Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 9th, 2008

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Are you suggesting, then, that immigration consultants be treated similarly, as paralegals under your umbrella?

[Malcolm Heins]

I didn't go as far as saying immigration consultants should be regulated by the law society itself. We'd certainly be competent to do it within the purview of Ontario. The problem with immigration consultants, I guess, as you've heard, though, is that they're not only operating in Canada, they're operating outside of Canada.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let me just take this thing through one step further.

What you have with the consultants is almost a mirror-type of structure compared to the legislative structure that you have as a law society. They deal with discipline, they deal with competency, they deal with ethics, they deal with errors and omissions. Those are the same kinds of things that you deal with as a law society, except by provincial statute. Is that correct?

[Malcolm Heins]

What you're missing is that CSIC can only do those things with respect to those people who choose to belong. It's a voluntary organization.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Right. Let's talk about those who choose to belong.

[Malcolm Heins]

But in the regulatory model, the true regulatory model creates a statutory framework that says you can't provide any of these activities, including consulting advice, in the absence of being accredited by the regulator. That's not what you have with CSIC.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Okay, but it's something you could have. If you have CSIC—

[Malcolm Heins]

You could, but you'd have to go back and pass the statute giving them that.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Or a regulation.

[Malcolm Heins]

I would differ that you can do it by regulation, quite bluntly.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But the fact of the matter is, there is no reason that CSIC can't do with their immigration consultants the same thing as you're doing with paralegals.

[Malcolm Heins]

If they have the appropriate statutory authorization, yes, of course.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

So it may need some fixing, but they're covering all the same principles as you're covering to govern your lawyers and paralegals in your jurisdiction.

[Malcolm Heins]

Yes. That was really my point. I wasn't saying that CSIC is a bad organization. What I'm saying is that CSIC hasn't been given the appropriate statutory authority to do the job that I think everyone expects and wants it to do.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But you would agree with me that in terms of professional competence for CSIC members, education, discipline, and ethics are important things, along with errors and omissions insurance.

[Malcolm Heins]

Absolutely.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

And those are the right kinds of things, and that is the right track?

[Malcolm Heins]

There is no dispute, no argument with respect to that.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

With respect to Mr. Mooney, you're indicating that one of the concerns you have is that your oversight or governance doesn't apply to those who do any type of services or work up to the point of placing the application with the department. You're saying it should be taken back to the point where fees are paid or fees are arranged.

I suppose a logical extension would be to say, at any point that anyone represents someone with respect to a matter for which a fee will be charged, that should be the starting point.

[Philip Mooney]

Yes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

And would that solve a whole host of problems for you?

[Philip Mooney]

I'd liken it to saying, if you want to go from Vancouver to Ottawa, you should have a railroad. It's an enabling matter, because it then says that individuals within Canada, for instance, who are not regulated and who practise in those areas are actually violating the Immigration Act and the RCMP could be involved.

It states that for those individuals who are outside of Canada doing those things, if they seek entry to Canada, CBSA is involved, because as you know, you don't have to be convicted of violating an act to be inadmissible to Canada. You need to have violated the act. That's basically the rule. So they could actually refuse entry to rogue agents who are running around, coming here to solicit more business, and doing all the things we don't want them to do. So by drawing the line at just a different place in the sand, it really opens up to many people.

Our members advertise in ethnic press, and they come back and say, “Yes, but my ad is right alongside this other guy's, who's not paying any fees to CSIC, CAPIC, or anybody else.” So we'll write to the publisher, and the publisher will say, “Well, what's he doing wrong? What's the rule?” And we can't give him that moral authority.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

So if you take that back in time, if you have something in the application that requires the applicant to disclose whether he or she has any relationship with someone—

[Philip Mooney]

In fact, that was there originally.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Okay. And thirdly, would you like some statutory teeth for those who don't comply, who don't register but perform the services? Do you want to see something additional to what already exists, or not?