House of Commons Hansard #68 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was consultants.

Topics

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

St. Catharines Ontario

Conservative

Rick Dykstra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his input into this process and also his confirmation that in fact his party will be in support of getting the bill to committee to obviously look into some of the issues that he has identified today, but I am a little unsure about his concern, at least at this point, with respect to his point about statutory.

The way it exists now is not nearly how it is going to exist after Bill C-35 is passed in terms of the regulatory board, so I am a little unsure as to what his concern is with respect to statutory, because this will be a board that obviously reports directly to the ministry and to the minister and will be given authority to do so. It will be given authority to actually regulate the industry and its position will become permanent based on that organization applying to the ministry, and a number of organizations obviously will. The organization chosen to be the overseer will in fact become the regulatory body.

So I am not quite sure what his concern is, but I would suggest that it certainly is something the committee will be studying once we get the bill through second reading and get it to committee.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's comment, but I am not alone in raising this concern about the difference between a statutory body with a stand-alone piece of legislation and an action by the minister. These are quite separate and I am not alone in raising this concern.

Many stakeholders have raised this concern. In fact, when the House of Commons committee on immigration looked at this issue, it was one of the recommendations: that we actually have an effective body that is established by statute.

There is a difference in reporting to the minister as opposed to reporting to Parliament or to being accountable in that way. Members of the board actually being order in council appointments is quite different from being at the whim of the minister. I am willing to watch this. I want to look at the legislation in depth and hear from witnesses to try to play this out to see what will happen.

I have never heard of anything like this. One does not ask for bids on who is going to be Law Society of Upper Canada. If we are going to regulate the legal profession, say, in a province like Ontario, we do not put out bids for who is going to do that job best, or the College of Physicians and Surgeons, or the College of Teachers, or accountants or any other profession. One does not ask for bids on who is going to regulate them. One actually establishes a board and makes it effective.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Speaker, in Windsor West there is a significant immigration element and a number of terrible situations have taken place. People have been exploited quite significantly, and what is sad is that sometimes it is the first experience people have getting assistance when they come to Canada. Unfortunately, sometimes they have gone to these consultants or even lawyers who have charged significant fees, and the lawyers and consultants sometimes contact my office to get assistance in doing the work. It is unacceptable.

I would like to know from my colleague, is he looking at this in terms of creating a penalty system? I hope there are going to be some strong incentives to crack down. In fact, in Windsor the consultants have billboards and different types of advertisements around the immigration centres so that people are attracted to them immediately. I am hoping we are going to look at issues such as that in terms of advertising and the ethics surrounding that.

This is an important opportunity to fix it. A lot of women and children get taken advantage of in the system, as well as men. With English as a second language, people sometimes do not know all the ins and outs of it or about the services they can get from constituency offices. I am lucky to have Karen Boyce, who works pretty well full time for me on immigration matters and can solve some of the problems that some of these consultants are getting away with charging hundreds of dollars for, which unnecessarily sets immigrants back when they first come to Canada, especially when their incomes are very modest, to say the least.

I would like to ask my friend what he would like to do with regard to penalties or having some enforcement mechanism. It needs to be sent as a message to some of the worst of the offenders.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Windsor West for those comments. I think we probably have similar experiences in our constituency office.

Since he thanked his staff, I would like to thank Mazhar Shafiq, Angela Bonfanti and Steven Serajeddini, who spend much time in my office responding to those concerns, often doing hours and hours of work sometimes fixing problems created by lawyers and by immigration consultants, which is a concern to me.

I think the member is absolutely correct that this is an issue. There is a problem here because the board, or the society, or the agency is going to have to have teeth to take on people who are not members of the association. This is a critical concern. We are going to have to find a way to make sure that there are sanctions for people operating outside the law, that there are penalties that are strong and will act as a deterrent, and that we will safeguard the public interest. These are all things that we will be watching for at committee in trying to ensure that this is an effective piece of consumer protection legislation as well as bringing honour to the way Canadians become citizens and enjoy their citizenship.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join the debate on Bill C-35 on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Winnipeg Centre. As a representative from that inner-city core area riding, I can say that the issue of immigration is top of mind and foremost on the minds of many of my constituents, as many are new Canadians or recent immigrants to this country and many still need settlement services and other immigration services whether they are sponsoring family members or seeking a visitor's visa for a family member to come to this country for a wedding, et cetera.

I want to begin on a comment by my colleague from Don Valley West who quite accurately pointed out, and I will paraphrase him, that the rise in the immigration consultant industry is directly proportionate to the deterioration of our immigration system and the services that people used to be able to get free of charge from their government. They are now increasingly frustrated with backlogs, bureaucracy and incomprehensible delays to the point where they more often than not, and more and more frequently, wind up at their MP's office seeking some kind of relief from what seems to be an incomprehensible immigration system. So I agree with my Liberal colleague that the reason we are wrestling with this matter today and the reason we have had such a burgeoning new industry of unscrupulous immigration consultants is because desperate people are taking desperate measures trying to get access to basic services that used to be quite accessible in this country.

