Debates of Dec. 7th, 2010

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-35 at third reading. Everyone knows that our country was built on immigration. People came from all over the world to try to build a new life. In some ways, it was easier to come to Canada in the past. There was certainly less paperwork 100 or even 50 years ago. Now, the process is complicated and strict. We want to ensure that the people we welcome into Canada are the best and that they have a lot to offer to help build a good, strong society.

That is why it is so disheartening to have seen that, for so many years, there have been immigration consultants who have been taking advantage of vulnerable people who want to improve their lives, who want to travel across the seas to start a new life and instead end up defrauded and taken advantage of by unscrupulous consultants.

That is why the bill and various projects around cracking down on unscrupulous consultants have come through various committee studies and we finally arrive at this point where we are bringing forward a framework for the minister to pick a new, and hopefully more effective, governing body around immigration consultants.

As my hon. colleague mentioned, this was a model of co-operation among all parliamentarians. There was a clear desire on behalf of Canadians to see Parliament work together to create a more robust structure that was going to care for these vulnerable people, people looking for help in a very big decision and process, that of coming to Canada.

We agreed in principle across the House that something needed to be done. On this side, we are still a little bit worried that the establishment of the recommendation from the immigration committee upon which Bill C-35 was built, which talked about creating a stand-alone regulator, was not entirely followed and is instead still just done through regulations.

However, I think the intent of the bill is clear and the effectiveness of what we have in place will move forward to protecting Canadians.

The essential part of the bill is that it gives more power to go after people who are consulting and offering advice at the earliest stages of an application process. The larger scope of the bill will allow us to protect people even before they have submitted a firm application, which was an important loophole to close.

On the other issues we brought forward as amendments, the Liberal Party was pleased to present the amendment that actually doubled the fines to $20,000 for a summary conviction, and up to $100,000 from $50,000 for anyone convicted of being an unregistered immigration consultant.

There was an excellent discussion in committee around the role and the responsibilities of immigration consultants in Quebec.

We concluded that, without taking anything away from the federal government's power, any immigration consultant working in the province of Quebec who wants to recommend an immigration opportunity in Quebec must be familiar with the immigration system in that province. The primacy of the federal government in this area in maintained, but we recognize that in Quebec, it is extremely important to be able to speak French to interact with the Quebec government. In addition, the consultant must be familiar with the particularities of the process in Quebec to be able to give good advice to those who would like to become citizens of this country.

We also managed to get rid of the short title. In consultations, it came back time and time again from consultants that they were actually offended and felt that naming the bill around the problem, which is the crooked consultants, actually demeaned and belittled the work of legitimate consultants. So we depoliticized the short title of the bill, which was a victory.

In general, the bill puts forward more powers of accountability for, and better relationships between, the minister's office and the eventual regulator. It provides for the sharing of information.

Unfortunately, one of the concerns we have, which is beyond the scope of this bill, is that in our mind there are still not enough resources for the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP to go after those who are not registered consultants and are still operating as, as we call them, ghost consultants, without being qualified or being able to guarantee that they are offering proper services to these vulnerable people who want to emigrate to Canada.

Ultimately, Bill C-35 is just an initial step in allowing the minister to create a new governing body for immigration consultants. It provides a very general framework. It provides a few important key issues. However, push is going to come to shove in the coming months when the government and the minister actually settle on who is going to be the next governing body for immigration consultants.

We have to make sure that we do not just end up with the same problems once again. We have to make sure that there is going to be a strong governance framework around this new consultant body. We have to make sure, if we stick with the same organization that will be articulated in a new way, that the same problems do not come back. We have to make sure that if we have a new and completely different governing body than the one existing right now, we do not fall into the same old traps and have the same ineffectiveness and problems that we have right now.

That is going to be where the opposition parties will watch closely what the government and the minister do and hopefully will engage and help shape the decision in such a way that people will truly be protected by this set of regulations governing immigration consultants.

The members of the committee worked together. We had differences and concerns that were hammered out. It was, as the parliamentary secretary has said, a model of co-operation and of trying to do right by Canadians on this important issue. It is something that I was very pleased to be able to be part of, and it is something that I know we can be proud of as parliamentarians, that on important issues, from time to time, we are able to work together.

I think the spirit of collegiality and co-operation is important and I certainly hope it extends to other bills and other issues on which we can find agreement in principle and not just tweak in committee but improve in committee, as my hon. colleague has said.

For all of these reasons, the Liberal Party is very happy to support Bill C-35 at third reading. We hope that it will be quickly passed by the other chamber so that Canadians will be protected when we have our new regulator for immigration consultants.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments on the bill.

As the member knows, most MPs get a lot of immigration cases in their offices. In fact, several offices, including mine, have one person who is practically fully engaged in immigration cases.

