Evidence of meeting #26 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
You know what? It wasn't a point of order, but I'll let you raise it.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
On a point of order, sir, in regard to the sequencing of witnesses who have been selected to appear before this committee, could it be explained how that sequencing was arrived at?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
The names of the witnesses came from the members of the caucuses, as of this past Wednesday, I believe. Those names came to the clerk. The clerk and I reviewed the names. We tried to divide up the witnesses pursuant to the groups. In other words, if the Liberals recommended some, the Bloc recommended some, and the NDP and the government did, we tried to be fair as to the numbers with respect to each caucus. That is done in a discussion between me and the clerk.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
If I may suggest, Chair, and I'm sure you did the best you could in deciding which witnesses would be heard, I do believe we should think of scheduling a meeting of the steering committee to go through to see—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Well, this is the process that was approved by the steering committee and approved by this committee, so you're out of order.
If we have another subcommittee meeting, we can discuss these things, but it's inappropriate to discuss them at this time.
So we have two groups before us. First, we have the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. The chair of the board of directors is Mr. Nigel Thomson, and Patrice Brunet is a member of the board. Good afternoon to the two of you.
Finally, we have Mr. Imran Qayyum, who is with the Canadian Migration Institute.
I believe Mr. Thomson is going to represent the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. You have up to seven minutes, sir. Thank you for coming.
Nigel Thomson Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bonjour. Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here, given the challenges we had in getting here.
The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants welcomes this opportunity to appear before this committee on Bill C-35.
CSIC appreciates the action the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is taking to shore up Canada's immigration system. We are particularly pleased that the government is taking action on ghost agents, the most important attribute of Bill C-35 and the key failing of the existing legislation. CSIC has actively advocated with government for several years to close the loophole that has allowed ghost agents to operate.
Under the immigration and refugee protection regulations, CSIC is designated as the body that regulates immigration consultants, who, for a fee, represent, advise, or consult with a person who is the subject of a proceeding or application before the minister, an officer, or the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
CSIC welcomes the introduction of this bill, but there are a few shortcomings that need to be addressed.
First and foremost, the duty of any regulatory body is the protection of consumers. CSIC's primary focus continues to be the protection of vulnerable immigrants coming to Canada, those who will eventually become productive citizens. Before CSIC, there was no one to protect consumers of immigration consulting services.
Since 2004, CSIC has shut out 800 agents because they could not meet CSIC`s rigorous standards. We have disciplined 225 consultants for misconduct. We currently have 400 open investigations of complaints and 13 matters before CSIC's independent hearings panel. Further, we regularly conduct multilingual national consumer awareness campaigns. CSIC has been doing its job to protect future Canadians and has been successfully carrying out our mandate of educating, accrediting, and regulating our members.
With this in mind, Bill C-35 is a good start, but more needs to be done.
The proposed provisions look to close the loophole that currently permits ghost agents to prey upon uninformed consumers. We fully support this provision. CSIC has always advocated penalties for those who illegitimately hold themselves out as being qualified to offer immigration services.
The Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have the mandate to investigate, prosecute, and ultimately bring to justice those individuals who look to thwart the immigration system. We are concerned that they will not have the resources to do so.
No funding provisions have been made to carry out the enforcement mandate, nor has any funding been earmarked for the prosecution of ghost agents. Without the proper funding and other resources, the hands of CBSA will be tied and ghost agents will continue to plague the immigration system.
Finally, CSIC embraces the provision in the bill that calls for the regulator to be more accountable to government.
CSIC has concerns about the powers that Bill C-35 gives to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. For the first time, under the new section 91, the minister alone will have the power to choose who will regulate immigration consultants. The proposed legislation will give her or him the power at any given time in history to change the regulator with a simple notice in the Canada Gazette. This creates the potential to unduly politicize the regulator, contrary to the public interest when the regulator must be seen as neutral.
The regulator's independence from the minister is of paramount importance. CSIC is concerned that under the proposed legislation, the minister will have too much power over the regulator and over those who are representing vulnerable immigrants. Our members must be free to provide the best advice to their clients without fear of ministerial influence threatening their ability to act independently as authorized representatives. Furthermore, CSIC objects to the fact that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will have more control over immigration consultants than the minister does over other authorized representatives, including lawyers.
CSIC supports the provision to allow the Governor in Council to specify what information the regulatory body should provide to government, but this information needs to be provided to a department other than Citizenship and Immigration. CSIC recommends that the information be provided to the Minister of Justice. This would ensure the independence of the regulator while remaining accountable to the government in the interests of consumer protection.
Canada's immigration system, its consultant regulator, and consumers of immigration consulting services deserve more stability than this bill currently offers.
I want to assure the honourable members of the committee and all Canadians that CSIC will continue to fulfill its mandate to protect consumers through accreditation, education, and discipline of our more than 1,800 members. CSIC is doing its job. Let's build upon experience and expertise.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, Mr. Thomson.
Mr. Qayyum, welcome back to the committee. You have up to seven minutes.
Imran Qayyum Chair, Canadian Migration Institute
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon. The Canadian Migration Institute is honoured to be here today to share our views on Bill C-35.
CMI is the voice of the immigration consulting profession. Since our inception in 2007, we have grown to more than 1,800 fellows, who can be found across Canada and overseas. With representatives from the immigration consulting, legal, and notary professions, CMI is larger than any other similar organization in North America.
Our mandate is to educate, accredit, and advocate on immigration law and policy. We have several chapters throughout Canada that provide regional support through accredited educational programs as well as advocacy on provincial issues.
