Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 6th, 2010

[Catrina Tapley]

Mr. Chairman, it's really for the committee to decide how well we have answered the committee's report. I think what the honourable member has posed, in terms of his questions, is on immigration consultants in Quebec.

First, just let me say that those who are members of the Barreau or those who are notaries in Quebec clearly are covered by provincial legislation. In terms of this, what I would note is that Quebec has recently passed regulations—and I think, as Ms. Harder has indicated, they should be coming into force at the end of November—that make reference to federal regulations with respect to this body. I would just offer that as part of the response.

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

I didn't ask why Quebec adopted these regulations; that's quite clear to me. However, you know that the current federal organization has nothing to do with the one that would be created if the bill is adopted. It is not just a matter of overseeing the relationship between a consultant and the federal government, it is a matter of overseeing the profession. We'll see how Quebec responds.

Perhaps you were right to do so, but I would just like to know why you set aside the committee's first recommendation when drafting the bill.

[Catrina Tapley]

One of the things we were striving for when we prepared this legislation and when we worked on this was a bit of national cohesion around some of the elements of this. So I think in that light what we were looking at was a system where we had a body that was there, recognizing the provincial bars and the notaries, but also seeking to have a system in which we would have some national scope around the body we were looking to regulate, the body for immigration consultants.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. Your time has expired, sir.

Ms. Chow.

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

In your preparation of this, have the two organizations that primarily are interested, the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants and CSIC, the Canadian Society of Immigrant Consultants, talked to you about details of the bill and some of the details of what this would mean? Have they sought out information from the department?

[Sandra Harder]

In terms of the selection process?

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

Or the entire bill, since it's been presented, since June, right?

[Sandra Harder]

Right.

I'll speak first to the selection process. We have operated in the process of the selection of a body in an open and transparent fashion, so we have not been fielding calls from potential bodies that would want to be part of.... We want the process to unfold as the process needs to unfold. So just in terms of the selection process--

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

No, that wasn't my question. I'm not talking about a selection process; I'm talking about the bill itself.

Have you heard from some of the organizations whether they like the bill or dislike the bill? Have they expressed any opinion to the department as to whether this is a good direction to go or not? I'm talking about the bill itself; I'm not talking about a selection process.

[Sandra Harder]

Understood.

Just in terms of media coverage, there's certainly been some support and certainly interest expressed by the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants in terms of recognizing the intent of the bill and the importance of the approach. But in terms of concrete calls to us on the legislation, no, not significant.

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

Have you worked with the RCMP and CBSA and CSIS on whether there would be a team that would do the enforcement? Because at the time the committee's recommendation said that it would be very useful within a very short period of time that there be a SWAT team, a team that coordinates all of these agencies together, to do the enforcement. Has that been set up by your colleagues? There's no stopping whether Bill C-35 gets passed in the House of Commons or not. Even today this team can go and see whether there are existing consultants who are really ripping people off.

[Catrina Tapley]

Far be it for me to put words in the mouths of my colleagues at CBSA or the RCMP, and perhaps these are questions the committee would like to address to them, but I would say based on our conversations with enforcement agencies around this, with the RCMP, CBSA, and CSIS, that they certainly are seized with issues and they do work closely together on this problem.

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

Do you take leadership on that? Do you bring them together into a team to say the experience in the visa office, for the Department of Foreign Affairs, this is a hot spot, this is another hot spot...? Wouldn't it make sense for the department to take a leadership role in that?

[Catrina Tapley]

CBSA takes the leadership role in enforcement activities, but we certainly share that information with CBSA and provide what we're hearing as a constant means. In our missions abroad—and again, Ms. Harder or Ms. MacNeil, please jump in here—the integrity officer in the mission is almost always from CBSA, and that interface between what we do and what they do is a pretty smooth process in most cases.

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

Are there any training—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

This will be very quick, Ms. Chow.

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

Is there any planned training for visa officers overseas so that they could identify that these applications are in fact signed by some consultants who are not licensed? Are there going to be upcoming training sessions?

[Catrina Tapley]

I can be very quick. This is part of our existing training. And indeed, having just visited a couple of our busiest missions, I can say that the walls of fraudulent documents and the ever-expanding world of where issues are constitute something that's constant and evergreen in our missions and something we take very seriously. It is part of the training.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Chow and Ms. Tapley.

Mr. Uppal, you are next.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Today we heard a couple of times about public education—education of the public—on behalf of the department. I would like you, if you could, to expand on that. I'm assuming it's about the immigration process and also avoiding crooked consultants in one way or another. Is it planned for just within Canada, or is it planned for overseas as well?

Also, are there plans to work with other governments? I had the opportunity to be with the minister in India. The minister for overseas there was saying that they had legislation coming forward on consultants and also had a plan of public education on behalf of their federal government. Could you expand on that?

[Sandra Harder]

There is definitely a strong public awareness component that has been part of the efforts of the department for some time, and efforts to make sure that information is visible and public in our overseas mission offices. There are pamphlets that are handed out to applicants so that they're aware of what some of the dangers are around immigration fraud. There is certainly, as we've said, translation of the public awareness information, right now into 17 different languages. That aspect has been an important preventative feature of the department's work.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

You mentioned that this has been going on for some time. Is there any way of indicating results or how it is going? Is there a way to judge that?

[Sandra Harder]

Do you mean judge the impact of the public education? I think it might be difficult to measure in a quantitative fashion, but certainly I think it's an ongoing activity of the department and is ingrained in overseas missions and their work and even in offices in Canada.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

I will share my time with Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Ms. MacNeil, one thing you have mentioned a couple of times is the Canada Corporations Act. I wonder if you could expand a little bit on how the governing body will work under that act.