The college is up and working. Its essential goal is to make sure that the code for professional conduct for consultants establishes strong ethical and professional standards that all licensed consultants must abide by. Obviously, the worst actors don't get licensed. Clearly, this is a mechanism that is important for people who are served by them—to have that assurance that they will get the proper advice. In the industry, there is some real opportunism, some real fraud and people taking advantage of folks. I think the college is an important step in making sure that people are behaving the way they should.
I would say there's that part of it, and there's also making sure that they're providing regulatory advice to us on what we can do better. Improving oversight and strengthening enforcement, as well as increasing accountability, was enabled by an investment of about $48 million over four years, with a $10-million ongoing commitment. That has allowed us to put this into place.
Essentially, we're talking of consultants who range from 6,000 in 2018 to now 12,000 in 2022. I've met with them. We expect their role to be even more prominent in an area where we're facing an historic volume of people wanting to come to Canada who are subject to abuse.
Obviously, the concern that needs to be addressed is some of the opportunism that happens abroad. That's something that also needs to be stemmed.