Let me start officially by saying thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of Parliament, for giving me an opportunity to present my views on the immigration industry, which is the only profession I practise or which I know how to do in Canada.
Let me give you a brief introduction about myself. My name is Prashant Ajmera. I am an Indian lawyer, and in India I practised in provincial high court, in the federal government attorney's office, for six years before I immigrated to Canada. I have been associated with an immigration law firm here in Montreal since I arrived in 1993 and have been practising as an immigration consultant since 1995.
Before coming to Canada, I was living and studying in the United Kingdom, where I completed my third degree, which was in corporate management. I applied for immigration to Canada under the Quebec program and arrived with my family—my wife and a daughter—in 1993.
The next point I want to talk about is in general the Canadian licensing system and CSIC licensing. As we all know, the Canadian Constitution has accorded the provincial governments the power to regulate the professions, except the profession of immigration consultant. However, over a period of time, the provincial governments gave these powers to professionals in each respective profession, who then formed the self-regulating licensing bodies for more than 45 professions in each province across Canada.
These self-regulating bodies are governed and managed by professionals who are practising in the same profession. It is but human nature that these professionals have had and will continue to have a vested interest in protecting their practice and interest by limiting the number of new professionals entering the profession. Certainly these self-regulating bodies cannot stop Canadian-educated professionals from entering into their profession. But each and every professional licensing body in Canada has been successful in making it difficult, or in many cases impossible, for foreign-trained professionals to acquire a Canadian licence to practise their profession in Canada.
These self-regulating bodies have successfully achieved their objective by setting impossibly high and impractical standards in the name of consumer protection and Canadian standards.
The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is a classic example of this flawed licensing system in Canada. It is managed by people who have vested interests in the immigration industry in Canada and set unrealistically high standards for consultants to obtain a licence to practise immigration law, in the name of consumer protection. This has resulted in the elimination of more than 800 consultants from the society. Many of these consultants continue to practise immigration without being a CSIC member or hiring the services of a CSIC member or a lawyer.
Concerning my experience with CSIC, rather than regulating and disciplining immigration consultants against whom complaints have been received by CSIC, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants began to intimidate hand-picked consultants who had resigned and raised their voices against the society and its operation. This was very well orchestrated by the former CSIC investigator, now an Immigration and Refugee Board member, who appeared before this committee on March 12, 2008.
I myself was a victim of CSIC's high-handed policy. You can read about my experience in the detailed submission provided.
Regarding regulating immigration consultants in Canada, one of the general recommendations I would like to make is that there should be several classes of consultants, as most consultants do not and cannot provide services in every area of immigration law. These classes of consultants can be divided into consultants who wish to practise only refugee and detention law and wish to appear before the Immigration and Refugee Board; consultants who wish to process cases belonging to the economic class, temporary resident class, and family class; and consultants who wish to practise in every area of the immigration law.
The Law Society of Upper Canada in Ontario makes such a distinction when it certifies the lawyers who specialize in different areas of immigration law. In order to identify the problem in the immigration industry and regulate it, we need to look at each area of temporary and permanent immigration with a category to understand in which area the consumer may be most vulnerable and most likely to be exploited by an immigration consultant or a lawyer.
One is visitor visas. The only consultants who can be regulated in these categories are consultants who hold a Canadian immigration consultant's licence.
Second is the student visa. Due to the difficulties in obtaining an immigration consultant's licence and long delays in immigration processing, many consultants operating outside of Canada are now involved in an immigration practice for foreign student recruitment by becoming an agent of a Canadian education institute. This class of consultant is specifically exempted from IRPA and from being regulated by CSIC or any such licensing body. The Canadian education institutes should be asked to hire the services of only licensed consultants.
Third are work permits and job offers for permanent immigrations and PNP skilled workers. This is the area that needs to be regulated very closely. Due to long delays in the immigration process, job offers for temporary workers and permanent immigration applications are being arranged by immigration consultants and lawyers to expedite the process. Immigrating to a new country with a job offer provides a sense of security to the applicants and it also helps to expedite the immigration process. As a result of this, the largest number of frauds committed by lawyers and consultants within the immigration industry occurs in this category, where the consultants can arrange to obtain job offers from Canadian employers and charge high fees to prospective immigrants.
Also, the latest policy by Citizenship and Immigration Canada to fast-track permanent immigration processing of applicants with a related job offer will add fuel to the fire. The applicants are ready to pay any amount of money to consultants or a lawyer who can arrange an HRSDC-approved job offer from a Canadian employer.
Similarly, except for in the province of Quebec, all provincial nominee programs have a prerequisite of a related job offer, and in those cases also, these problems exist.
A fourth category includes refugees, detentions, and IRB tribunal cases. This is another area of immigration practice where many frauds are being committed by consultants and lawyers. The foreign person claiming refugee status is most vulnerable in this category for a simple reason: that economic, political, or social conditions in the applicant's home country are not favourable. The applicant may have taken help from some agent or individual to reach Canada, may have little or no money, and may have minimum qualifications or understanding of the English and French languages. These are the people who have little hope, and in such situations, anyone who gives them any kind of hope is a godsend. Hence, they become easy targets for greedy consultants and lawyers.
Most immigration frauds are committed within Canada, and if the right action is taken to find this fraud, a major problem in the immigration industry can be solved, at least within Canada.
The last point is on the skilled workers and the business class. These applicants live outside Canada and they may be represented by consultants or lawyers from Canada as well as consultants originating outside Canada. However, a very small problem exists in this class, and no special measures are warranted, in my opinion. However, it is important that the consultants in and outside of Canada be regulated by means of a fair, transparent, and reasonable licensing system operated by the federal government.
Thank you very much.