Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 6th, 2019

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

We are going to briefly suspend to get ready for our next panel.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

We will resume.

I want to let colleagues know that I believe at some point we will be interrupted by votes, so we'll try to get through this. We have three presentations, and we will try to ensure that we at least have one round per party before that occurs.

With that, I believe we will go to our guest via teleconference first.

Ms. Panlaqui, you have seven minutes.

[Maria Esel Panlaqui, Manager, Community Development and Special Projects, The Neighbourhood Organization]

First, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Maria Esel Panlaqui, manager of community development and special projects of TNO, or The Neighbourhood Organization.

TNO is a community-based multi-service agency that has been providing a wide range of community services since 1985, specifically to newcomers to Canada. We are a non-profit registered charity funded through generous donations, government grants, foundation support and corporate partnerships. Our programs, services and activities support low-income, marginalized and newcomer communities across Toronto in more than 50 languages at no cost.

One of the unique programs that we offer at TNO is specifically around providing services and supporting the caregivers under the former live-in caregiver program and those under the new pathways. In addition to in-house settlement services offered at the TNO main office, we also offer them English classes in partnership with the Labour Education Centre, and workshops and information sessions every Saturday at TNO's 1 Leaside Park Drive office.

We also provide weekend itinerant services at the Juana Tejada Lounge, which is at Our Lady of Assumption Church, which is the Filipino chaplaincy office and also provides evening phone services. TNO has demonstrated its commitment in breaking down barriers to improve service provision and to fill the service gaps by adapting innovative approaches to respond to the unique and complex needs of these workers.

Because of our extended and flexible hours of service and greater scope of support services, TNO has become one of the primary points of contact of caregivers and other migrant workers arriving from the Philippines. For the past many years, we have been seeing workers who are victims of illegal recruitment and fraud and exploitation by either recruiters or sometimes immigration consultants and their employers.

As we all know, newcomers with precarious immigration status are more vulnerable to being taken advantage of. These workers are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse largely stemming from the temporary nature of their immigration status as temporary foreign workers. These workers have claimed to have paid their agents tens of thousands of dollars and were released upon arrival or discovered upon arrival in Canada the job was never real.

Most of them are hesitant to file a complaint for unfair treatment to the regulatory body or report fraud to authorities for fear of deportation. Many are suffering in silence. All these things are nothing new to all of us. Abuse and exploitation of these workers has been allowed to become normalized within the immigration system.

The current regulatory body, ICCRC, which is the national regulatory body to oversee regulated Canadian immigration professionals, is not effective in addressing and solving these concerns. We've been continuously seeing recruiters and immigration consultants treat clients and workers and get away with exploiting them.

The new proposed regulatory body is supposed to make it tougher for consultants to rip off clients but we would like to share some of the concerns we have in our recommendations.

First, we have concerns about whether there are provisions in the new legislation to protect victims of fraud and exploitation who come forward to seek help from potentially being deported. How do we ensure that the complaint process and hearing won't be turned around and used against the victims?

IRCC should give special consideration to those workers affected and not penalize them through outright refusal of their immigration application. IRCC should also not blame and punish the victims but ensure that the immigration consultants and recruiters who abused these workers are prosecuted.

A holistic approach in dealing with the victims is also recommended. These are workers who are traumatized and forced to tell their stories over and over. The hearing process is traumatizing itself. Workers should have access to counselling and other support services needed to get them going.

IRCC should also provide regulations for migrant workers who have lost their status or are forced to work without status because of these fraudulent activities or recruitment.

Although most caregivers and their advocates welcome the decision of the federal government to allow open work permits for caregivers and the interim pathway, many still worry about those workers who will be left behind because they don't meet the language and education eligibility requirements to complete their PR application. The vulnerability of these workers is further exacerbated by these additional eligibility requirements.

Most of the workers facing challenges with their immigration status because of fraudulent recruiters or immigration consultants are being referred to various community legal clinics. The availability of legal clinic services in Ontario, as we all know, is currently uncertain after the cuts. That might put these workers in further vulnerable situations.