I would like to ask the member, since he sat through the committee process, whether he thinks this bill and other bills by the government, at the end of the day, are going to lead to a lessening of immigration cases in our office or maybe even an increase, depending on how they are rolled out and how the acts are actually enforced.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not think this particular bill would have a tremendous impact on the number of people going to their members of Parliament for advice, help and knowledge. That is not what this bill would specifically address.

However, what I certainly hope this bill would be able to do is reduce the number of people who come to my office, worried and extremely troubled because they have spent an awful lot of money on someone who made them promises that he or she had no business making and actually gave them extremely bad advice that has hindered them in their process of immigrating to Canada, and sometimes gave them such bad advice that they ended up with a big red x that would bar them entirely from ever being able to immigrate to Canada, all because of the work of an unscrupulous immigration consultant.

While I am sure our MPs' offices will still be busy helping people through the process the way our offices are supposed to, as an interface between the federal government and our constituents, I certainly hope that the amount of people who have been hurt, harmed and devastated by unscrupulous immigration consultants would certainly decrease in terms of the cases we see in our offices.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking about Bill C-35, which we are debating today. We have talked a lot about immigration consultants, which are the focus of this bill.

I want to begin by speaking about the bill's title. Those following the debate since speeches started in the House this morning at about 10:20 a.m. would initially have seen it indicated on their screen that we are talking about the “Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act”, or the “Loi sévissant contre les consultants véreux” in French.

If they are watching now, they will probably see that we are talking about An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This was changed because, likely, at the beginning of the debate the audiovisual team was using the former title of the bill.

In committee, it was decided that the title should be changed to make it more neutral and objective. There are a number of reasons for this decision. Even though we all agree that a bill title has no legal effect and is simply a secondary element in the debate about the substantive clauses and the actual provisions of the bill, the title is still important. On one hand, the title is important from a social point of view because it can affect how people perceive the bill. On the other hand, it is important from a political point of view because it is a tool used by the government to engage in political marketing and even to change the essence and intent of a bill for its own purposes. The government is using this technique more and more.

I will discuss both cases, beginning with the one before us, Bill C-35. It seems to me that the government was using the bill's original title for political purposes. They said they would attack crooked consultants. That sounds like an opinion to me. Opinions have no place in the law. The government should stick to a technical description of what the bill does, which in this case is amend the immigration act to require people who want to practise as immigration consultants and who are not already members of a provincial bar or the Chambre des notaires du Québec to be members of a body to be designated by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. That is what this bill would do.

In practice, will this actually improve the situation and crack down on crooked consultants? That is a matter of opinion. Every member of the House is entitled to an opinion on the subject. I suppose that if the bill receives unanimous support, as it seems to have, that means people pretty much agree. Of course, the 308 members of the House can make mistakes. In the end, history may confirm that we have not. I do not think there should be anything subjective in the title.

If we want voters and the public to respect us, we should be humble enough to resist using bill titles to promote any messages, claims or opinions whatsoever. We must also take into account the potential social impact of an inappropriate title. In this case, they were calling it the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

Imagine consultants telling their clients to trust them because they have been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. As if. Picture the certificate hanging behind a consultant's desk, stating that the consultant has been accredited under the cracking down on crooked consultants act. That is not what the bill is about. This bill is about consultants who are not crooked. That is why the title of the bill was changed. Personally, I hope that the government will put an end to this practice, which has been observed in several House committees.

It is a ridiculous practice, one that wastes a great deal of parliamentarians' energy. In many cases, the bills do not even accomplish what is stated in the title, and that skews the democratic debate.

Since there is unanimity in the House on Bill C-35, I would like to provide a few other examples. In fact, most of the disagreement in committee was about the title.

There was Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. Once again, the title was a claim. There was also the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act. That is a matter of opinion; we may or may not agree that Bill C-34 will actually protect people from sex offenders. Then there is the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. I gave examples from different Parliaments, and there are others from the current session. We have bills pertaining to security that are named in memory of a victim whose case has nothing to do with the bill in question.

Getting back to immigration, given that this is the subject of the bill before us today, there is Bill C-49, at second reading. The title, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, is an opinion. In fact, most observers, including the opposition members in the House, find that the bill does not in any way deal with smugglers, but rather targets refugees. The title also refers to people who abuse the immigration system. The bill does not refer to the immigration system but to the refugee protection system. The title is completely at odds with the reality and serves as a political marketing tool.

The government has said that people support their bill. It conducted a poll and asked whether people agreed with the law to prevent human smugglers from abusing our immigration system. Everyone is evidently in agreement. The problem is that the bill does not do what the title says.

