I think that's more than enough time.
I've been an immigration lawyer for over twenty years, and it has never been as bad as it is today in the area of immigration consultants.
Let me define what I mean by immigration consultants. We have licensed immigration consultants who are licensed by the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, but they not the primary focus of my comments.
The primary focus of my comments are those consultants who are unlicensed and unregulated. They primarily operate in a variety of ethnic communities and are the ones committing the most serious and flagrant abuses.
It is epidemic. It is not getting better. I think that if anything comes out of these hearings, it is the recognition that it is a problem that must be addressed.
To understand how someone who is not licensed can become an immigration consultant, one merely has to look at any local ethnic newspaper. People are advertising services they are not qualified to provide, and that's in Canada. Outside of Canada the problem is even more endemic, because there is really no effective policing mechanism.
I want to say a few words about the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. I'll leave it to them in their hearings to explain to you what their role is, but clearly their role, as they've said in their earlier presentation, is not to deal with unlicensed consultants. That's not within their jurisdiction; they can't deal with this group of people.
Even with licensed consultants they do not have the authority--as, for example, a law society does--to come in and shut a member down. If a lawyer is committing breaches of the code of professional conduct or if complaints are made against that lawyer, the law societies--and this is, I think, in any jurisdiction--can step in and can immediately revoke that lawyer's licence. In fact, they've done it on several occasions in Manitoba, and at least on one occasion with an immigration lawyer.
As far as I understand it, CSIC does not have that power. They have a regulatory power and they have a complaint mechanism. Either they have to be given the tools to do it or that tool must reside someplace else.