We should begin our study of the bill with the knowledge that there has been a catastrophic failure in the immigration system, backlogs of years and years at a time. For a country that was built on immigration and seeks and relies on immigration for any growth whatsoever, we should take note that we were at zero population growth years ago. Without immigration we would be shrinking. I sat on the immigration committee when we did a study that projected where Canada would be without immigration. Within 50 years without immigration, if we just continued at our zero population growth, we would be 18 million people. In that same period of time, the city of Minneapolis would be 18 million people because its country is growing. So the whole population of Canada would be equal to the city of Minneapolis in the year 2050 without immigration. I share that only to illustrate the point of how vitally important it is.

In the province of Manitoba we have taken great measures to attract more immigration. I am happy to report that we are now up to 12,000 to 14,000 new immigrants per year in a province of 1,000,000 people. Almost all of them come to my riding first because my riding is the inner-city core area of Winnipeg where there is affordable housing, not great housing, frankly. There is a great problem with insufficient housing for these new arrivals, but it is where they start out. So an awful lot of them come to my office with their immigration problems.

I have declared publicly that my office is an immigration consultant-free zone. They are not allowed over the threshold of my office. I will not have them. I will not breathe the same air as them. I will not let my constituents be robbed by them. They will not get in my office. That is how fed up we are with them. I have stories, Mr. Speaker, that would curl your hair about some of the rip-offs associated with this.

I have had examples where an applicant seeking a simple visa was charged $3,000 on the promise that he would get a letter from the member of Parliament to assist his visa. This is what we learned after the fact. The guy was selling access to my office, and this is why I declared an absolute moratorium, a no-go zone. They are not welcome and not allowed in. But people are desperate. They are frustrated and vulnerable. There are all kinds of barriers, first of all, in terms of language or unfamiliarity with the culture, or inaccessibility to the bureaucracy.

In some places the exploitation takes place by members of their own communities who have those language skills and the misinformation begins there. However, the need for control and regulation is so blatantly paramount and obvious that I welcome Bill C-35 and its attempt to deal with crooked immigration consultants. I do not think that is the formal name of the bill, but the way we have it in our speaking notes is Bill C-35, an act to deal with crooked immigration consultants. I do not think that is overstating things at all. When the Minister of Immigration introduced the bill, he used words like loathsome, bottom feeders, reprehensible. I share those views and then some.

I travelled with a former minister of immigration to Hong Kong and Beijing and to some of the foreign missions, the Canadian foreign embassies that deal with great volumes of immigration. Part of the problem with the illegal or crooked immigration consultants is abroad where hopefuls line up at those foreign missions.

I talked about the problem with access, the waiting lists and the backlog. There are people who sleep night after night in front of our immigration offices at foreign missions just to get in the door to get the paperwork necessary to apply for some access to our country. The need and the demand far outstrips our legitimate ability to cope with it.

I am not saying that coming to Canada is a right, that everyone should have instant access to come here. I am saying our intake process is so flawed and in some way, sometimes, and I am not saying this to cast aspersions on the staff of our foreign missions, the intake process at that end is corrupted and is vulnerable to foreign consultants operating in those countries. We know it for a fact. We have seen the billboards in the Philippines, “We can get you into Canada”. Even the Government of Canada trademark logo is abused. It is advertised in this way, “For a nominal fee, we can get you into Canada”, and the Government of Canada's logo is at the bottom of the billboard. It is not put there by the Government of Canada. The phone number is some immigration consultant who will probably sell a person a pile of documents that other people can access free of charge, online or by coming down to the Canadian Embassy or High Commission.

That is the extent of the problem. It cannot be underestimated, but it does compromise and, I think in a way, calls into question the legitimacy of our immigration system if a significant proportion of applicants get access to the documents or get access to visitors visas or whatever, using what I believe is a corrupt process, and that is the fraudulent measures which many of these immigration consultants employ.

I note there is a bunch of recommendations from the immigration committee when it studied this issue. I have to point out that there are great gaps in between what was recommended by the all parliamentary committee and the measures the government has chosen to put into Bill C-35. I am sure some of those shortcomings will be addressed when the bill gets to committee. I am sure the opposition parties at least will make note that recommendation 4, for instance, of the report is not found in Bill C-35. I am not pointing this out as criticism, even. I look forward to perhaps amending the bill so it does satisfy some of the legitimate concerns that were raised by all parties at the committee process.