Clearly, this is a ploy on the government's part. Basically, the government is admitting that it knows very well that it will not be able to sell the contents of its bill to the public. So it is using smoke and mirrors. It is using the title as an intermediary to try and suggest that one of its bills cracks down on crooked consultants and therefore must be a good bill. It has a bill that cracks down on human smugglers, so it is a good bill.

The most pathetic title we have seen in this House was the title of a bill that was something like: an act to stop the trafficking of minors, even though the word “trafficking” was not mentioned once in the entire bill. The bill had a title that referred to the trafficking of minors, even though the bill was not about that.

Clearly, this is a recurring ploy that must stop. I am very pleased that the members of the committee agreed to stop playing the government's game. I hope the government will have the wisdom and good sense to stop playing these ridiculous little games. The parliamentary secretary talked about it and so did my Liberal colleague, the hon. member for Papineau, and I imagine my NDP colleague will also talk about it, since we tend to work very well together on that committee; we respect one another, despite our political differences. If the government wanted to demonstrate its desire to co-operate and its respect for the opposition members, it could start by giving its bills legitimate titles, instead of making these inane attempts to manipulate public opinion.

I realize that was a long digression, but I had to do it. All that being said, I will now talk about the substance of the bill.

Those who want to immigrate to Quebec and Canada, whether we are talking about refugees, economic immigrants, immigrants in the family reunification category, or people who come on humanitarian or other grounds, are often overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. They are unfamiliar with our laws and are a bit distressed by the red tape. We can relate because we cannot keep up with all the bureaucracy, requirements and regulations either. It is hard for us to keep track of our rights. Imagine what it is like for an immigrant.

There is a real and legitimate concern and many of these people seek advice on the immigration application process. The advice they are given is extremely important because it can have a significant impact on the ruling to be made and on the rest of their lives. During this process, many decide to deal with lawyers or notaries. That is what I always recommend when people knock on the door of my riding office.

However, others seek advice and representation from an immigration consultant. The problem is that, unlike notaries or lawyers, immigration consultants are not really regulated. The regulatory body for these consultants, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, does not work at all; it is a colossal failure. This agency has serious governance problems and is run by people who commit flagrant abuses. They take liberties and do not administer the agency in the interest of its members or the general public. In my opinion, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants has to be abolished. It is beyond repair because it is fundamentally tainted by personal interests to the detriment of its members and the general public. I hope the minister will see it that way when he designates an agency.

A new organization must therefore be created that will better regulate the occupation. Let us hope that, with the new act, this organization will not encounter the same type of internal management problems and that it will have a much broader sphere of activity. Rather than controlling the relationship between the consultant and the government only from the day the application is filed to the day the application is ultimately accepted or rejected, the new act will cover the entire relationship between the consultant and the client or in other words, from the moment a client contacts a consultant or a consultant offers a potential client his or her services. This is a real improvement. However, the organization designated by the minister must do its work correctly and separate the wheat from the chaff.

We have to admit that there are some good immigration consultants; however, there are others who do not do their work properly at all. When touring the country, we were told that some consultants were abusing their ethnic proximity a little or even a lot. Someone immigrates to a new country where they do not know the system and do not know whom to trust, and then they meet someone from the same ethnic group who has successfully immigrated to Canada. Human nature being what it is, they might have a tendency to trust that person more than someone else.

Many crooked consultants—that is how the minister referred to them at the beginning—will abuse this trust. Sometimes these people do not know French or English, nor do they know the laws. People may pay a consultant thousands of dollars and that consultant will not even bother to submit their applications. They wonder why they have not heard anything, so they call the constituency office or the department only to be told that their application was never received and no one has ever heard of it. It can take years before they figure this out. There was a similar story on the news yesterday morning: a lady paid thousands of dollars but her application was likely never submitted.

We have taken a step forward. The House can pass laws, but it does not create the regulations. It is not the House that ultimately does the selection. The minister's role in that regard is very important. He must make wise choices and not usurp the will of Parliament, as has happened in the past, particularly in terms of immigration. He must comply with legislation and ensure that there is finally a real regulator that lives up to that title. Competent people are needed in order to ensure that the immigration consultants in Quebec and Canada are competent.

I have one last aside. Throughout this process, I have insisted that we must ensure that immigration consultants in Quebec are familiar with the requirements of the Quebec immigration system, which has its particularities. There is an agreement between Canada and Quebec. This must be recognized. If there are two categories of immigration consultants in Quebec, people who are submitting an application will not know whether their consultant is able to advise them on all of the possible options or just those that fall under either federal or Quebec jurisdiction. I maintain that, in dealing with immigration issues, we must always remember that the situation in Quebec is different and requires special treatment.