In the case of other migrant workers, the restricted work permits have also contributed to workers not formalizing their complaints because of fear of deportation. We strongly believe that this precarious immigration status is among the major causes of vulnerability of these workers. It allows recruiters, immigration consultants and employers to abuse them. The policies and labour migration laws in Canada, which are leaning to temporary migration, have contributed to the exploitative nature of the immigration process—from recruitment to actual renewal of work permits, other immigration-related applications and actual work practices.

We would like to recommend that “landed” status be provided to all foreign workers and they be allowed to enter Canada with their families. We would also like to recommend that IRCC extend eligibility for settlement services to people who are living in Canada on a temporary permit. This may include language classes and support for completing and renewing immigration applications. Migrant workers should be required, within a few months of their arrival, to meet with a non-profit organization, informal support groups and networks.

I would also like to mention that the impact of section 91 of the IRPA on settlement agencies is actually what prevents front-line workers from helping caregivers renew their immigration papers and complete basic paperwork. As a result, more caregivers—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

I just need you to wrap your comments up quickly.

[Maria Esel Panlaqui]

—are pushed to go to immigration consultants they can't afford or trust.

One of the biggest problems we see now is that while the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council can investigate its own members, it doesn't have the authority to go after non-members. Complaints about unlicensed consultants have to be forwarded to CBSA. Migrant workers are not comfortable with or are intimidated by the CBSA, as we all know—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

I am going to have to move on. Hopefully, people will ask you more about some of the important things you are saying in the question time, because we are tight on time right now.

I will go on to Mr. Kurland for seven minutes.

[Richard Kurland, Lawyer and Policy Analyst, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Today, the context is derived from pro bono work with Canadian print and electronic investigative journalists from P.E.I., Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario into immigration issues related to our topic.

Here is the key point. Canada has a little-known collection device for taxation overseas called assistance in collection. It appears in Canada's tax treaties with countries like the United States, Germany and Norway. We heard previously today from a government witness that if something occurs overseas, the hands are thrown up. There's nothing we can do. Perhaps, not.

Canada can engage in discussions with other like-minded countries to allow similar assistance in collection agreements for Canada's immigration monetary penalties. Canada sets the penalty and collection can occur overseas in virtue of an assistance in collection agreement. To pursue the overseas wrongdoers in their home jurisdiction, overseas victims can seek justice and exercise their local remedies under their local laws, including seizures before judgment.

This gives the power to overseas victims to seek justice. Overseas enforcement of the Canadian penalty can be done with minimal or no cost to Canada. We're already doing it when it comes with the quiet matrix of enforcement control regarding the monitoring of overseas education agents.

When Canada, Australia or New Zealand flags an education agent, that operation gets shut down. Applications do not flow into the Canadian system. They do not flow into Australia, New Zealand and other like-minded countries. The mechanisms are there. The channels of communication are there. Assistance in collection agreements for Canada's immigration monetary penalties can be very effective.

I have two more points and I won't need the full seven minutes. Penalties should be attached to all persons connected to the particular immigration transaction. This includes any related affiliates or subsidiaries, when they engage in wrongful or reckless conduct. In the field now, related parties—not just the consultant or lawyer—are veiled, not responsible. That cannot be allowed to continue.

Lastly, not all immigration cases are created equal. What's missing here, a big miss, is that monetary penalties should contemplate significantly higher levels for economic class cases where an investment in excess of $100,000 is required. Follow the money.

There are two streams presently attacking the integrity of the Canadian immigration system from overseas. They are, first, in terms of volume, the educational-related applications. In terms of money, these are cases involving investment, either under PNP or our start-up visa program. Second, hundreds of thousands of dollars are being paid directly and indirectly to parties connected to the immigration transaction with Canada, hundreds of thousands for a single case. How effective is your monetary penalty given that threshold? Think ahead. It's not the penalty for deterrence today. This is contemplated to be a penalty for deterrence for the next 20 years.

Those are my opening comments.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you, Mr. Kurland.

Mr. Murray.

[John Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer, Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is John Murray. I'm the president and chief executive officer of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council.

