Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 16th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Or an executive director.

[Bruce Perreault]

I want to go back to one thing that you said, sir, which is why we had little access to each other at the time. When CSIC was formed we had everybody's names and addresses, and members strongly objected to that. Some of the very members who now want it back objected to it. So a decision was made that in fairness, if you want somebody's name, you can come to us and get it. That was one of the reasons this happened, sir.

Now back to your last question....

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

How do you run the elections?

[Bruce Perreault]

Remember, in answering this particular question I will answer just as a member.

The elections are run by an independent election committee that is set up. If I were going to run—which I am not, I never have run, and never would—I would be allowed to have my name placed before the nominating committee. As long as I was not subject to a discipline or a disciplinary matter that was before the society, I would be allowed to run with the signature of only 15 members. So with 15 members I could run for the election. Our standards are very low. Then in the end everyone is equal in terms of access to our website.

You did ask, could I advertise in other mediums? I believe you could, sir, but I could stand corrected on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, I'll ask you to wrap up your comments, Mr. Telegdi, with another comment.

Oh, Mr. Eastley. Sorry, sir. Go ahead

[Ross Eastley]

I can add something in terms of the election process. It was on the website. It's run by an externally appointed what we call senior elections official. The process is very similar to processes put in place for the election of school division officials, trustees, and municipal officials in the province of Manitoba. I come from Manitoba, and I used that as a manual for putting that in place.

The information the candidates can put on the website--there's a limit of, I forget, 500 words or something like that, that you can put on the website in French and English. All the candidates have access to that. All the candidates can submit material to the senior elections official, and it's distributed to all the members of CSIC. In addition, there are what we call election forums that are run online. It's done live so that you can listen to it over the computer. Members have the ability to text in messages or questions that the host will ask the candidates to comment on. That takes place during the election campaign.

At the time of the actual election, there is what we call a three-day window of time for people to vote, and it's turned over to an external elections online organization that runs the election for CSIC itself. All the voting is done online.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'll have to get back to you, Andrew, because you're at ten minutes. Just a very quick comment.

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

Thank you.

Yesterday a number of people came forward and made complaints, and we'll be looking into that. And we will watch the elections with interest.

Just as a reminder to everybody, testimony given before the committee is covered by parliamentary privilege. We want to make sure there is no retaliatory action taken against any member who strays from the party line, if you will. It's a reminder.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Good, thank you.

Mr. St-Cyr.

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

That is a very good reminder, Mr. Telegdi.

Listening to your various presentations, I heard a lot of self-congratulations. All the organizations you represent are intimately linked to the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, the creation of which is due to CAPIC. You also stated that the Canadian Migration Institute is an independent organization, which is not the case. It is a creation of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants and the same people sit on both boards.

I find it hard to understand your presentation, Mr. Perrault. You said that one cannot expect the same degree of transparency from that organization since its purpose is to pass regulations and to monitor. Then, at the end, you said that we should trust the ability of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants to regulate itself.

If a professional organization wants to self-regulate, absolute transparency and maximum democracy are required. I can say that because I too am a member of a professional association, l'Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec. I have presided at elections and I know very well how it works. All the candidates have distribution lists and they can send mass e-mails to all the members in one shot. Of course, one cannot talk by phone to thousands of members. In any case, the list of engineers, as is the case with all professional organizations, is available on the web with their contact information. This is also useful to the public if someone wants to check that someone claiming to be a member of the Association is indeed one. However, that cannot be done if you cannot get that information from the website.

You also underlined the rather important matter of language tests, which nobody is challenging. You also said that, if some people are speaking against the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, it is because they have not been able to pass the language tests. That is not what the committee has heard. The people who criticized the Society or raised various issues before the Committe were all, or nearly all, members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. They were persons who were quite fluent in English, who had obviously passed all the tests of the CSIC but who wanted to criticize its governance.

From what I have heard, from the questions I have asked and the answers I have been given, I can hardly look at you through rose-colored glasses and state that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants does not have any governance problems. When a professional association has been unable for several years to hold a general assembly, when the assembly it finally holds is not one that people can attend individually, when the members do not have any possibility to call for a special general assembly, and when the same problems and issues are raised continually, that association definitely has governance problems, let us be frank about it.

What is the cause of that situation? That is what I want to know and what is of interest to me. I believe that, right from the start, the creation of that organization as been a problem. The Canadian Society of immigration consultants has been set up at the wrong level of government. All professional organizations in Canada are created at the provincial level with very specific and detailed legislative frameworks. Furthermore, they come under monitoring bodies having the power to discipline their members. Even if one accepts that an organization should regulate itself, it must still come under the control of an external body. Nothing of the sort exists at the federal level. The regulatory framework applying to the CSIC is but a few paragraphs long and, for the rest, it is supposed to regulate itself.

Do you not think that it would be more effective to have the profession regulated at the provincial level the same way it is done with other professions? Why should you, against all logic, keep insisting on the creation of a regulatory framework of this profession from scratch at the federal level?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Whoever wishes to respond, please feel free to jump in. We have a minute and a half or two minutes left on that round, and then I have to go to Ms. Chow.

[Bruce Perreault]

I would like to respond very briefly.

Thank you for your very interesting remarks, sir.

The first thing you seem to have a problem with is the fact that CSIC is not set up by a statutory scheme like so many federal or provincial matters or other organizations, such as engineers. I can share that problem in the sense of CSIC being different, but in order to understand the foundation of CSIC, one has to go back in history as to really who controlled immigration into Canada.

This was a matter litigated for many, many years. Finally, when the provinces didn't step in, the federal government did. The provinces had every opportunity under the BNA Act to step in, and they didn't. As I refer to in my paper, with respect, sir, we had a cowboy system, and it wasn't until the federal government finally did step in....

In some parts, you are right. The governance of CSIC could be improved, yes, but to say that we don't have fairness or transparency is simply not true. We do have transparency.

We'll find out all about transparency in June, when for the first time we will elect all our directors. What more transparency is there to that? If our members are unhappy, some of whom are, and they appeared before you, it's a small minority. The majority are happy.

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

You say that in June all the members of the board will be elected members.

[Bruce Perreault]

Absolutely, sir, for the first time.

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

How many directors are there on the board?

[Bruce Perreault]

There are nine.

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

So, the nine members will have to be elected.

[Bruce Perreault]

No, sir. Three are public appointees to our board. Six are elected by consultants. They must be consultants.

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

So, only three members will have been elected.

[Bruce Perreault]

There will be one public interest member appointed and two elected. But my point is that as of this June, every director on that board will have faced an election and been elected by all of the CSIC members, all of them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Perreault, you are a lawyer, a member of the Canadian Bar Association. You're familiar with their educational materials on immigration.

[Bruce Perreault]

Absolutely, Madam.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Do you think it's adequate? Is it on par? Is it useful for consultants?

[Bruce Perreault]

Are you asking me if the educational material for consultants is comparable to that of the law society?