I would like to repeat that there is a good deal of collaboration in this committee. If there are interesting bills, we will study them. I do want to share a little frustration that is not the fault of the committee members or our chair, but it is a result of parliamentary procedure, which seriously limits us with respect to amendment possibilities. We could have developed a better bill if we had had more latitude, as parliamentarians, to make amendments that would change the bill's scope and give it a better direction. That is a problem for all parliamentarians. I hope that we will be able to have a look at this issue in the near future.

In the meantime, overall, I think that the bill before us deserves the support of Parliament.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I was very interested in the part of the member's speech that discussed the title of the bill, which in this case was the cracking down on crooked consultants act. Certainly I would not make the blind assumption that all consultants in this case are of a nefarious nature. It is nice to see the Conservatives worked on that. And the member has used the expression “marketing gimmick”, which I think is apt and to the point, to describe something I have noticed about the titles we have been using on bills. The fairness at the pumps act is another one; it is a very small collaboration on what the pumps do. It has nothing to do with the actual price of the gas itself.

I would ask the member to comment on that even further and more particularly about the idea of the consultants and the fact that we are requiring increased penalties for the consultants who are doing things of a nefarious nature.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will not go into any more detail about titles, which I discussed at length in my speech. On the one hand, I believe it is insulting for other parliamentarians to be given a bill with a title that is nothing more than a base political marketing tool. On the other hand, it is insulting to the public. If the Conservative government sticks with this policy, it will backfire eventually. It might be able to get away with it once, twice, three times, maybe more, but eventually, people will realize that they are being taken for fools.

By giving people bogus titles, thinking that they will believe whatever it says, the government is telling voters that they are not smart enough to understand what a bill is about. Sooner or later, the Conservatives will pay the political price for taking things too far because they will lose what little credibility they have left. I think they should get rid of that policy.

The Liberals proposed an amendment that we supported to make penalties for immigration consultants harsher. In my opinion, however, efforts to deter undesirable activity will produce better results than sentence length. Sentences can be very harsh, but if they are never applied, they will not have a deterrent effect.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, when I was listening to the presentation from the member, I wondered how long he was going to prolong the discussion on the title of the bill. In fact, he went on so long that I was afraid he was going to convince another member of the House to stand and ask a question about the title of the bill, which is exactly what happened.

The title of the bill, quite frankly, is something that he may have wanted to spend 15 minutes talking about, but let us face it, what Canadians are concerned about is the content of a bill and its implementation. When the discussion came up about whether the bill was going to change its name, there was no problem from this government as to whether the bill was going to be in its present form or whether it was going to change. We accepted it with no problem. What is more important is the content of the bill, what it is about, who it speaks for, who it speaks against, what it will mean in terms of legislation.

My question may be a little longer than the answer we are going to need from the member. I would like to know, after we have gone through this process at committee, worked together and got this bill in its present form, if he and his party are going to stand on third reading and support this bill, get it through this House and get it off to the Senate. Yes or no?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, of course, as I said during my speech, I will support this bill. I hope the Senate will study it very quickly. Anytime we manage to pass a bill unanimously in the House, it would be very inappropriate for the Senate to drag its feet and not pass it very quickly.

Now, since I received a second question on the title, I realize that the subject cannot be so innocent after all, because the parliamentary secretary asked a question about that. As I explained very clearly in my presentation, I used the opportunity to talk about it specifically because it was unanimous and there were not really any contentious issues left.

I completely agree with him on one point. What is important is the content of the bill, not the title. That is precisely why I asked the government to stop giving its bills bogus titles, which, in some cases, have nothing to do with the content of the bill.

As the parliamentary secretary said, if it is the content of the bill that matters, they should give their bills titles that reflect the content of the bill, instead of using political diversion tactics.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask specifically about the clause that deals with the situation in Quebec.

As the member knows, in Quebec there is the Quebec immigration law and then there is the federal immigration law. Right now the bill that is in front of us will have two types of immigration consultants, those who are legislated by the federal government and another type who are legislated by a provincial government, the Quebec government.

Originally I supported an exemption so that immigration consultants practising in Quebec would have one licensing body rather than two, however that did not pass, and as a result, immigrants getting services in Quebec might be slightly confused.

Perhaps the member can talk about whether that is acceptable or not.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois did propose an amendment to delegate all this responsibility to the Government of Quebec. I believed that it was fair and reasonable and that it was not a sovereignist vision because the Government of Quebec already has responsibilities that are delegated under the Canada-Quebec agreement. Therefore, in reality, the immigration system is different in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. I thought it was normal that this responsibility be delegated in its entirety to Quebec. By the way, this would have allowed the Government of Quebec to choose the Canadian organization or, if it so desired, to use another organization. For example, it could have created a professional body, and so forth. That was the spirit of the recommendation in the committee's report, which was adopted in 2008, if my memory serves me well. The Liberals supported us for a while. As we approached the vote, their support faded away, as is often the case. In the end, they once again abandoned Quebec and decided to support the government.