CMI strongly supports Bill C-35's provisions, which will close legal loopholes that have enabled ghost agents to thrive. For too long, these unlicensed, disreputable individuals have exploited these loopholes to take advantage of prospective Canadians.
However, we do have serious concerns. While the new penalties in the bill give law enforcement agencies such as the CBSA and the RCMP the legal tools to put ghost agents out of business, there is no additional funding provided in the bill to enable these agencies to do this, meaning that consumers will still not get the protection they deserve.
Further, we remain unconvinced that this regulatory review to select a designated body is really necessary. Members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, most of whom are also fellows of CMI, have invested over $37 million since 2004 to build CSIC's sophisticated regulatory functions. These include rigorous membership standards, a thorough complaints and discipline process, and an intricate IT infrastructure. It would be foolhardy to throw away this investment, especially because we know for a fact that our fellows are satisfied with CSIC as it is today.
Just two months ago we commissioned a survey to determine how our CSIC member fellows feel about their regulator. The results clearly indicated that fellows think CSIC is an effective regulator.
These fellows are on the ground, dealing with CSIC on a day-to-day basis and closely following its activities. That puts them in a unique position to evaluate its suitability as regulator. They realize that CSIC is well governed, a fact that has been confirmed by independent reviews done by recognized leaders in governance. They realize that CSIC has been working diligently to combat ghost agents within the constraints of its limited authority. They see that CSIC does so by reaching out to warn consumers and engages in the tracking of ghost agent activity, and they appreciate that CSIC has held its members accountable through its rigorous complaints and discipline process.
While there is no denying that some CSIC members are dissatisfied, this extremely vocal minority does not speak for our fellows. In fact, this regulatory review has cast a wide shadow over the immigration consulting profession. It is endangering the livelihood of fellows who work hard to provide high-quality service to prospective Canadians. By questioning the competence of their regulator, the government cannot avoid endangering the public's confidence in immigration consulting professionals and the overall immigration system.
I urge the government to carefully consider these points. It has taken many years to build CSIC into what it is today, and consumers should not have to wait while the process of building a regulator begins anew. Further, without concrete funding for enforcement, the effectiveness of the government's crackdown on ghost agents cannot be guaranteed.
Merci beaucoup.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you, sir.
We now have a seven-minute round with each caucus. Mr. Trudeau goes first.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you, Chair.
My first question is for Mr. Qayyum.
In your brief you spent a significant amount of energy defending CSIC. I'm curious to establish what the relationship is between CMI and CSIC.
Chair, Canadian Migration Institute
CMI is a subsidiary of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.
Liberal
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Am I correct that CMI is the body that provides most of the training and educational professional development?
Chair, Canadian Migration Institute
Yes, Mr. Trudeau. That's an excellent question. The CMI-CSIC relationship is not too dissimilar from what the law society has just set up with Legal Education Ontario, so that the law society can concentrate on governing lawyers, whereas Legal Education Ontario does the education for it.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
On aspects of the for-profit approach of CMI.... Actually, before that, does CSIC recognize any other educational accreditation as being acceptable for immigration consultants?
Chair, Canadian Migration Institute
Absolutely, Mr. Trudeau.
To back up a bit so that we're clear, CMI provides voluntary education for immigration consultants, and actually to lawyers as well, who take our courses. Because of the changes in immigration law and policy, just because you become a CSIC member today doesn't mean you're competent to continue representing clients, so CMI provides, as one of our mandates, voluntary education in the form of courses and seminars that immigration consultants and lawyers can take to better themselves, become more competent, and ensure they're up to date with changes. In fact, not only do we do immigration courses, but we're recently partnered with Canada Revenue Agency to do a course that specifically deals with the HST and immigration practitioners.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
May I add to that, Mr. Chair?
Basically, CSIC requires both compulsory and voluntary continuing professional development from its members in a two-year cycle. CMI is one of the providers of voluntary CPD. CSIC itself provides the compulsory CPD requirements. I would note that in terms of educational criteria for entry to the profession, CSIC has a number of educational partners, including Bow Valley College, the University of British Columbia, Seneca, and other educational institutions, that have been educational partners in providing basic education for entry to the profession. There are educational providers other than CMI that are recognized for voluntary CPD, including the law society courses and courses offered by some of those educational institutions.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Looking at some of the complaints of some members that I know you're glad to respond to, one of the concerns that has been expressed here has been that the fees are too high and that the focus is much more on penalizing and drawing fines from people than perhaps allowing more people to become immigration consultants. Financial accountability becomes a question. I know you've had a number of audits, but what sort of accountability do you have on board expenditures, on strategic decisions, on partnering with organizations like CMI? What level of accountability is there, or is there accountability? Is that one of the criticisms that you're willing to make around Bill C-35?
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Indeed, there have been criticisms. I don't think those criticisms are justified. CSIC has accountability to its board of directors. All six consultant members of the board of directors are now elected. There's one appointed at the present time, but that position will come up for election this year. We have three public interest members who were appointed to the board. Mr. Brunet is one of those public interest directors.
The board, through its committee processes and through constant review of strategic plans and financial reporting from management, has the ultimate responsibility for all expenditures that are made by CSIC in carrying out its mandate. I believe we have been audited by auditors and also, as Mr. Qayyum referred to, by outside governance experts.
Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants
Would you like me to perhaps address the issue of fees, Mr. Trudeau?