Thank you.
Thank you to the committee for hearing us today.
As my colleague mentioned, my name is Jason McMichael. I'm the director of government and community relations for LiUNA local 1089. I'm also a former immigration officer, with 16 years' front-line experience in the immigration field, including six years as the first national vice-president of the union representing immigration officers.
We've heard the word “unscrupulous” used a number of times today. It has been my experience on the front line of our borders that the most unscrupulous cases are often not the ones that are extremely complex. They're ones that can be solved, as my colleague mentioned, or that should be able to be solved by the applicant's reaching out directly to the Canadian immigration department. It has been my experience that these cases of for-profit consultants, who are most often unscrupulous, are ones that could be very easily solved with a phone call.
It's certainly not my contention that the current legislation isn't doing enough. In fact, what I would suggest is that where we're lacking is enforcement of the current legislation. If the current legislation were more strictly enforced, perhaps we wouldn't have some of the issues we have. Furthermore, I think not-for-profit organizations like unions, for example, or perhaps some religious organizations in Canada, could potentially be unnecessarily hampered by dramatic changes to the legislation. As my colleague mentioned, we're trying to fill a genuine need in the workforce in Canada. Should we be unnecessarily hampered, it will have a direct effect on the Canadian economy if we're not able to help potential members get to Canada.
As mentioned, in my experience as a front-line immigration officer, the real issue hasn't been with the legislation around immigration consultants. The real issue has been with enforcement of that legislation. If we were to tighten up the enforcement of the legislation, perhaps you'd see less and less of the unscrupulous behaviour you heard about earlier today.