I would have liked our amendment to be adopted. That said, what is most important is that there not be two categories of consultants in Quebec. In that regard, the battle must still be waged. In addition to the issues of jurisdiction, we must always be mindful of the interests of consumers. When a consumer goes to an immigration consultant in Quebec, he wants the consultant to be able to advise him about all immigration possibilities, whether they come under the Government of Quebec or the Government of Canada.

Having said that, in general, after studying the entire bill and analyzing the arguments for and against, the Bloc Québécois will support this bill. That is an indication that it believes that there are more arguments for the bill than against. The Bloc hopes that the bill will be passed quickly by the Senate. There will be a necessary delay. One of the reasons why we agreed to have the bill fast-tracked through the House is because every day that Parliament delays implementing it, people continue to be potential victims of unscrupulous consultants.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, all government services should be fast, fair and efficient. That should always include immigration services. People who use the service often do not necessarily know immigration laws very well and sometimes have language difficulties. That is why, ultimately, immigration regulations and laws should be transparent. They should be easy to understand. The decision-making process should be very clear and not appear to be arbitrary. Until then, a lot of immigrants will require some assistance. Some will have to go to immigration consultants or lawyers. We hope most will find they do not have the need to do so.

For the past many years, immigration consultants have not been regulated. The former Liberal government brought forward a bill a few years ago and set up a regulatory body. However, the regulatory body was not given the power to regulate properly. As a result, people could set up shop and call themselves immigration consultants without much knowledge of immigration laws or regulations. They could practise, but they did not need to be regulated and they were not breaking any law.

There are 2,000 immigration consultants who are licensed through one body and then there are another 2,000 immigration consultants practising who are not licensed. No one could really tell whether one group was better than the other group, or that any immigration consultants were breaking the laws.

In the last five years, only two or three people have been charged by the government for fraudulent behaviour. However, most people who have dealt with immigrants, whether at immigration offices or constituency offices of members of Parliament, have heard many horrifying experiences, where potential immigrants have been told that their applications have been submitted, but they have not. As a result, their brothers or sisters have grown too old to be considered under family class, or applications are completed in a way that is wrong. Many thousands of dollars later, because their applications have not been completed correctly, the potential immigrants have lost the opportunity to come to Canada or Canadians have been unable to bring their relatives to be united with them in Canada.

There are also other even more extreme cases where immigration consultants have taught people how lie and pretend to be refugees, clogging up the refugee system so genuine refugees have to wait for a long time before their cases are heard.

There are also cases where genuine refugees complete their application forms incorrectly. Some of them experienced torture overseas, but they were unable to describe it in a way that was satisfactory because of the wrong advice they received from consultants. As a result, some faced deportation, while others lost a lot of money.

This terrible experience suffered by potential immigrants is not new. In the early eighties, I was an assistant to a member of Parliament, New Democrat Dan Heap. At that time, I worked with the Globe and Mail with Victor Malarek, an investigative journalist. We visited a few unscrupulous immigration consultants and were able to document all types of behaviour that was fraudulent.

In the eighties and nineties there was a huge uproar in the communities. People were saying that these consultants had to be regulated, yet through these years, it was never done properly.

I hope, with Bill C-35, we will finally get it done properly. I hope the minister will ensure that there is speedy implementation of the bill, that the regulator will be picked and that it will operate in a democratic, fair and open manner. I also hope the regulator will have the power to legislate and regulate all immigration consultants. If people choose to practise as immigration consultants, they will be unable to do so, if they proceed without the licensing of this body. It will be a criminal offence to do so.

Beyond that, legislation is just one piece of the puzzle. The other piece includes education of both Canadians and potential immigrants overseas. The third piece is enforcement of the law. Even after a regulator has been established and licensed, we need to ensure that the Canadian Border Services Agency, the RCMP, sometimes CSIS and immigration officers work together to go after people who act in a fraudulent manner. The regulator needs the power to do this.

The Canadian government also needs to provide the kind of human resources needed in order to ensure those who commit a criminal act will be brought to justice. If not, the legislation will unfortunately not be enforced.

As well, after the regulator has been established, there needs to be regular evaluation. There have to be audits and regular reporting so it is clear for Canadian taxpayers, immigrants, members of Parliament and the general public that this new regulatory body functions in a way that is open, transparent and fair.

I want to spend some time on the detail of the proposed legislation. I have made quite a few amendments to the bill, one of which deals with smugglers, traffickers and immigration consultants who give bad advice. Through this amendment, if people, be they smugglers or consultants, violate the immigration act, enforcement officers will now have 10 years to go after them. In the past, it was only six months. Therefore, it is much tougher and there will be more fines if convictions take place. Smugglers will face life sentences and/or $1 million in fines if they are convicted. The punishment to those who give bad advice, cheat or victimize refugees and immigrants is very steep, and that is a good change.

