Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 15th, 2008

[Annette Landman]

Every two years you need 40 points. I went to the first CMI seminar because they gave a lot of points. They needed money, so they gave 20 points for the CMI seminar. A lot of people decided to go because it gave you 20 points. If I buy the DVD, I will get 15 points, and then I need five more.

Here in New Brunswick we don't have a local group of immigration consultants; there are just the three of us. One of them is in China a lot. The other one is in Germany a lot. So we don't really have the group together.

We don't have a local chapter here. If we had local chapter meetings with some educational components, we might be able to get a few points. Quebec has it. Ontario has it. We don't have that here in the Maritimes. So I'm not able to get points that way; I have to fly to the other side of Canada to get five more points.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

It sounds like you should start a New Brunswick chapter with the other two, set up an executive, and give yourselves points.

[Annette Landman]

Yes, I could be a board member, the financial committee. I could be all of it.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming forward and giving us your ideas. I think they were very well thought out--all eight of them.

Thank you.

[Annette Landman]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for appearing before us this morning, Ms. Landman.

First, I am going to make the same correction Mr. Telegdi made. You should not have any problems concerning what you say to the committee. I will even go farther: when witnesses appear before this committee, they are protected by parliamentary privilege. In legal terms, it would simply be contempt of the House to use anything you may have said or might say against you. If you suffer any reprisals or pressure of any kind, inform the clerk and the Chair. The House will take what action is necessary.

Regarding the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, a number of people have met with us since we started our travels. Two major problems have emerged: problems relating to governance, to the management of the organization, and problems relating to oversight of the profession, illegal practice and ghost consultants. I am going to address them separately, because in my opinion they are two different things.

On the question of governance, a number of consultants have told us about problems with this. It is always the same points that are raised. The testimony seems to me to be solid, reliable and much more credible than the answers given by the Society, or not given by the Society. I am somewhat shocked that I am the only person who is shocked. For a long time, Mr. Carrier and I were the only people asking questions about this. Today, I am pleased that Mr. Telegdi has risen to the occasion. I hope that the Conservatives will also get on board. for a long time, according to other witnesses — if you read the proceedings, you will see — the parliamentary secretary has simply said that it was a new organization and it was having problems but it would have to mature, to develop. Personally, I simply do not agree.

My background is in student associations. No little student association in Quebec would behave or govern itself the way the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants governs itself.

From what you have said, I understood that the minutes of the discussions and decisions of the board are not available. Is that correct?

[Annette Landman]

No, we've never seen them. We've asked for them; we don't get them.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

In my opinion, in that case, we can't call this growing pains. There is a problem with transparency and democracy at the source.

I also understand your frustration. You talked about special general meetings. I put the question to the president of CSIC when he appeared before us, whether it was possible, under the bylaws, for the members to call a meeting. His answer was that this was in bylaw 11.7, I believe. After hearing his answer to my question, I went and checked the bylaws, and it turned out that this was not it at all. It says that the President can call a special general meeting, and the Vice-President and board can, if there is a majority. That was last week. If an official committee of the House of Commons isn't able to get clearer answers than that, I wouldn't like to imagine what information a lone member of CSIC can get. The same thing happened when I asked those people why they had come to Winnipeg to testify rather than Toronto, where their head office is — you mentioned that they travel a lot — and they couldn't answer my question.

I think there is a major governance problem. There is also the entire problem of oversight of the profession, of illegal practice. Plainly, the people who are in office now do not have the necessary skills for this, but even if they did, there is also a problem with the statutory framework. The current Act provides that in order to do business with the government a person has to be a member of CSIC, but without really taking that farther, without allowing the organization to discipline people who practise illegally.

Since we began our travels, I have been exploring possible solutions with people. I would like to know what the situation is in the Atlantic provinces. There are now self-disciplining, self-governing professional bodies all across Canada. Without exception, those bodies are accountable to the provincial governments. The only professional body at the federal level is CSIC. I think the results show that this was not a very good idea.

Under our constitution, oversight of professions is under provincial jurisdiction. In French, jurisdiction is also referred to as "compétence". There is a question of jurisdiction here. It seems to me that if immigration consultants were subject to oversight at the provincial level, these problems would not exist. The current governance problems would not exist because in the provincial regulations, which are very complex, very elaborate, the result of years of work, there are oversight mechanisms that mean that the professional bodies have to self-regulate, but there is also, for example, a office or body responsible for professions that oversees all that.

