Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 1st, 2010

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

Gee, thanks.

I have several other ones here, Mr. Chair.

The other one makes a lot of sense and you're not the only one who has talked about it. It's the visa application centres. I actually saw one in Beijing. Before I walked into it, I saw that there were these signs for consultants on the ground floor. They operate on the second or third floor, and I didn't realize that they could, if they choose to—they probably don't—offer advice. You're saying you've seen instances where they do offer advice and the advice may or may not be correct.

In your opinion, should they or should they not offer advice? They probably should not, right? Because they're paid.

[Chantal Arsenault]

Exactly. Our opinion is that we should not offer advice on this issue. The VACs should only be there to use as links between the individual and the consulate or the embassy in saying, “Here's my application and I can forward it”, but they should not help the individuals complete the application or decide what documents are required on that application, because there are different legal ways to obtain a work permit. We can define a category, for example, and if they say, “this is the category you should apply in”, they are providing legal advice, and they're—

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

But it's hard for them to do. I'm just trying to picture it if someone comes to me.

I've watched them. They actually fill in an application. They're going through all the documents. If they could tell that this person is actually missing these two documents, for them not to say, “Wait, hang on a second, you're spending all this time giving me this documentation to apply for temporary residence permit, a visitor visa, and you've given me all these documents, but I do know that you are missing these two really important ones...”. But they don't tell them that. That's hard.

But if they do tell, they're providing advice. Then they are in fact making money and providing advice without the actual—

[Michael Greene]

Yes, there's a delineation there. As for telling them that these are the required documents that the visa office says are required for this application, I don't think that's really giving advice if it's totally transparent. The problems we've had are where they're asking for documents that are actually not required but they just think they are because they don't know the rules.

But also, there is the danger of creating the impression that they're there to advise the people, so it's just one of the education things that you need to make really clear. Because they do a service, they make it easier for our visa officers to make decisions because they know they're getting complete applications. That's why the government wants to do it. That's laudable. The problem is to make sure that you're making it really clear in those agreements that the people are not doing anything more than just basic assembling of applications.

[Chantal Arsenault]

In addition, the agreements aren't clear. At this point it's not clear and it's not public what the agreements are. There is no transparency with the agreements, so it is a little worrisome that any agreement can be signed without knowing exactly what it entails. So that's one of our recommendations: to make it more transparent, if it has to stay.

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

Okay--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm sorry, Ms. Chow, you'll have to wait for another time.

Dr. Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to the hearing today.

My questions are directed to the Canadian Bar Association. Any one of you can answer them. They are in two parts, so I will tell you the questions first, and you can then decide which one to answer first.

First of all, can you explain how law societies discipline their members? In our discussion earlier, a lot of you mentioned the fact that discipline is important to make sure that your members are following the rules. Why is this important? That's question number one. Second, how will improved information-sharing with the Canadian government, as Bill C-35 has suggested, strengthen this law society function?

Thank you very much for answering.

[Malcolm Heins]

Let me deal with your first question. It's important, I think, that where a group of individuals or a profession has the authority to provide service there be a public and transparent complaint process. Indeed, that's what all of the regulatory bodies run across the country.

So in Ontario, if a member of the public has a complaint about a service they are receiving from a lawyer or a paralegal, they can contact the law society and we will investigate it. We triage it, depending on what it is. Most of them really are service-related matters, often just to do with some misunderstanding, so we will intercede and make sure that both the client and the lawyer understand each other.

On the more serious matters where we believe there has been wrongdoing, we investigate. That investigation becomes public when it's prosecuted, and there is a public record of the prosecution, the results, and whatever appeals take place. It's important to recognize, too, that in that process there is a right of appeal, both within the law society body and to the courts, potentially.

Again, I noticed something from the record that was pointed out by one of the members here who was questioning where someone would go ultimately with a CSIC complaint if there were a problem with how it was handled. On the information-sharing side of things, as I understand it, that was a problem because CSIC was a private body. I think the experience, and what this act is trying to rectify, is to give the authority to share what otherwise might be private information, i.e., the complaint information, with other public bodies.

We, on the other hand, as a regulatory body, don't have that constraint. So again, I think this is an attempt to rectify a problem created by reason of the fact that CSIC is not a regulatory body—or its predecessor would not be regulatory.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you very much for the very concise and brief answers.

I would like to share my time with Mrs. Grewal, Mr. Chair.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Handfield.

Mr. Handfield, thank you very much for taking the time to appear before our committee and assist us in our study on Bill C-35.

