Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 16th, 2008

[Ross Eastley]

The board of CSIC has nine members. Three are public-interest members and six are immigration consultants. The board is set up so that all members now have three-year terms. Terms for three members--two immigration consultants, and one public-interest member--expire every year, so that there's not a whole turnover of the board and there's a process in place. From now on, as Mr. Perreault was saying, all the consultants who come onto the board will have been elected. The terms of two of the initial consultants, who were appointed when CSIC was initially established, will expire this year. If they wish to come back on the board, they have to go through the election process. The reference Mr. Perreault was making was that this year there will be two immigration consultants who will be elected to the board, and the other four immigration consultants will have gone through an election process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

What about public appointees?

[Ross Eastley]

Public appointees are appointed by the public members themselves. It's the public members who do the appointments. People can apply. I'm sorry, I should have explained that.

After the election, the two consultant-directors who receive the highest number of votes are the ones who are elected, from different regions. It's set up so there are three board positions from western Canada, which is the prairies and B.C. There are three positions from Ontario. There are two from Quebec, and one from Atlantic Canada and outside of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi, point of clarification.

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

The public members who apply are appointed by the board, I take it?

[Ross Eastley]

No, they're not appointed by the board. I'll come back to that in a minute. I just was explaining the regions.

After it's determined which consultant-directors will fill the two positions, and we know the region that needs to be represented by a public-interest member, advertisements are put out for that region, and people apply. Then the existing public-interest members that are on the board do the interview and do the selection. It's not the board as a whole, but just the public-interest members that make this--

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

The two others will elect the third?

[Ross Eastley]

There are three public-interest members. The one whose term is expiring will be part of that group that does the interview and the selection process for the new positions coming on.

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

I want to make sure I understand. So if there is a movement because the board has done a really lousy job, there's no way for the membership to say “throw the bums out” and elect a new board?

[Ross Eastley]

I can't remember all the bylaws, but I think there is provision in the bylaws that a board member can be taken off the board. I don't have the bylaws, so I can't provide the answer on that. The answer I can provide you is just that there are two immigration consultant directors that will be elected every year.

[Bruce Perreault]

If I may, I'd like to answer your question.

Board members may be removed for criminality. There are other provisions under which they may be removed from the board by a vote of other board members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I see the clerk looking at his watch. I think we have obligations at the airport. We have tower obligations, and we have to be in the air at a certain time.

Thank you for appearing before us. It was very interesting. At the end of the day, of course, we'll be making recommendations, and hopefully some of them will reflect some of your concerns as well.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.