Thank you.
Just to follow up on what you said before I answer that, you mentioned one million visitors, over 100,000 students, and I believe I have the statistics...you're referring to 250,000 foreign workers.
Just a minute. I have it here somewhere.
There were 213,000 foreign workers who came in, and there's a total of 338,000 now. I'm sure all of you are aware, but I'm sure Canadians are not aware, that there is no compulsory criminal background screening for all these temporary residents. There are no compulsory criminal background checks and no compulsory health checks. We have close to 2 million people coming in annually, and we really don't know who they are.
It may be onerous to impose criminal background checks, but I think it's important. After all, this is our country. We don't know who's walking in our streets. They may comply with most of the criteria to be an international worker, a foreign student, or a visitor, but do we know if they're criminals? Do we know if they have terrorist associations? This is not checked. It should be.
To answer your questions, yes, I've had occasions at the beginning of my practice when different clients would come in and openly admit to me some of the unsavoury practices that they wanted to engage in because they knew there was solicitor-client privilege. When the word got out I would not help these people.... For example, permanent residents who had not complied with their residency obligations would get a friend who owned a Canadian company to write a letter that they had been working abroad for them. They would ask me if I could help with the letter and get the contract correct, even though in fact they had not been working abroad for this Canadian company. This is one of the exemptions. These are some of the practices that commonly go on, and it is not unusual. This is what I have seen.
I have also dealt with cases where people who became Canadian citizens did so under another name. I'm thinking of two cases I had, which I could not continue because of this. The person came under a relative's passport, managed to get refugee status, managed to get permanent resident status, and even became a citizen—and then it was a revocation of citizenship. When I really got involved in the case and saw in fact that this was misrepresentation, I said I was no longer able to proceed to represent this client.
This has happened on two occasions.