I'd like to begin today by thanking members of the committee for allowing me and my colleague, Michael Huynh, the council's director of professional conduct, to appear before you regarding the proposed legislation to establish the college of immigration and citizenship consultants under Bill C-97.

As you know, the council is the national self-regulatory body that serves and protects the public by overseeing licensed immigration and citizenship consultants and international student advisers.

Since joining the council last November, I've come to appreciate the valuable services immigration consultants provide to immigrants coming to Canada. Understanding the complexities and the nuances of our immigration system is not easy. Immigration consultants provide valuable assistance to new Canadians, helping them to navigate the immigration system during what is usually one of the most stressful and uncertain times in their lives. Immigration consultants also offer consumers freedom of choice, providing advice and services at a reasonable cost.

Since your 2017 study, this committee has been quite familiar with the role of immigration consultants. The report on consultants tabled by the committee in June 2017 made several recommendations to address the challenges facing both the profession and the council. Challenges cited in that report included delays in resolving complaints, inadequate consumer awareness measures and lax educational standards. You've discussed many of these today.

A key recommendation of that report was the creation of an independent public interest body empowered by federal statute to regulate and govern the immigration consulting profession. We at the council could not agree more on the need for federal legislative authority, and we were thrilled to see Bill C-97 take this important step towards modernizing the legislative framework applicable to immigration consultants.

If passed, this bill would transition the council into the new college of immigration and citizenship consultants, and give the college enhanced authority to investigate, obtain important evidence and compel witnesses to testify at disciplinary hearings—three things we currently lack. These new tools will also go a long way towards helping to protect prospective immigrants from fraudulent practitioners.

Given the past challenges within the industry, I can appreciate that there may be some, even some on this committee today, who may be asking why we should give the council the opportunity to transition into this new role. Let me assure you that today's ICCRC is not the organization you reviewed in 2017. We have taken your concerns seriously and worked hard to make significant changes.

Over the last two years the council has evolved. We've increased education standards. Last week, for example, we announced the upgrading of prerequisite education to a post-graduate diploma level. We've streamlined and improved the complaint and discipline process. We've strengthened governance on the board of directors and revamped our public communications and outreach strategies. A key component of these new initiatives has been the hiring of new senior leadership, including me as CEO, and Michael as director of professional conduct. In addition, we have tripled staff resources for the professional conduct division and implemented new processes that have significantly improved our disciplinary process.

Despite these efforts, our main challenges remain our limited ability to properly investigate serious complaints and our lack of tools and authority to address ghost consultants. Ghost consultants, as you're aware, are unlicensed individuals who pose as immigration consultants to defraud potential immigrants to Canada. These unauthorized scammers pose the greatest threat to the immigration consulting profession because they operate completely in the black market, and often overseas.

The new college would have the tools and authority to take substantive action against ghost consultants. The act would also position the college to work closely with the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to really crack down on these illegal operators.

We are confident that should Bill C-97 pass, we will be able to transition smoothly to the new college, continuing to build on the changes we've already made to create the effective, reliable regulator this committee would like to see. We've made tremendous progress in the last two years, and we look forward to leveraging this knowledge and experience into a new, improved self-regulatory body.

Thank you for your time. Michael and I welcome any questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you.

We have enough time roughly for each party to get a seven-minute round. I think bells will start shortly thereafter. I'm looking for direction from the committee. Should we proceed with one seven-minute round, and then probably call it a day at that point? Okay. Great.

We will start with Mr. Sarai.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you all for coming.

Mr. Murray, you might have seen some of the information that was gathered in the last report. Since the last time we came, how many complaints under the current regime were heard in the last 12 months? How many decisions have been taken, and what was the range of decisions under the current regime?

[John Murray]

My colleague Michael will address that.

[Michael Huynh, Director of Professional Conduct, Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council]

The number of hearings has increased about 20-fold. Under the previous regulatory regime, we faced a lot of challenges moving from the complaints process to the disciplinary process, largely because of the volume and inadequate investigations such that there were only about a handful of contested hearings, and over the course of seven years from 2011 to 2017 there was only a single revocation of a member's licence.