Do you believe that the disclosure of information relating to the ethical or professional conduct of immigration representatives to bodies responsible for governing or investigating that conduct will improve the effectiveness or the regulation of immigration representatives?

[Stéphane Handfield]

Before I answer your question, I want to say, if I may, that immigration consultants should not be allowed to exist, in my opinion. But if they are, their activities should be overseen by a lawyer. That is my position.

Now, if the government goes ahead and gives consultants recognition, the body responsible for overseeing them should obviously be held to higher standards of transparency and be required to share information related to ethical conduct, which would be the lesser of two evils, in my view.

I want to follow up, if I may, on the first question regarding the manner in which law societies discipline their members and so forth. I would have liked to respond, but unfortunately, I was not given the opportunity. I can speak to the situation in Quebec.

The Barreau du Québec requires members to take a certain amount of mandatory training, the equivalent of 30 hours every 2 years. The Barreau du Québec has a section that conducts peer reviews. The peer reviewer visits the lawyer's office to ensure that everything is done according to procedure, that the rules are followed, that the act concerning the Barreau du Québec is respected and so forth. The Barreau also has a syndic's office with a complaints unit that receives complaints from triable individuals. When a client complains to the syndic's office of the Barreau du Québec, it can have some rather serious consequences for the lawyer in question. The complaint can result in a temporary termination of membership all the way up to a permanent termination of membership, in some cases.

I hope that answers your question.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The rest of my time, Mr. Chair, I will pass on to Mr. Dykstra.

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

Chair, I know I don't have a lot of time.

Mr. Greene, I really appreciated the context in which you brought in the Australia example. I think it certainly gives us something to think about in terms of division of power, and it's certainly something we need to look at.

One of the things you pointed to specifically was that the authority the minister needs to have actually needs to be stronger within the bill. I see the recommendations you have made in terms of that direction, particularly in proposed section 91, with your feeling that it's not quite strong enough.

One of the interpretations, or at least one of the asides or assists to it, is that we actually want to give clear authority in terms of being able to access information, as Mr. Heins pointed out, and in terms of being able to get what we need in terms of the documentation or information necessary to determine whether the association is doing its job.

Right at the end of your statement, you alluded to strengthening that aspect of it. Maybe you can comment on how we might be able to do that.

[Michael Greene]

Now you have a situation--which is a good one, I think--where the minister can request information and it has to be provided. I think that is a good thing. That's a complaint of members of CSIC now: they don't know what's going on. There isn't any built-in accountability.

So that's a good thing. However, there's no consequence built into it for failure to provide the information. So what do you do? Do you pull the designation? That seems to be the only thing: you undesignate. It seems to be the only remedy right now.

I don't know exactly what mechanism you could have. You could put it in a situation of fines or the potential for suspension, but how does it work if you suspend? Then you have to bring in trustees, because somebody has to run the organization. So it is a bit problematic to rely solely on a power of information.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Greene.

Mr. Oliphant, for up to five minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for being here today.

This is supposedly our last day of hearings and I would have thought that this ball would have gotten clearer in my eyesight, but it's actually still kind of fuzzy.

We haven't yet had one witness—we might get one in the next round—who has defended this body not being a statutory body.

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

Not true--

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Well, I don't remember. I mean, maybe the bureaucrats did.

But does either the Canadian Bar Association or the Law Society of Upper Canada think this would be better to be a statutory body that is independent of the minister?

[Michael Greene]

The proposal of this committee was in fact to set up a stand-alone statute for the body...that it might be better way to govern it, and it may indeed. The minister's response to that, as I understand from reading the committee notes, is that for cost and time reasons, he wanted to do something fast. We have an ADHD minister who's doing an awful lot of activity and we have to applaud him for getting things done.

The question is whether this is going to work or not. We're not sure. One of the powers that needs to happen is the power to audit, to subpoena, and to actually go in and examine documents in a consultant's place of work. That doesn't exist right now. That's a big hole in the current scheme.

As for whether or not you can do that with just these little changes and the new body that is going to be proposed, we don't know. For us, it's still an experiment. As you read our report...we are skeptical about whether it will work.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

A point of order, Mr. Dykstra.

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

I'm sorry, I don't mean to take up your time, Mr. Oliphant, but I just want to clarify something that Mr. Greene said.

Did you say the minister has attention deficit disorder?

[Michael Greene]

I say it in a very complimentary way. I'm a big fan of the minister. He gets a lot of things done. He moves things fast and--

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

I just wanted to make sure and clarify that you weren't--