Another change is the minister will have the power to revoke a regulator's licence. If a regulator is not performing the duty it is supposed to perform, the minister will have the power to take its licence away, especially if it is not delivering good service.

Other changes that I have been assured will be implemented are as follows.

There is the provision that would require immigrants seeking immigration status of any kind or renewing status in Canada to disclose the use of a representative. This would enable immigration officers to check whether a representative was licensed or not.

An administrative change would be a published list of people who had been convicted or removed from the list of approved immigration consultants. This list would be published on the Citizenship and Immigration website. Potential overseas immigrants would be able to see which consultants were licensed, which ones had their licences revoked or had been fined or convicted.

There would be a one-stop shop kind of hotline for the public to report fraud with a lead team to investigate the tips from complaints on unscrupulous immigration consultants. Often it is very confusing for immigrants, especially if their language capacity is not perfect. They may not know whether they should go to the local police, the RCMP, the immigration officer, or CBSA and they may get bounced around. At the end of the day, an immigrant may get frustrated and not file a complaint. Then the immigration consultant would continue to exploit other people. With the hotline and information published on the website of CIC, the public will know how to report fraud.

Another area where there is agreement is on some companies operating in Beijing or New Delhi. A company in India will be advised that it cannot provide substantive immigration advice. It is assisting immigrants to process claims, but it should not act as consultants or lawyers. It is not its task and really should not be its function.

At the end of day, after these agreements, there were still a few changes I would have made, but they were never included in Bill C-35.

I would have preferred to have seen overseas employment recruiters included in the bill so they could be licensed as well. If they ended up behaving in a way that was unacceptable, then they could be charged.

I hoped that if potential immigrants were given terrible advice, they would have a chance to reapply if the immigration consultant was convicted. Also, the immigrant's removal from Canada would be stayed until the immigration consultant went to court and was convicted.

Sometimes, whether they are smugglers, traffickers or crooked consultants, they give bad advice and the victims end up being deported from Canada and are not given the chance to either report the fraud or testify in court. The smugglers, traffickers or crooked consultants end up getting away without being convicted in court and they end up preying on other people.

A stay of removal until the criminals are convicted is really important so the victims are protected. If not, others, unfortunately, will be victimized by these criminals.

Unfortunately, that did not get into Bill C-35. This bill also deals with the same section of the law that deals with traffickers and smugglers. I would prefer it if we could reverse the onus so that the smugglers would have to prove that they are innocent. However, that was not acceptable.

All in all, at the end of the day, Bill C-35 is a bill that I and the New Democratic Party of Canada support because it would provide a legislative framework to ensure that all immigration consultants practising in Canada must be licensed and it would tighten up the law so that hopefully there will be fewer immigrants being cheated and having their life destroyed by these crooks.

I hope there will be sufficient resources to ensure the enforcement of this bill so that in a few years from now we will not be coming back to the House yet one more time to try to fix this issue.

Ultimately, maybe five or ten years from now, if the industry has matured in a way to be able to set up an independent non-share corporation so that the body can be self-regulating and the minister or the Government of Canada would no longer have to regulate, that would be the way to go. Just like the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society or other professional bodies of engineers or accountants, this immigration consultant industry would be able to independently regulate itself.

I have been persuaded that the time is not right yet. Eventually that would be the goal for this industry to practice, as an independent non-share corporation. In the meantime, I hope the minister will be wise and will pick the right kind of regulator that will be able to deliver the service in a most efficient, open and transparent manner.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, one of the issues for me that stood out in this is the amount of concern with the regulations and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

It talked about many of the stakeholders being concerned about the decision to change the regulatory body through regulation under the IRPA rather than through stand-alone legislation. The new body would still not have the same power to sanction immigration consultants who are not members nor have appropriate enforcement measurement powers, which is always the ongoing concern here with legislation that requires a tougher stand than what we currently have, no matter what type of malfeasance it is.

I would like to get the hon. member's reaction to the boards and stakeholder reactions. The Canadian Bar Association said that it would prefer that individuals offering immigration advice for remuneration be required to be a member of the Law Society but, if consultants are to be permitted, it is concerned that draft legislation does not give the regulatory body sufficient teeth or provide sufficient governance, accountability and protection.

I would like to get the hon. member's reaction on that, as well as on the ability to enforce this.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is not surprising that the Canadian Bar Association would prefer anyone practising immigration law to be a lawyer. However, our amendment says that paralegals would be able to practice immigration law without being regulated by this body. That is a compromise.

