Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 6th, 2017

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is for the CBSA.

The IRCC has been set up to regulate and monitor registered immigration consultants. However, consultants who don't register are outside of its purview, and all it can effectively do is forward complaints to the CBSA for investigation. Since this committee last studied this issue back in 1995, major reforms have been made by the government, but we are still hearing about the same issue of ghost consultants—you also mentioned them in your comments—and exploited immigrants.

Does the CBSA have the resources it needs to enforce the rules regarding immigration consultants? What does the CBSA do proactively on enforcement besides just responding to the complaints?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

With respect to ghost consultants, yes, that remains an area where we are conducting criminal investigations. As you can imagine, within the CBSA we have a finite level of resources. We have just over 200 criminal investigators across Canada who are responsible for investigating an array of crimes under IRPA, as well as under the Customs Act.

As a result, we use a tiered process with respect to issues that involve consultants. Generally, we go after individuals, or investigate individuals, who are the organizers of, let's say, mass misrepresentation or mass fraud, rather than the one-offs. In terms of how we're approaching this, we are looking at where the greatest deterrent could occur. We are looking at the big organizers, rather than the individual who may have provided information for profit in one case, and so forth. I do believe that we are using the resources that we have to the best of our ability, based on a risk profile.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Do you think that you have reasonable resources to do that?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

At this point, I do.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Saroya.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Orr and the entire team for coming in and advising us on this important issue.

It just so happens that overnight somebody sent me a very touching video from B.C. regarding a crooked consultant. It comes from somebody named Sandeep Powar. He's talking about one of the guys who has dealt with a crooked consultant—I think that's probably the right word—and who made a contract for $10,000 cash. He was told the immigration would get him a job and as soon as he got the job he would process it. The $10,000 was given—he has all the receipts—and he videotaped the consultant as well. Then the consultant told him that he failed his medical in India and he needed to go back to India to get his medical done. It's all in the video. I wish I could play it, but you can't see it.... While he was in India, he was told that he needed to pay another $3,000. He sold his house or something and sent another $3,000. As soon as he arrived back, he was told the consultant ran out of money, to bring some more money. For poor people, a lot of poor people, we hear this every single day.

He threatened to go to the police and the immigration department and was told, “If you do something like that, you know what we're going to do with you.” It is a very touching video. He's talking about what to do with his life. He sold everything. He has nothing left.

By the way, he is giving us some east-west immigration consultant in B.C., in Abbotsford somewhere. The guy's name, the number, the whole thing is in the video.

What do you do with this sort of situation? How can I advise this individual? What can I say to him? What can be done for both sides? What would we do for this crooked consultant? What can I say to the guy who is asking me for help? What help can I give this individual? Who can I send this video to, please? Can I send it to you, to somebody here?

[Robert Orr]

Yes, obviously there are some situations that are heartbreaking, as you hear how people have been misled by consultants and so on. Under the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, that organization, there is a complaints process and that may be the best thing. If the person is a registered consultant, that would be the starting point for this, to carry this through.

One of the big concerns we have in India is the number of people who are ghost consultants. In other words, they're not registered there and are trying to work. Within Canada, there are certain parameters we can manage with those consultants who operate within Canada. When it's overseas, it's far more complicated for us to do that, because to work with law enforcement agents, we must work with the local law enforcement agencies.

Others may be able to go into this process more specifically, with specific advice, but I would add that in India one of the things we are doing specifically, because we realize this is such an issue there, is hiring someone as just a public affairs officer, to try to get the message out as much as we can to ensure that potential applicants are dealing with registered consultants, so that they are less likely to be misled.

Perhaps others would like to go into the complaints process a bit more.

[Michael MacDonald]

Thank you.

Very quickly, I'll add to what Mr. Orr has said.

That example you've given, sir, is a perfect example, I think, of the position that innocent people are put in, certainly by ghost consultants, or by people who we would call the “crooked consultants”. You're right. People have a choice to make. Do they disclose this to the RCMP? If they think there is fraud going on or they are being coerced or what have you, that is an option, as are your local police.

Mr. Orr was correct in saying that if this is a consultant who is registered, there is a complaints process there. Also, our department has the ability to take forward complaints to the regulatory body. If the consultant, or “crooked consultant”, as you call it, is a member of a bar and is a lawyer, you can actually disclose to the bar. There are avenues to take, but there are not a lot and I think the individual is put in a very difficult situation.

Raising awareness with certain authorities can help move cases like that forward. What we've found in several cases is that it's not just about one person. There are multiple people who are being “abused” by this process. We have put forward examples like this in the past that have had some positive outcomes, but they have taken time and it has taken some courageous people to stand up and say, “Enough's enough.”

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

By the way, this case is in Abbotsford, it seems from the video, so it's not a ghost consultant. In this case, it's a consultant in British Columbia. I hear this all the time. These consultants have subconsultants in other countries, in which they will have five or 10 cases, and every six months they will go back and deal with them. What sort of budget does your department have? Who can deal with all these complaints? Do you have enough of a budget on your side to investigate all these calls?

[Robert Orr]

First and foremost, I would say that we take these very seriously, but it's not IRCC that's going to be investigating complaints of this sort, so it would be through the regulatory agency or through CBSA. It's CBSA's mandate to actually do the investigation of this sort of abuse.

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

I'm just going to ask you for clarification. Are the consultants you're referring to located overseas or are they in Canada?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

They're in B.C.

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

Okay. That would fall under the mandate of the CBSA. I would suggest that you or this individual lodge a complaint. As I explained to the previous member, we do look at a risk-based profile, and we do have a tiered system.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. We have to move on.

Ms. Kwan, go ahead, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who have come before us today.

Mr. Aterman, you mentioned there are 40,000 applications each year, and that about 31,500 have some sort of representation but that 8,000 are without. Do you have any sense of how many of the folks who are represented are represented by legal aid lawyers?

[Paul Aterman]

I can provide the committee with the breakdown with respect to lawyers as opposed to consultants. How many are legal aid lawyers is a much more difficult question. I can't answer that, because we don't have information about the means by which lawyers are retained. In other words, we don't know whether they have a private retainer.

I can tell you anecdotally that in Ontario, for example, there's a developed legal aid program on the refugee side, which explains why there are relatively few consultants who appear on the refugee side of the program. On the immigration side of the program, the immigration division, the immigration appeal division, legal aid is not available and we have a higher rate of representation by consultants.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see. I'm curious about that, because I know there is extreme pressure with respect to legal aid representation. There are a lot of cuts to legal aid, so I think a lot of people are not getting representation. I'm just trying to get a picture, then, to see if we can shed some light on that. I think it is absolutely critical that people get legal representation at the IRB level. If you have any information that you can share with us, that would be very useful and helpful.

[Paul Aterman]

We can slice the data by region and by division as well, and then that breaks it down to lawyers and consultants. We'd be happy to provide that information to the committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That would be very helpful. Thank you very much.

My next question is for CBSA.

It was mentioned that there are some 200 investigators. Do you have any sense of the breakdown into categories for these 200 investigators? It was mentioned that you would really only take on cases that are organized as opposed to those that are one-offs. Do you have any sense, for example, about the area of spousal sponsorship, and whether there are issues with respect to fraudulent or bad practices? Are there with the refugee category? Are there with the former category of live-in caregivers? Do you have any sense of how those 200 staff are broken up into categories?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

According to our program, the staff we have don't focus just on immigration-related issues.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

How many people are put into immigration-related issues then?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

Do you mean how many of our officers?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I mean how many of those 200.

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

They're not broken up like that. They focus on customs- and immigration-related issues.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

How many cases are under investigation at the moment then?