to this. If you're the end-user of the immigration system, at this point there is some ability, however limited it is, unfortunately, to go yourself to their website, look things up, and decide if you can be selected. Every immigration decision--it doesn't matter what category--is divided into two decisions: selection and admission. Have you been chosen in your particular category, and are you otherwise admissible?

Right now we have a system that at least enables the first thing to be relatively easily done without my assistance necessarily, or that of an immigration consultant, and hopefully without that of an unlicensed immigration practitioner. The problem is that what they're talking about in that bill changes this. It makes it very difficult for that to happen. That goes back to my theme of how is this making the system more accessible to the end-user, to the actual immigrant? I think it can't be helping that perspective.

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

I'll stop you because I'm going to ask you a final question on the subject which you may consider somewhat odd. I understand you oppose these provisions of Bill C-50. Do you think all members who are opposed to these provisions should vote against it? Is this important enough for the committee to reject these provisions?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, in the spirit that you cautioned Mr. Telegdi, will you use the same spirit to caution Mr. St-Cyr, please?

[Alex Stojicevic]

Well, let me make it easier for him. I really don't think it's appropriate for me to answer that question. Our bar has no position on whether the government should stand or fall based on Bill C-50. Our position as far as Bill C-50 is concerned is that it raises some issues of the immigration act that should be debated. It's as simple as that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Again, Mr. Karygiannis raised a good point. I would ask that the member confine his remarks to the issues we're studying. The rules of order are very clear on that as well.

I want to be as flexible as we possibly can, but if it gets out of hand, then I will have to refer to the rules and the Standing Orders and bring members to order on that. So let's cooperate in every way we can on this, and I'm sure we'll all get along just fine.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe my first question sufficiently demonstrated that there was a link between Bill C-50 and undocumented workers. That is why I asked that question, and Mr. Stojicevic's answer was quite eloquent.

I'm nevertheless going to go back to his presentation on immigration consultants. Perhaps I'm wrong, and that's what I would like to know. Are there any other areas where someone who is not a lawyer, or even a notary in Quebec, can provide legal advice? If I have knowledge of some issue unrelated to immigration, can I provide legal advice to people and be paid for it without being a lawyer?

[Alex Stojicevic]

I'm not sure this isn't a question that is more appropriate for the law society than for myself. But as far as British Columbia is concerned--I can speak for this province anyway--and as far as I know for other provinces, the authority to regulate legal services rests within each and every province. Their legislation outlines who can practice law and who cannot, and certainly that includes who can give legal advice and who cannot.

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

In British Columbia, are there any fields other than immigration where individuals who are neither lawyers nor notaries can provide legal opinions?

[Alex Stojicevic]

There aren't any.

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

There aren't any. Do you know whether that's true in Quebec.

[Alex Stojicevic]

My understanding is that in Quebec, absolutely not. In fact, for applications filed under the Quebec government's guidelines, there is some authority for the idea that you have to be a Quebec lawyer, on top of everything else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead. You have a minute and a half.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you for being here today.

My question is for Mr. Stojicevic, who represents the Canadian Bar Association. Is the problem that he raised concerning immigration consultants the same across the country or is it limited to certain places in particular?

[Alex Stojicevic]

You've asked an excellent question. As immigration in Canada has evolved, this file--this brief--has also evolved with it. Certainly the urban centres have the highest number of problems of this sort. Two years ago, Alberta took 20,000 immigrants. The last time Alberta took 20,000 immigrants was 1907 or something like this. Certainly in those markets now, you have a greater impact for unlicensed immigration consultants, for example. You see this issue replicating itself across the country. Whereas it used to be a Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal problem, now it's an across Canada problem.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Is it the role of the bar association of each province to enforce and monitor this act and the regulation of legal services provided by lawyers, whether it be in immigration or other fields?

[Alex Stojicevic]

The challenge your question poses is that the bar association advocates on behalf of its members—it's a voluntary organization—as well as for the proper administration of justice. Our mandate doesn't include policing lawyers. That's the mandate of the law society of each province.

Now the problem with unlicensed immigration consultants is.... With CSIC, our issue isn't really that CSIC doesn't have the mandate to do it, but that there seems to be some issue as to the federal government funding it properly so that it is able to enforce its disciplinary mandate against its own members.

Unlicensed immigration consultants exist outside of Canada or inside of Canada. Of the ones who are inside Canada, there needs to be more enforcement by the players in Immigration, including the department, the Canada Border Services Agency, and more use by the RCMP of investigations to bring these people to justice, where they've acted without proper authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have about five minutes left—