Madam Speaker, essentially, my point is that we must give more teeth to regulations governing the profession of immigration consultant. That will not happen at the federal level for two reasons. First, from a constitutional standpoint, the provinces are responsible for governing professions, and second, it is difficult to govern professions.
The bar has existed for hundreds of years. Such professional associations have existed for a long time and have spent a lot of time establishing themselves. The Barreau du Québec, the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec and the Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec have some autonomy, but they are ultimately governed by the Office des professions du Québec. This organization can monitor the work of each of these professional organizations, and can crack down and take over if they are not doing their jobs.
It is clear that the most effective way of doing things is to govern this profession within the structure that already exists and is equipped to do the work. That seems like the path to take if we want to avoid serious governance problems, like the ones that exist with the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.
There have been cases where elections have been extremely heated and highly questionable, I must say. Some candidates are unable to run because disciplinary complaints have been made against them. Anyone can make a complaint, and there is no guarantee how quickly it will be handled. When someone complains too much, disciplinary action is taken against them for disrespecting the association. They cannot run in an election to change things. There are serious problems, and something serious needs to be done to fix them.