Thank you very much, Madam James.
This is an issue that this committee spent a great deal of time studying in previous Parliaments. When I became minister, I became aware of the great anxiety of many newcomers who had been exploited by crooked and often fake immigration consultants, people I'm now referring to as criminals posing as immigration consultants.
I heard stories about people who had given sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in cash to people essentially posing as credible immigration consultants with often the promise of a guaranteed visa, only to find that the person closed up their shop and walked away with the money, with no service delivered. There are undoubtedly thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of victims of these scamsters both here and abroad, which is why I've made it one of my key priorities as minister, with the support of the department, to combat this global industry of immigration profiteers.
We've made enormous strides, first of all, through the adoption of the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act, which came into effect in June 2011, which made it a criminal offence to provide assistance on an immigration application or a visitor visa application at any stage of the process without being a licensed member in good standing of either the designated regulatory body for consultants or the provincial law societies. This addressed the problem of the ghost consultants. Now anyone who provides advice or assistance, or advertises to do so, promises to do so, must be a registered member of the licensing body.
Secondly, we responded to widespread concerns about frankly the dysfunctionality of the former designated regulatory organization for consultants that was called CSIC. There were concerns about its lack of transparency, lack of accountability, lack of disciplinary action and a lot of other issues, which is why we went after a transparent process and selected a new and we think much more credible and accountable regulatory body, the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, which I designated as the new regulator last year.
I just gave a status report on the good work being done by the ICCRC. They have already, for example, referred to the law enforcement agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency or the RCMP over 60 cases for referrals for criminal action. They have undertaken serious discipline. They have hired former RCMP officers to follow up and conduct investigations on complaints against members of their organization. They have done more in the past year to throw the book at crooked consultants than the CSIC did in the previous seven years. So there's been huge improvement.
Last week I announced the last piece of this, which was the recent coming into force of new regulations to support the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act. This allows my ministry, the RCMP, CSIS, and the Immigration and Refugee Board to share information on the conduct of ICCRC members with the council.
What this means, effectively, is that if a member of the IRB sees an asylum claim that apparently is filled with lies and fraud that has been facilitated by an ICCRC member or a provincial law society member, the IRB can then refer that to the regulatory body and suggest they might want to take disciplinary action. Similarly, if one of our visa officers abroad sees a spousal sponsorship application prepared by an ICCRC member or a lawyer that is filled with documentary fraud or misrepresentation, they can then send that now legally to the ICCRC for disciplinary measures.
This means we can crack down on the ghost consultants. The law enforcement agencies and the ministry can refer cases of fraud on the part of representatives to the licensing body, and the licensing body is now much more actively referring apparent criminal acts to the CBSA and the RCMP.
I have to say this is one of the things I'm proudest about that we've managed to achieve. There will continue to be people victimized, no doubt, and part of this has to be the overseas dimension, because much of this activity happens beyond the reach of Canadian law in the source countries of immigration, which is why I've made it a priority both for myself and our government to strongly encourage foreign governments to crack down on the same industry of crooked agents.
I've raised this issue personally with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, with President Aquino of the Philippines, with Prime Minister Gillani of Pakistan, with the public security minister of the People's Republic of China, with state and provincial authorities, and with police authorities in all of those countries, asking them to cooperate more actively with CIC and our partners in New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., with what's called the Five Country Conference—