I do not agree completely with the Canadian Bar Association that everyone giving advice on immigration matters needs to be a lawyer. There are very competent consultants who understand the law. They are able to fill in applications and give advice but they are not able to represent their clients in federal court, for example. If we are talking about legal matters in a court of law, then it would still be up to lawyers and not immigration consultants.

As to why this body would not be an independent corporation, I have been persuaded that it will take some time. If we look at the history of the Canadian Bar Association, it took quite a few years for the Canadian Bar Association to be formed. This immigration consultant industry is still relatively new. It would be helpful for the government to ensure that everyone practising is doing so in a way that is acceptable under Canadian law. Ultimately, when the industry matures to the extent that it can, an independent, non-share corporation can be established. The body could form itself. If the body is ready in two years from now, it will be able to regulate all immigration consultants. That day may come but we do not know when.

In the meantime, it is important that we have this regulation and this legislation in front of us.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina for making some important amendments to this bill. It proves that she works well on the committee and is able to get a lot of positive improvements made to bills that she works on.

One of her amendments would increase the time that the government can go after smugglers and traffickers from a paltry six months to ten years. That really toughens up the legislation and makes us not only tough on crime but also smart on crime. I give her full credit for that.

She also got an amendment to allow the minister to revoke the regulator, which was important. She also got an amendment to require the disclosure of the use of representatives. She got an amendment to allow the publishing of a list of disciplined consultants. This is important for people when choosing a consultant. She also managed to get a hotline to report fraud. The member for Trinity—Spadina managed to make substantial amendments to the bill.

One amendment that she was unable to get through, which was equally important, was the inclusion of overseas employment recruiters. Two or three years ago, we had a situation in Manitoba involving an operator who is still in business. This situation presented a lot of problems. The individual was going overseas and bringing people from Germany to Canada under overseas employment contracts. He was constantly getting complaints from people who he brought over because he was taking advantage of their situation.

Would the member like to further comment on the fact that she was unable to get accepted what I think would have been an important amendment to this bill?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, after committee members debated my amendment, they were able to tighten up some of the wording so that the intent now is that if people are giving advice overseas and they stand to gain something financially and are not performing their duties in the public interest, there would be a possibility of punishment.

I have a lot of experience in this area. I have seen cases where people were told that they had to pay $10,000 to employment recruiters overseas but when they arrived in Canada they discovered that the companies they were to work for were having financial difficulties. Sometimes they discovered that there were no jobs or that the jobs were paying half the amount they were promised. They ended up having to pay back the recruiters, which meant that they had to work for a year or so without getting much salary and since they pay enormous amounts of money to the recruiters.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, in subclause 91(5), there is an exception that would be provided by regulation. It states:

The Minister may, by regulation, designate a body whose members in good standing may represent or advise a person for consideration — or offer to do so — in connection with a proceeding or application under this Act.

What other organizations, other than those that are exempt, have been given as examples of those that will not be covered by the act before us?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Madam Speaker, paralegals, for example, are already licensed by the provincial government. They will be exempt because there are already regulations that govern them and it is not necessary to licence those people.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to speak to Bill C-35 because it affects all hon. members in the conduct of their work. It is probably one of the more sensitive and the more difficult areas. It deals with constituents who have matters dealing with immigration and even refugee issues.

Recently I have had a number of cases where people received bad information. They either did not provide true, full, plain and accurate information on a form or in representations, or there were some contradictions, and it was basically because of these so-called experts or advisers, many of whom are just people who are part of a particular community and say they have been through this before and know how to do it. It is a real tragedy when that happens, while someone with all the details on the table will be able to successfully complete an application, be considered and in fact be able to proceed with whatever proceeding is going on, or even with regard to things such as appeals.

This problem has been going on for so long that we have finally come to a bill that says, in proposed subsection 91(1):

Subject to this section, no person shall knowingly, directly or indirectly, represent or advise a person, for direct or indirect consideration — or offer to do so — in connection with a proceeding or application under this Act.

It is interesting that the words “directly or indirectly” were put in there, I assume for greater certainty, but even the reference in this subsection, “or offer to do so”. Even to offer to provide advice for money is an offence unless it is persons who are designated as not contravening because they are either lawyers, members of a law society, including paralegals, or members in good standing of a body designated under subsection 91(5).

I previously asked the question of the member for Trinity—Spadina with regard to subsection 91(5) and said I would like an example of someone who might be designated by the minister. She gave the example of a paralegal, which actually is already in subsection 91(2). So I still do not have that. I hope someone is going to be able to expand on that, because when it gives the minister, under regulations, the authority to designate a body whose members in good standing may represent or advise a person for consideration, or offer to do so, in connection with the act, that means that notwithstanding anything else that is in the bill, the regulation is going to provide presumably a list of others who may be designated.