Since John and I joined the ICCRC, we've already moved in the last 12 months to obtain six revocations of members' licences, and that's increasing exponentially.

Obviously, the goal of the regulatory body is not to just revoke all the members. The idea is to address those members who have been causing significant harm to the public and whose actions need to be addressed.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Murray, as the president of ICCRC how do you and your membership feel about transitioning to this new college?

[John Murray]

We are very much looking forward to it. Although we have not yet completed our ongoing survey of members, we're confident that our members are looking forward to it as well. They see the new powers that we would inherit as the college as essential to protecting the public and protecting the reputation of the profession alike.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Is there push-back from your membership, knowing it will no longer be a not-for-profit and instead will be a statutory self-regulatory regime?

[John Murray]

The only push-back I'm aware of to date is by a number of members who have outstanding disciplinary matters. They are obviously apprehensive that if we increase our powers, their ability to delay the inevitable results will be taken away.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

In 2017, the committee heard that many people were too afraid to come forward and make a complaint about immigration consultants. Do you believe the measures proposed here will encourage people to come forward?

[John Murray]

We think they will. Confidentiality provisions are built into the act that will govern our staff in the context of complaints.

Michael, do you have anything to add to that?

[Michael Huynh]

I have to admit it is certainly an ongoing issue, largely because of the cases we do move forward with tend to have witnesses that unfortunately drop out because of various forms of intimidation, and of course their precarious status.

We're trying to work that out through two mechanisms. As John mentioned, dealing with the privacy issues, ensuring that perhaps we can protect the privacy of those witnesses who are often complainants. A secondary issue has been addressed by the witness from the TNO, which is perhaps we should look into avenues to protect their status if, for example, their complaints and the evidence they are bringing forward suggests that either the recruiter or the RCIC has provided incorrect advice and exploited them.

Those would be mechanisms that certainly we enforce by this legislation and would be very helpful for ICCRC's disciplinary process, especially as it transitions to the college.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Are you developing capacity after this is enforced so there are enough resources to investigate all complaints, including against ghost consultants and those who might be mimicking their role as consultants?

[Michael Huynh]

As John mentioned, we probably quadrupled the resources. When I first joined the professional conduct department as its director we had three and a half full-time staff. We're now up to 15.

With the transition to the college, we would certainly have to hire an additional number to address the unauthorized practitioners. We've already budgeted for that. Certainly the UPP, the unauthorized practitioner portfolio, is a serious one, and ICCRC has contemplated and put forward additional resources such as investigators and lawyers to address the unauthorized practitioner consultant issue.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

My next question is for Ms. Panlaqui.

In 2017, you came to this committee. You discussed the negative experiences of vulnerable foreign workers. You mentioned, and I quote:

In some instances, even though they don't trust them entirely, they still end up working with them because they don't know where else to get help. Most of our clients claim they have been manipulated and intimidated by the immigration consultants. Most of these consultants are aware that these workers will not lodge a complaint against them because they know if they do so this will have a negative impact on their immigration application.

Do you think these new tools, such as a stronger complaint process and new public awareness activities, will help with the issues you brought up in 2017?

[Maria Esel Panlaqui]

It's hard to say. There may be some improvements, but the root cause of these consultants or recruiters treating these workers the same way is that their immigration status is precarious. They're very vulnerable. The consultants and recruiters know they won't complain. In fact, the same ghost consultant we talked about when I testified in 2017 was recently able to recruit and conduct fraudulent activities with a group of migrant workers. I cannot speak about the case because the workers are seeking remedies, which is a good sign. They are beginning to speak. However, these workers don't have jobs. They don't have status. They have debts to pay.

I think we should come up with really effective measures to protect workers and support them through the hearing process. One of the reasons they don't complain is that there are no support mechanisms to do so. There are only limited agencies like us, and we are going beyond our mandate to support them. We don't have enough resources to do so. It's very hard. Hopefully, the resources will include support and protection for migrant workers through the hearing process.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Michelle Rempel]

Thank you. We're significantly over time.

Mr. Tilson and then Mr. Genuis.