Evidence of meeting #31 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 quebec.
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
Without wanting to trouble you, may I qualify a minor point?
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
I work, but, in actual fact, I'm not working.
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
I can't do it. So I'm working with the Government of Quebec, where I can do it.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Mr. Ajmera, you've come as an individual. Are you a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants?
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Are you a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners?
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
In your presentations, you both underscored the deficiencies in the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. That's not new. Everywhere during our trip, people have made extremely troubling presentations to us on problems of governance, democracy and participation. I would even say a general lack of professionalism. Ms. Gauthier, you mentioned problems of data confidentiality. These are comments that were made to us.
I often told people who came to speak to us that this professional regulating body was probably not in the right place. Mr. Ajmera said at the start of his presentation that it is normally the provinces that regulate the professions. That's the provinces' area of jurisdiction. In French, you even used the expression “champ de compétence”. I particularly like that expression because it contains the word “compétence”. The provinces are used to governing the professions because they have done it for years. They have a very big regulatory framework.
The Office des professions du Québec, for example, controls each of the professions. There is an imposing regulatory framework, whereas the regulatory framework that gives the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants a monopoly is only a few paragraphs long. There's no comparison.
Would it be more effective if the provinces controlled the consulting profession through the existing professional control structures? That would avoid the problems of governance, democracy and dubious or debatable ethical strategy. What do you think of that?
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
I'm going to answer you in French.
As an Individual
Thank you. That goes back to the question of what has specifically been asked. Yes, it should be given to the provincial governments, but there are two reasons why it's impossible to do it at this time.
First of all, we have a judgment from the British Supreme Court in the Mangat case, where the court decided it's the federal government that decides who will appear before the quasi-judicial authority.
Second, across Canada there are about 5,000 immigration consultants all together--good consultants and bad consultants. So if we start regulating province by province, probably British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec will have the majority of the consultants being regulated by the licensing bodies. But as for setting up a body in a province like New Brunswick, there probably aren't more than 10 consultants there, so that's another problem I see in doing that.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
I'll let Ms. Gauthier answer, but just before that, I want to respond to your two points.
First, the court decision stipulates that the federal government is free to choose whom it will authorize to make submissions to it. That doesn't prevent the federal government from saying that, to make submissions, you have to be a member of your provincial professional association. That's the case of the bar, for example. To plead before the Supreme Court, you have to be a member of the bar of your province, period. As to the question of numbers, if there are 10 immigration consultants in a province, that's not where there are the most problems. I can understand that one might not cover those 10 cases, but that's not where the problem lies.
Ms. Gauthier, what do you think of that?
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
I think that's an excellent idea; that's the way I'm least familiar with. I have another similar suggestion, with your permission.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Montreal, Canadian Society of Immigration Practitioners
The addition to the Immigration Act states that only a notary who is a member of the Chambre des notaires du Québec, a lawyer or a member of the CSIC may practise and be paid as an immigration representative.
We may ask the Governor in Council to amend that part of the regulations and simply to add the CSIC and the CSIP. It seems that everyone might be happy. That would be another way of doing it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle
Would Mr. Carrier and Mr. Telegdi like to split ten minutes? No? Okay.
Mr. Telegdi, you wanted to ask a few questions. We have about ten minutes left for you and either Mr. St-Cyr or Mr. Carrier. Go ahead.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Ajmera, I'd like to get back to you, because we don't often have this opportunity.
I want to deal with malfeasance that you're aware of in India. I continually hear about it in my constituency office. I have a concern with people who try to get visas who are refused, and of course we have locally engaged staff. I find it problematic for people who want to come to Canada for a visit being refused so often. This is something the committee has struggled with over the years, and we have tried to look at some alternative systems.
One of the ways we thought it could have worked--and we talked about it at our committee and we heard witnesses--is that if somebody over here wants to sponsor somebody from India, if they put up a guarantee or do an undertaking, as we normally do in our courts each day when people sign sureties, which in the United States they call bail, that might be able to expedite the entry of that person, take him out of the backlog, and make sure that person gets into Canada. I think we could be doing it right locally. When somebody comes into my office and says they want somebody to come and visit, I know the person who is doing the asking, maybe. I think it would be a lot better if that person could say he's going to guarantee that this individual will return and do what we already do in our court systems every day, particularly for the ones who got turned down, because it's very hard to get a refusal on a visa overturned, particularly by the office.
If you were to do that, then we would have a critical mass of people who could do some quality control checks to see which visa officers are refusing way too many, because we'd be able to measure them against the ones who got here in spite of what the visa officer said. If you find that certain visa officers are turning down too many who are coming and fulfilling their obligations and returning as they're supposed to, it would give us some kind of quality control. Right now we don't have that. Too often I find that visa officers are turning down people unnecessarily.
As an Individual
So your question is, should we introduce a deposit system or something?
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Yes, say for people who got turned down and they have to go through quickly.
As an Individual
In principle, it's a good idea, sir.
When this subject was before the committee, it came to our law firm as well. My immediate reaction was that if we do a good check, then the people who are giving the bond, as we call it here, if he is a good citizen in every respect, can be tied to that. If he makes sure I put this person back on the plane, off to Delhi, then it will work. Otherwise, as I've said before, it could be a motivation that, even if I lose that money, I can get people into Canada.
So the deposit system is good in theory, but probably the proper checks aren't being made about the credibility of the person who wants to put up a bond here in Canada--that if this person doesn't go back, I'm putting up $20,000 or $50,000; I'm giving you my personal guarantee he is my nephew, and if he doesn't go back I will go back, and if he does go back I will provide the proof here.
Another problem in our present system is that we do not have an exit visa. I might have come today in time, but I can go back after two years and nobody would know I overstayed one and a half years in Canada.
Liberal
Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Well, we make sure we get proof that the people we get over here through my office go back. Otherwise, it becomes a battle with the bureaucrats.
My biggest concern in this whole visa system is that we really don't have any quality assurance that a visa officer isn't unduly turning down too many people. That assurance isn't there. These visa officers have incredible power.
As an Individual
An average person looks at the CIC website or the VFS office website in India or in China and other countries. They make a list of documents, and 30 or 40 documents ask whether this or that has been provided. They obviously don't read the rules and regulations and act, and the one line that says you have to satisfy the officer that you are not a likely immigrant into Canada and you will go back. That one line makes the whole pile of five-inch-thick documents.... In 30 seconds, it's yes and no, and you are out of the door.
Those are the cases that trouble me--for instance, the business people. With respect to the businessmen who are trying to come to Canada, under the federal regulations and the Quebec regulation it is provided that they will get an extra point if they make an exploratory trip to see how we conduct business in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, or wherever they want to do business. Most of the time these people are being rejected. So in those types of cases there could be a way to look at what you are suggesting.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back to a more technical point, the use of French.
On a number of occasions during our trip, people have talked to us about the CSIC and about the fact that they had to speak English in order to become an official consultant recognized by that organization. It seems quite clear to me that, to be a consultant and to deal with the government, you have to speak English in the rest of Canada. However, it also seems quite clear to me that you have to speak French in order to practise in Quebec.
Does the CSIC require that candidates speak French in order to be recognized as consultants in Quebec?