As I have often said in this place, bills that come before us are tabled and at first reading they get a bill number, we have second reading debate on the document, and if it is passed, it goes to committee where we have witnesses and amendments can be proposed. Once it passes through committee, it will come back to this place, where we can amend the bill with report stage motions, particularly from members who are not otherwise engaged in the process of the committee work, and also where the committee had not considered any such suggestions already. Now we are at third reading, and after all of this and we are going to vote on the bill in a very short time, we still do not know what the regulations will say. That is always my question.

If we look at legislation and ask when does it come into force and it says it comes into force on a date fixed by Governor in Council, that basically means that even though we may pass it and it goes through the Senate and all the legislative steps, it does not come into force until the regulations are drafted and promulgated and in fact are gazetted. That basically means nobody knows when it will happen, and there are other areas in which regulations have to be made.

My concern is that we have been having a debate on a bill that would do something and we have provided within the bill those who will not be committing an offence, but we have this regulation that would also exempt others at the discretion of the minister. I do not know whether that includes the YMCA or other social service agencies, something such as that, that may deal with the public.

The wording here is kind of interesting. Even to offer to provide service for direct or indirect compensation or benefit would constitute an offence under this.

I used to do the audit of a number of agencies, such as the Malton Community Council and immigration consulting services of Peel. These are organizations that do not fall under the legal ambit. I assume that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants itself may in fact be providing services to people. I do not know whether they are going to be included as well.

It leaves us in the situation, which we have been in so many other cases, where the legislation in its intent is clear, but the details with regard to the principal persons who would be authorized or who have been, as put here, committing an offence or a contravention of the section are still unknown. We still do not know who these others are.

That little hole means that until this bill becomes law and the regulations are there, people are going to continue to do this. This is a problem in terms of people providing bad advice, which has very serious consequences on the lives of people who may very well find themselves taken out of Canada and sent back to the country from which they came, for any proceeding under this act, for people who are giving information.

I think every member of Parliament in this place could give an example of where individuals had relied on bad advice from people who represented themselves as knowing how the system worked. Once a person's file gets that little black mark on the top corner, the flag, that means that not only is that person's situation jaundiced and possibly dead, but it may also mean that other family members would be involved. People desperately want to do it right. They want to become Canadians. They want to be in Canada, and they rely on someone who unscrupulously provides them with information that is not correct, either because they are not properly trained or up to date on the law, or in fact maybe they simply want to get money from people who trust them. This happens far too often.

I am not sure whether bills such as this ought not to be also accompanied by a commitment by the government to educate the public. We can pass laws here every day, but if people do not realize that there is a serious concern about unscrupulous people out there who are giving bad advice and charging a lot of money for it, I wonder when the government is going to tell people that they can go to their members of Parliament first.

There are experienced people in the constituency offices of members of Parliament, who have been through the process many times. They have seen some of the ugly stories where people have blown it because they relied on those who were not properly informed about the law or the processes, the number of people who have been told not to disclose the fact that they have a child who is staying with somebody back home somewhere, and they are told that will be taken care of later. Something such as that would be a terrible blow to anybody's chances of being successful in an appeal or whatever it might be.

We get these situations. It was probably the first critical issue that I dealt with when I became a member of Parliament some 17 years ago, to have people come and see me who already find themselves with some problem and not understanding why they have to provide this, that or the other thing, or they are being questioned why something was not done and they do not know what to do now. Sometimes, at that point, it is too late.

It goes also to the fact that when members of Parliament get elected and come to this place, most members do not realize that their offices are going to become, for all intents and purposes, consultancies for immigration, refugee, citizenship and visa issues. It is a very complicated area, yet the House provides absolutely no orientation on it. Basically we have to survive and just struggle as much as we can. But experienced members have experienced staff and they can do very helpful work. If people are not confident there, they still certainly can go and get other advice, but even something as simple as making a mistake on an application can in fact jeopardize the success of any action that might be taken by a person covered under this act .

We need to spend some time, because most members will know that even if our offices were to contact citizenship and immigration, often there are difficulties even getting quick answers on certain things. There are often long delays in getting responses to requests for the status of certain things. The saddest day in a constituency office is undoubtedly when we have bad news for people because mistakes were made when they relied on others.

I hope that this is a good step and that the regulations will in fact be appropriate and not leave a little window open for those who may want to take advantage of it, because there are several regulations here. We will have to wait until they are promulgated to see what the government has in mind, but I would caution people and encourage the government, once this bill is passed, to publicly announce this bill and what it does and to encourage people not to be too quick to rely on the advice of those who are not properly trained or knowledgeable about the laws of Canada. They do change, and it can make a difference to a person's entire life.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.