Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 6th, 2019

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Will you have a system whereby consultants would be on a registered list, and if you're not on the registered list, then you will not be a consultant authorized to practise immigration law or give immigration advice here in Canada? If you are an applicant from a different country who has sent in an application with someone who is not on that list, would that applicant be informed immediately?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

That's exactly what I was saying in my speech. Outreach officers we're deploying abroad will inform people of the list of authorized immigration consultants who are in good standing with the college, so they can use the services of those immigration consultants.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

So if someone makes an application through a ghost consultant, would that individual who's made the application be informed that this consultant is not on a registered list and, therefore, this application cannot be received, or for this application to be received, they have to change their consultant?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

You're out of time; please answer in 10 seconds.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The college will have members in good standing and that will be public information and we'll encourage our clients to access that information and only use the services of those consultants.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you.

Mrs. Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Minister, for coming today to provide us with some important information.

When we did our study on the consultants, we heard from a lot of witnesses. I hear from my constituents in Scarborough all the time that many issues around the consultants would be reduced if the people who are using these consultants' services know about their rights and their options. Can you please explain how this legislation would address that issue?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Very importantly, domestically we will be doing proactive outreach using the various tools at our disposal, including social media, our website, making sure we engage our clients proactively. It's also the deterrence, making sure we'll be able to target unauthorized consultants directly; IRCC will be able to do that.

Domestically, the new college will be able to send cease and desist letters to unauthorized consultants, and if they continue, then the college will be authorized to seek court injunctions to prevent them from practising in that field. In addition to that, we will have more money for criminal investigations, increasing the ability of CBSA to pursue unauthorized consultants, doubling the criminal fines and introducing the administrative monetary penalties that are very high, so they can have a serious deterrent effect.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I see that there is $51.9 million in budget 2019, and this includes funding for outreach and education and creating public awareness.

What will that entail?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

It will entail the government prioritizing the presence of our staff in key source markets for immigrants and to beef up that staff with outreach officers who can engage our clients proactively to tell them which consultants to use.

We'll also be using some of that funding to update application guides and kits, and for changing the application forms to make it easier for clients to use them and help themselves without requiring the services of a lawyer or a consultant.

It's also communicating directly with our clients, in addition to the consultants. If it's an unauthorized or crooked consultant who doesn't do the job they were hired to do, the client sometimes doesn't know, because we are dealing with their representative, who is the consultant.

We will be introducing a new measure where we'll be copying the client to make sure that when we are contacting the consultant, the client also knows about it. They can take action. They can be made aware when the consultant doesn't submit their application or hasn't done some of the work that they were supposed to do.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

One other issue, which we heard about during our study and which we hear from the constituents all the time, is the complexity of the forms. I think that in an ideal world, many people would not need the immigration consultants if the process were not that complex.

As well, as there are language and cultural barriers for people who have to use the process, it makes it difficult for people to navigate, causing them to turn to the consultants.

How are you addressing the complexity, so that fewer people have to use the services of consultants?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you. That's a really good point.

Client service has been a key priority of mine. It's in my mandate letter. It means not just improving processing times and eliminating backlogs, but it also means improving the application processes, streamlining the forms, making sure that the website and the various information on the website is easily accessible and understood, and changing the application forms to make them easier.

It also means directly communicating with our clients to make sure they know the latest update in their application.

We're looking to create five new positions for outreach officers in 2019-20. One locally engaged staff will be in Chandigarh, India; Beijing, China; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Ankara, Turkey; and Nairobi, Kenya. The initial deployment of those five officers will be to do the outreach and information sharing with our clients from the visa offices so that the clients can avoid being taken advantage of.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

In our report, we made a number of recommendations around the need for greater education for the consultants and for higher standards and different tiers of licensing, based on the services offered and the consultant experience.

How does this legislation address those recommendations that were made?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The new college will be expected, by the regulations, to make sure that there is adequate, constant training, to make sure that immigration consultants who are members of the college have the training to make them competent and able to provide very good services to our clients.

The current regulator has been also working towards tightening requirements for entry into the profession of immigration consulting.

In the fall of 2018, the regulator launched a process to identify potential providers of a post-graduate diploma program, and on May 1, 2019, the council announced the launch of this new program.

In the interim, as the provisions of the bill relating to the college don't come into force until royal assent, we expect that the regulator will conduct business as usual but continue what it is doing to strengthen the entry requirements for its members and also beef up those requirements and the expectations it has of its members.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Ms. Rempel, for five minutes.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Minister, the report suggested that the immigration minister should not be the minister responsible for any new regulatory body. Which minister is going to be responsible for overseeing this new body?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

It was noted in the report and unanimously put forward that the Minister of Immigration should not be the minister responsible for oversight, given the CBSA component related to it. Did you reject that recommendation?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

We didn't reject any recommendation. We took the report, studied it extensively, also understanding that this is something that many governments prior to us tried to fix—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

—but failed, so we took the necessary time—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

—to study the recommendations.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

You've talked extensively in previous questions about the concept of legal advice and the immigration-consulting profession. Could you define, since you're in charge of overseeing this, what you would constitute as legal advice in the immigration consulting profession?