Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 14th, 2023

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly. Thank you for this.

The process will work roughly as follows, and perhaps I'll try to answer Mr. Uppal's question as part of my response.

The task force is going to have senior officials from IRCC and CBSA. CBSA is going to refer to IRCC the individuals who are implicated. We will investigate on the basis of the totality of the evidence, including whether a person, in fact, did come to study and whether they complied with the terms of the permit they thought they were legitimately issued, and we will look at other factors that a student may be able to adduce.

If the determination at the end of that process is that the person did not have knowledge of the fraudulent documentation that allowed them to enter Canada and they genuinely intended to study, they'll be permitted to remain in Canada. They'll be issued a temporary resident permit and will be able to continue to work or study, as the case may be, until they come to the next step in their immigration journey in Canada, at which point we will be able to use humanitarian and compassionate grounds to make sure their application is not prejudiced, should they fall into the cohort of people who we believe were not complicit in fraud but instead were taken advantage of by fraudsters.

At the end of the day, the goal here is to make sure the immigration journey for the innocent actors is not interrupted by this dramatically unfortunate episode. We need to have the fact-finding process to determine whether somebody who came to Canada on a study permit but with no intent to study actually should be able to face the consequences, particularly if they knew about the fraud that allowed them to enter Canada and decided to move forward with their application anyway.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

It seems to me that the threat of deportation is a kind of blunt instrument in this situation and is really counterproductive. These are young people who grew up in another country halfway around the world and who are used to following adult guidance with respect to their studies. Most of them have come here and studied at our approved institutions of higher learning.

Can the minister assure us that discretionary authority will be used to prevent deportation of any of those students until the department completes its fact-finding?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I can confirm that's the case.

For fullness of explanation of the process, before we even get into the territory where we need to concern ourselves with deportations, the ordinary process through which a person can make their case at the IRB will apply. The need for the task force process, on which we shared details today, arises only after a negative decision is rendered at the IRB.

A person will go through the ordinary process, but if the IRB finds them inadmissible, we will immediately issue a temporary resident permit that will allow for the remainder of the investigation to be completed, and the deportation will not be acted upon until there is a final determination by the task force about the nature of a person's knowledge of fraud and their genuine intent to study.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you for the clarity.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have 55 seconds.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Minister, I know you've been listening and working hard on this issue with a genuine intent. I know that the opposition party is exploiting this situation of the innocent students who are victims of fraud. You have made it clear that those students will not be deported until they have gone through this process.

Do you want to add anything to make it clearer to those students who are in this limbo?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I don't want to attribute motivations to any people or to one party or another. My experience is that there has been good advocacy by members of Parliament from different parties. You have been a stalwart advocate, Shafqat, in particular, and I see others sitting in this room. I look around, and everybody has spoken to me about this. Tom and Brad have both reached out to me before. We've had Alexis and some of his Bloc colleagues discuss the issue. Jenny has been discussing this with me, and in fact we had the chance to meet to discuss the issue as well.

The reality is that we're listening to the feedback regardless of where it comes from and trying to advance solutions that meet the needs of communities, based on the feedback we've taken.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Minister.

We will now proceed to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for six minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to disagree with my colleague Mr. Ali. On the contrary, I want to congratulate opposition members and the members of all parties in the House of Commons who have raised this matter. I want to highlight the work the media have done to raise this issue in the public space. Lastly, I want to highlight the way the situation has been managed by the minister, whom I also thank for being here today. I think we'll be on the right track regarding the people concerned by this situation.

What interests me is the overall picture. How have we come to this? How can we ensure that this doesn't happen again? There must be mechanisms, firewalls as it were, that enable us to prevent this kind of situation.

My questions will be related to what has happened. How can we deal with this? What's not working right now? How does this kind of situation arise?

Most of the students who filed resident visa applications did so through a consulting firm. Was Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada aware of that firm before this situation occurred.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I can speak for myself. I was not personally aware of this particular individual. I am acutely aware of the fact that there are consultants around the world who abuse the system and whom we have to protect against.

Perhaps to our officials, was there an awareness within the department of this particular individual?

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Were you aware of the firm in question?

[Christiane Fox, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

We weren't aware of the firm in question.

Having said that, I'd like to note that there have been refusals. We denied 976 applications that were generated by the same consultant. So there were factors—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

All right. There were warning signs.

You have to be a member of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants in order to call yourself an immigration consultant in Canada.

Does the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants issue permits to immigration consultants?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

That's the case for consultants here in Canada, but as for persons who—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, I'm referring to those who are here. Is that how it works?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Let's have one person at a time, please. It becomes difficult for the interpreters.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

My apologies, sincerely, to the interpreters.

That is the case for people who are registered consultants in Canada. The same is not true for third parties in other countries.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

As I understand it, it's illegal to call yourself an immigration consultant and to provide consulting services in Canada if you haven't qualified to do so under the law.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You could potentially be sanctioned by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants if you falsely represent yourself.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Don't you think that immigration consultants who guide students who intend to come and study in Canada should be subject to more checks by IRCC or the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants?

Minister, isn't it somewhat contradictory to legalize the practices involved in the occupation of immigration consultant in Canada but not to conduct the necessary checks on the firms you communicate with outside Canada? For the moment, neither IRCC nor Global Affairs Canada has considered any type of mechanism.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

We're dealing with the reality of the situation here. I think if we could extraterritorially apply some of the regulations to prevent fraud, we would love to, but we need to do that in partnership with other countries. We work with other countries on a diplomatic level to increase migration protection. As a matter of course, we share information. I mentioned in my remarks some of the work we've been doing in India, as recently as March of this year. The reality, however, is that having Canadian officials enforce Canadian laws in other countries around the world is not a simple thing to do, and we need to work with partners who have the jurisdiction to implement laws that they authorize within their own areas of jurisdiction.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

That's what I've been saying from the start, Minister. That's where I wanted to take you.

We can sign major free-trade agreements with Europe, the United States, Mexico and the Asia-Pacific region. We can enter into large-scale economic agreements, but we're incapable of conducting bilateral discussions or discussions with large groups of countries regarding the situation we find ourselves in today. Unfortunately, that's precisely the starting point in this matter. I don't hold it against you.

This situation is an opportunity for us to start some serious discussions. You said you weren't following the Century Initiative. However, increasing numbers of people will want to settle in Canada and Quebec. What will we do if we don't have this kind of mechanism? There will be more incidents like this one.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

You raise an interesting and important point.

That would be a good idea in an ideal world. However, as you very well know, sometimes we're dealing with criminals in these cases.

If we're dealing with a situation where we try to regulate an industry globally, the bad actors will still try to operate outside of that system. Despite what progress we may be able to achieve to align the standards of protection, there will always be people who seek to abuse Canada's immigration system.

If there are new ideas that the committee wants to put forward or study about how we can co-operate with partners on the international stage to better protect our system, I would welcome recommendations from the committee.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Minister, it may be news to you, but the Bloc Québécois will never form the government.

Now, I'm telling you that your duty as the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship is to ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to conduct those discussions. What we're studying today has been a tragedy for students. Some have been expelled from the country and will have to prove that they shouldn't have been expelled, and they're now suffering from mental health problems.

Your job is to do that. Mine is to tell you to do it.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Is that the complete time, Madam Chair?