Evidence of meeting #156 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was college.
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3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Effectively we have to trust that framework.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
No, for the first time there will be a professional liability insurance requirement to be established by the college. There will be a compensation fund, which doesn't exist now. To say that it's more of the same, I think is a little unfair.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
The same body could be put in charge.
I want to briefly ask you this. The current framework speaks about people being regulated if they're giving advice for a fee. Would the current legislative framework be invoked if somebody is giving immigration advice but not for a fee?
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
To go back to your previous question, this is not just the body by itself. The government will have oversight over this. There will be—
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I'm almost out of time. Could you just answer that specific question? Would this apply to people who give immigration advice but not for a fee, essentially giving immigration advice for free?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
If they're giving immigration advice and they're not authorized to do so, they would be unauthorized consultants and—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
But would they be considered a consultant for the purposes of this legislation if they are not receiving a fee?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
You cannot give immigration advice when you're not competent to do so—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
A person who gives immigration advice is still covered by this legislation even if they're not being paid a fee. If, let's say, a refugee sponsor organization is giving immigration advice informally to somebody else, would this same legislation apply to them?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
There's a difference between providing advice on settlement and integration, and then actually giving either legal advice or pseudo-legal advice on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In that case you would have to have training.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thanks very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the minister.
My first question is this. The committee made a unanimous recommendation to you, Minister, that the self-regulatory aspect be done away with. In fact, I think we were unanimous in saying that the industry cannot be trusted anymore to do this work.
Yet, under this scenario, ICCRC is given this work with an expanded scope. Maybe in a short answer, can you explain to me why the government would go with an action that actually does not meet what the committee has recommended?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Just to make it clear, we accepted the vast majority of the recommendations in the report. That particular one we looked at very seriously. We considered it. We studied it. There were a number of issues with it and at the end of the day we were guided by the ultimate goal of making sure that we set up the best possible structure to serve clients and to make sure that people are protected.
For comparison, in the existing mechanism, for example, the code of conduct is set by the board of directors. In the proposed approach, it will be set by the minister of immigration and any changes to the code of conduct will have to be approved by the minister of immigration.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
I appreciate that there are differences, but there's a fundamental piece, which is the issue around trust of the industry itself. All around this table, every committee member, expressed very clearly that they did not feel that the industry could be trusted to be self-regulated anymore. That's why it was a unanimous recommendation for it to be government regulated and for it not to be regulated by the industry. In any event, you've decided not to proceed with that, and that's as clear as day.
I am troubled by this. Out of that study, the ICCRC, at the time when we studied this issue, had 3,600 members. At the end of December 2016, there were 1,710 complaints, almost one complaint for every two members. I would just flag that in terms of the significance of the issues before us. When you hear the stories of the people who've been cheated by these bad actors in the system and the lack of remedy for them, it's breathtaking. That's not even all of the people who actually went forward with the complaints.
I'm going to park that for a minute.
Now, you say in this new act that anybody who's not licensed would not then be able to provide immigration-related advice to individuals. My question to you is, what about the NGOs and the resettlement agencies? Are they covered by this act as well?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
First of all, to reiterate the point, the key is to prevent vulnerable people from being taken advantage of, which is really what we're dealing with. We work closely with the over 500 settlement provider organizations that we fund to make sure that people know the difference between providing advice on settlement integration and providing legal advice on immigration matters. I believe for the sake of the clients, for the sake of the workers, it is important to distinguish between those two.
Filling out forms and giving some help is administrative work, but giving legal advice to a client is unauthorized and would be subject to this.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
We're not targeting NGOs, but we're saying that if you're going to provide immigration advice, you should be competent to do that. You need the training and the necessary education.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
How will this act deal effectively with what's called the “crooked consultants” who are overseas and the “ghost consultants” as some people call them? Or would it?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
I want to make one thing clear: no model of regulation, including direct government regulation or self-regulation, has the ability to completely eliminate the activities of unauthorized or ghost consultants, especially when you're talking about their being abroad. We are doing what we can to increase funding for CBSA to conduct investigations, to conduct more enforcement operations—
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Sorry, Minister, I only have two minutes left.
Is it fair to say this act would not address ghost consultants?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Of course it would, by doing a number of things, but you're not letting me finish. If you want me to give you an answer, I will.
On the issue of ghost consultants, it does by making sure we can obtain injunctions against them, that they will be able to conduct more investigations. We are introducing administrative penalties and consequences to make sure those folks are caught and made to pay for taking advantage of vulnerable clients. Finally, we're doubling the amount of the criminal fines that are available to us to go after these individuals.
