Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 6th, 2019

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

Okay.

[Natasha Kim]

The college itself would be self-funded by fees.

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

Was any analysis done with regard to—as was outlined in the committee recommendations...providing more streamlined...or ease of accessibility within existing IRCC service lines to perhaps backfill some of the services that immigration consultants already provide and that many clients complain about, like the complexity of forms or translation services?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

I'll mention that our focus is to provide that kind of transparency in terms of what we really want our clients to focus on. We have considered the client-centric approach, so that's why application forms and website changes—

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

Thank you.

I have a limited amount of time. Specifically, from an opportunity cost perspective, the government is investing—spending—$51 million worth of tax dollars and assuming oversight and, ostensibly, liability related to an arm's-length profession that exists to interpret difficulties in an existing government system.

I'm wondering if there was any opportunity cost analysis done to apply that $51 million to ease service delivery specifically related to this particular expenditure?

[Lori MacDonald]

Essentially, we looked at where we wanted to focus our attention, which was on things like addressing gap areas and addressing how we could make the process easier for the clients. We actually did costing around that, but not in relation to what gap analysis there would be in terms of spending.

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

Thank you.

With regard to legal advice, I'm assuming that reading a form in a mother tongue would not constitute legal advice or telling somebody to put their name in a field on a form. Would the code of conduct being written by the minister consider somebody telling somebody to put any type of content in a form to be legal advice?

[Natasha Kim]

I don't think that we can necessarily speculate on specific fact scenarios. I don't anticipate that a code of conduct would specify about putting things into forms, but it—

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

I ask because that's actually where the rubber hits the road on a lot of this. It's about people who are giving advice as to what content would go into a form.

Did the government direct you to provide any analysis with regard to what exactly would constitute legal advice as it relates to the profession directing people to put content in forms?

[Natasha Kim]

I would just clarify that what's being addressed within the immigration consultant sphere under section 91, for example, is not necessarily legal advice. That's not the term that's used. It's immigration “advice” and “representation”.

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

Has there been any analysis done to rectify some of the recommendations made by the bar association with regard to that exact point that telling somebody what to put in the—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Jenny Kwan]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel.

Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Maybe I'll continue along those lines just a bit. If we're going to look at the cost analysis, obviously there's an option of having law societies do this, and obviously the cost to society is very large if lawyers are the only ones allowed to provide this service, but it doesn't cost the government any extra money.

Presumably there's a comparison between this current proposal, I guess, which Ms. Rempel has pointed out is $51 million...there may be some ongoing costs year over year. How would that compare to the government itself providing a government-regulated service? Was any cost analysis done on that option? How does that compare to the option that was chosen?

[Natasha Kim]

We certainly looked at that option, along with a range of options, and cost did factor into it. In that scenario, unlike the current one that is proposed, there would be enhanced liability risk for the government, for example, if we're directly regulating the immigration consultants. There is that issue.

There was also a bit of a policy issue around perceived or real conflicts of interest. Currently, the minister is responsible for the organization, which is at arm's length. That's what's proposed in the legislation, but under a direct government regulation you would have the government be both the decider of immigration applications at the same time as regulating the industry. That was also a concern.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

The actual establishment costs weren't any different or...? I would have expected that offering it within government would have cost government more, because you don't have the professional services fees to buffer it.

[Natasha Kim]

Exactly. There would still be fees, but by virtue of being in government it would likely be more expensive to run, in terms of start-up costs, because it's not an area where we have existing functions or expertise.... The government itself does not regulate a lot of that—

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Do you have a dollar value estimate you can share?

[Natasha Kim]

Not in front of me, no.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

In terms of codes of conduct, the existing sort of self-regulatory education body has codes of conduct and standards of care. It has business rules. It has ethics guidelines. Is there any reason to suggest that they wouldn't be a good starting point to roll into this new legislation? Have you identified any gaps that would need to be addressed?

[Natasha Kim]

That would be something we'd want to look at closely as we develop it and provide advice on what it will look like. We'll look at best practices. We'll look at what experts might view as the best practices and have that inform what the code of conduct would look like.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

In terms of foreign agents and local agents, I know that my colleague Mr. Ayoub was trying to ask a question on that. In the case of patent practice, if you want to engage foreign agents there are reciprocal rules around having an associate agent in another country deal with a locally registered agent. My guess is that immigration practice is not as well established.

What types of things can be done to ensure that you know your client in an international context?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

There two things are that we have instituted and have worked well. One is the proactive approach, which is basically educating the clients overseas to apply early, apply with completed forms, use the e-applications and use the forms that are available on the Net. Also, we're sending out quick messages, through social media and others, that it is easy to fill out the forms, so...don't also figure out if these are the true agents or true immigration consultants and they are not somebody who is not trained properly....

The second thing is that for actually watching those parts, we have established, as the minister pointed out earlier, five more positions overseas where our source countries are the big source countries: India, China, Nigeria and Iran, which is processed through Ankara. Those are the ones that will actually be going out very much in advance and doing a lot of engagement, with a lot of engagement from students to prospective clients who are coming in as TRs or permanent residents in giving them more information.

The second part, which we always refer to as overarching, is that we've actually very much clarified our website so that you can look at it in your own way for how to apply and how much information you need and also monitor your own application through your own account.

Those are the factors that are helping us.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I have one last question.

We're sort of dancing a little bit around the notion of whether or not you're engaged in the professional practice of immigration and citizenship consulting versus the practice of law versus just providing information. I'm wondering what type of guidance the department is going to be providing to MPs' offices and to non-governmental organizations engaged in settlement services—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Give a very brief answer.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

—to inform them how not to violate this new law.