So these governance problems would not exist. There would be an opportunity to intervene directly if there were problems. In terms of illegal practice, there is also a regulatory framework that enables a professional association to take action directly against people who practise the profession illegally.

Do you think it would be more effective and more logical for the government to ask people to be members of their provincial professional association, which would be automatically created, rather than members of CSIC?

[Annette Landman]

Well, there's a yes and a no to that.

There are also many CSIC members worldwide, which is also a problem, because nobody can govern them; nobody can do something about ghost consultants in India, for example. If we could be governed by the province—and I work in all Canadian provinces and have clients in all Canadian provinces—that should be looked at. Maybe it would be good to have something in the provinces. Maybe it would be better than what we have now.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

The example I would give you is immigration lawyers. You can be an immigration lawyer, you can work with clients outside Canada or in other provinces, but you have to be a member of the bar in your province. It seems to me that this model works very well and that it would be in everyone's interests to do the same thing at the provincial level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Ms. Landman.

As I was just saying, we have traveled across Canada from the Pacific Ocean to here. We have been travelling for two and a half weeks, and we are learning a lot about various problems. This is a multi-party committee with responsibility for studying these issues. Our committee is composed of 12 members of Parliament, including the Chair. You will notice that this morning only four of the 12 committee members are here. I mention this because I very much regret the absence of the four Conservative Party representatives, who would have benefited from hearing what you are telling us, because the purpose of our trip is to hear what you have to say. Those people can always read the reports that will come out after, but it isn't the same as hearing it in person. We in the Bloc Québécois play an active part in these discussions.

I agree with the points made by my colleague, that the problem with CSIC is that it is virtually accountable to no one. It is an organization that was simply set up without any supervision. According to the information we have, and we have heard from a lot of people, I think there may even be more immigration consultants practising in Canada who are not members of CSIC. There are the Immigration Practitioners and a number of other groups. I was wondering how the other immigration consultants who are not members of CSIC at present can still practice properly.

[Annette Landman]

We have one ghost consultant here in New Brunswick, who is very active. He fills out all of the user representative forms, as we call them, and puts his wife on the forms as “friend of the applicant”. The provincial government must have maybe 40 or 50 forms with her name on them as “friend of the applicant”. So these people have a lot of new immigrant “friends”. It's just ridiculous. The provincial government must notice this. I have one of these forms in my office, because one person brought it to me. They pay these people for immigration work. She puts her name on it as “friend of the family”.

I'm certified, and there's nothing I can do about this; there's nobody I can go to.

Yesterday I got a document from the Vancouver RCMP, I think it was. They tried to do something about 27 ghost consultants in Vancouver. In the end, they only had a strong case against one of them. Once all of that was processed, it was dismissed. So nothing was done.

There's something really wrong here. If people started operating as and saying they were lawyers, but they were not, what's going to happen to them? Why wouldn't the same thing happen to ghost consultants?

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I saw in your title that you are the President of the Eastern Canada Immigration and Job Consultants Inc. Do you represent only members of CSIC or can other immigration consultants belong to your association in eastern Canada?

[Annette Landman]

Yes, I'm the only certified immigration consultant in our company. But I am in contact with a few immigration consultants.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

So you don't represent... You are a business that represents all of eastern Canada for immigration only. You don't represent all immigration consultants.

[Annette Landman]

No, I don't. We work worldwide. We're located in New Brunswick, and, yes, I'm here for—

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

So you are more familiar with eastern Canada. A moment ago you said there were three or four CSIC members in New Brunswick.

[Annette Landman]

Yes.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

In your opinion, how many other ghost consultants are there, to use your expression?

[Annette Landman]

Oh, we might have 12 ghost consultants in New Brunswick.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

We are making the argument that there should be accountability to an office responsible for professions in each of the provinces so there is some supervision, because some people objected that if we consider only the current members of CSIC, because there are only four, that is two few to justify having a professional body in the province. But it would eventually bring in everybody who wants to work as an immigration consultant, it would get bigger, and all consultants would at least be regulated by a professional office.

Would you agree with that proposal, which would certainly be better than the present mess?

[Annette Landman]

Do you mean you would include ghost consultants in that--people who are ghost consultants now?

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Yes, but ultimately, the idea I want to pursue is that certainly some of the people who are not members of CSIC are still competent. But as a matter of principle they don't want to pay the fees, which you think are too high. Some of them may think that this isn't working well and so they choose to operate parallel to CSIC. But if all consultants were properly regulated and there was oversight where the are, that would necessarily cover all consultants. The people who were part of the profession would at least have some guaranteed professional oversight.