Evidence of meeting #27 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 consultants.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
You referred me to section 11.3 concerning special meetings. I obviously meant meetings requested by members. However, section 11.3 concerns a special meeting called by the president, vice-president or a majority of directors.
I'd like to know the number of the provision that applies when members want to call a general meeting, because I can't find it.
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
There isn't a bylaw that allows the members directly to call a special general meeting or an annual general meeting. They can petition the board of directors, and a simple majority of the board of directors, which is elected, will call that meeting. That's what section 11.3 enables.
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There is no doubt that for any organization like yours, there is a time for maturation to take place, so I appreciate there are some growing pains involved.
To follow up on Mr. St-Cyr's question, I did look at your bylaws and was concerned that the special meetings of members could be convened by order of the chair, vice-chair, or by a simple majority of directors at any date, time, and place. But effectively, the directors chose not to. Even if the members petition, there's nothing in the governance part that would allow the members to have the right to call a special meeting on a certain number or percentage of membership. And I think somehow that leaves a deficiency there for members who may have a legitimate case to put forward to a board that might not be particularly interested in doing that.
I just raise that for you.
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Mr. Komarnicki, in response, if you look at the beginning of the section in terms of bylaws, the tab marked “bylaws”, ladies and gentlemen--
In French, it's the Règlement administratif.
You will see the number of times the bylaws have been amended by the corporation. And as you probably know, each time these bylaws are amended, they first must be amended with the vote of the full membership. Then, once we have the vote and approval of the full membership, we must submit it to Industry Canada for the minister's consent.
For each of these dates you see on the front page of the bylaws, this process was observed and followed. It's just in the last meeting, where we had the full membership after transition, that we had a 20% quorum issue.
But certainly the members at the upcoming annual general meeting in September can move a motion or a resolution to change the bylaws, to add a clause if they feel so inclined.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I notice your bylaws provide for a number of committees. Do you have a governance committee?
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
We have a standing governance committee as well as a board of directors. Two of us have our accreditation in corporate governance, issued by the Institute of Corporate Directors in conjunction with the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Also, a number of our directors are sent on training for audit committee work, etc.
You will see from the different committees that not only do we have the committees, but if you look under the “election” tab you will see the board's mandate in detail, the various committee mandates, as well as the roles we take.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I notice that the conflict of interest provisions of the bylaws indicate you have a conflict of interest policy applicable to all directors. And there are some issues about that.
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Yes, I would like to call your attention to the tab marked “AGM”.
It's page 187 in French.
It's page 187 in the information, please. I'd like to call your attention to the conflict of interest policy.
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
The detailed policy is there for your inspection.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
All right, because obviously some issues were raised about that, as well as compensation. I see you also have a provision relating to compensation of directors.
But one thing I thought was interesting in what you said is that you felt that being able to control those that aren't regulated.... A simple statement on the form or the application form asking whether anybody has been paid or not would go a long way, and I take note of that.
What is the penalty currently for someone who is in the society and needs to be disciplined? What's the range of penalties?
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
The penalties can range anywhere from a reprimand, a written reprimand, to re-education, to fines, to what is our ultimate penalty, which would be the removal of the right to practise. That is determined by an independent hearings tribunal.
On your point on the compensation report here, in keeping with best governance practices, the board hasn't decided its own compensation. We've gone out and got an independent assessment of what the board should be paid, given other market realities. We have an independent consultant who comes in and has generated this compensation report, and this has been made available to the members.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I think it's important to have an education component to it to ensure you have competent members.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
It's important to have a discipline arm to ensure that those who are out of line are disciplined, and ethics for those who might be engaged in practices that are questionable.
Number one, in discipline, can you tell me what the process is? Have you gone through perhaps one process? What's involved in it?
Also, secondary to that—because I know my time is running out—I know law societies themselves generally prosecute those who are practising unlawfully or engaged in unauthorized practice. You were suggesting the government should do that. I know that for lawyers, for instance, the government of the province I'm from doesn't do that; the law society itself does that by a section that allows for a penalty for those who practise law unauthorized.
Those are my two questions.
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
I'll start with your second question first.
Quite frankly, it's not we ourselves who want us to do it; the government has retained that ability to enforce. Under the recommended model of the minister's advisory committee, the minister chose to retain the enforcement ability.
Conservative
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Well, it was never with the society.
Conservative
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
We would certainly welcome discussions on that point, because we think we need additional tools to get at this problem.
Conservative
Chair, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
To your first issue, with respect to how our hearings process works, we receive complaints in a multitude of languages. They are reviewed by our complaints and discipline manager. We have professional staff, investigators and staff. The complaint is assigned—to give you the Webster's abridged version—to an investigator, and it's investigated.
For the complainants, if it's a fees dispute, we try to mediate that, and I have some statistics I can give you on some of the things we've done to date.
We've had ten letters of cautions and eight undertakings signed between a member and the society for re-education or education. We've had 32 fee disputes mediated or situations mediated between the consumer and the consultant. We've had three suspensions and one letter of reprimand. We've had two hearing decisions, one of which we're still waiting for the penalty to come out on; and we've had one motion, which was heard by our hearings panel.
Our hearings are independent. The manager of complaints and discipline at our society can discipline administratively. The manager has the authority to do that, or it can go to a full-blown hearing. The hearings director we have is independent. They are all trained adjudicators.
We are very cognizant of due process and procedural fairness for both the complainant and for the member who is, of course, being faced with the allegations.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
And I'm sure it would need to be charter compliant, and you'll be tested if it isn't.
I have one further question before my time runs out.
Errors and omissions insurance is important. If things do go wrong, you need to have a plan where those who are injured are compensated. What portion of the fees does the errors and omissions...?