MPs offices have become de facto immigration offices. Every speaker that has stood has talked about the full time staffers that they have in their offices who do nothing but deal with immigration problems. We have immigration clinics on Mondays and Wednesdays when the office is just full of people.

The waves of immigration coming to my part of Canada now are coming from parts of the world where language is a problem and cultural barriers are a huge problem. Most of the new arrivals now are coming from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, war-torn countries that are not stable. They are not used to dealing with a normal bureaucracy and they do not have, frankly, the skills, the training or the tools.

Part of what needs to be addressed, in the context of trying to stamp out crooked immigration consultants, is to deal with the root cause of the problem, which is people without the requisite skills getting access to the bureaucracy and a bureaucracy that is unnecessarily complex and in some sense virtually broken.

A lot more could be spent on settlement services and helping new arrivals cope with the bureaucracy through guidance, through language training and through better access to advocates. I know the Refugee Council of Canada is swamped with work. It simply cannot give adequate representation of advocacy for all the people who come in.

On that subject, let me point out that we are very concerned about the way the new arrivals on the boat full of Tamil refugees are being treated. The government seems to be sniffing around and contemplating the idea that people who arrive as a group should be treated differently somehow from people who arrive as individuals. I put it to my colleagues from the Conservative Party, it is a slippery slope to apply the rights of the refugee and immigration act differently to people just because they arrived en masse. Each should be treated as if they set foot on Canadian shores as individuals. That is not exactly in keeping will Bill C-35, but it is along the same lines.

The shortcomings of the immigration system are also clearly illustrated in western Canada. We consider Winnipeg to be part of western Canada, notwithstanding the CFL has us lumped in the eastern conference. We are bitter about this, but I will not dwell on it here today.

However, labour brokers are second only to the immigration consultants, and some of them do both. These labour brokers, who are undermining the entire construction industry of western Canada, are often labour consultants, as well, who charge a fee and then get temporary foreign workers.

This is where the current government of the day is at fault. These temporary foreign worker permits are given away like free baubles with a purchase of gas to where crooked labour brokers, who are immigration consultants at the same time. They go to genuine contractors and tell them that they do not have to pay $30 an hour for a labourer because they have 30 guys on temporary foreign worker permits. They tell them to lay off all their Canadian workers and they will put temporary foreign workers on the job, which will save them a fortune because the workers will not give them any trouble. If they do, they will be kicked out of the country.

This is epidemic across western Canada and it is undermining the entire construction industry. We have non-union contractors complaining en masse. I meet with those contractors and they complain to me that they are being destabilized.

I would welcome the opportunity to share the facts I have with the parliamentary secretary because he would be shocked at what is happening all across western Canada with these labour brokers.

We just built the Winnipeg international airport. Where did the tradesmen came from? Lebanon. The last job they had was in Latvia. The whole kit and caboodle of them were packed up by the same labour broker who got temporary foreign worker permits to bring them to Winnipeg to build the new Winnipeg international airport, while 100 unemployed carpenters were shaking the fence, trying to get in because they were unemployed. People would not believe what is going on out there. The parliamentary secretary could use a tour through some of those problem areas, too.

We have to crack down on a lot of these aspects of a broken immigration system. It may have been a good idea to fill legitimate job shortages with temporary foreign workers three and four years ago, when there was a surplus of work. We are in the middle of a recession and we are still bringing in 50,000 temporary foreign workers who take legitimate jobs away from Canadians, and these are not immigrants. These are foreign nationals who leave the country with those pay cheques. How does that benefit anybody? It is madness and it goes hand in glove with the immigration consultants who are milking the system by charging vulnerable people exorbitant amounts of money for services that should be readily available to them through a well functioning bureaucracy.

Not all people helping immigrants are charlatans. We should start from that basic premise as well. There are legitimate consultants and immigration lawyers who are serving a valuable function within the system, but they too will tell us that the system is not what it used to be.

We have never achieved our immigration goals of 1% of the population per year. The closest we ever came was in the Brian Mulroney years, when we let in 220,000 or 230,000. We are close to that level today. There is a myth that in the grand old days of the Liberal government, more people were let in. In actual fact, in many of the Trudeau years, 90,000 or 100,000 a year was the norm. I do not know where this myth came from, that it was the Liberals who threw open the doors to Canada. In the Mulroney years, more were let in, and we have only just come to that level once or twice in recent years. We are still nowhere near the 1% per year that has been set as a realistic target of we can absorb and what we need. That would be about 300,000 per year.

We are the lucky ones when people choose to come to our country. There is competition around the world for immigrants and for economic migrants, et cetera. We are out there actively trying to attract people to come to Canada. That is the stated policy, but our actions seem to contradict our own stated policy because we throw up hurdles and barriers to the point where people are frustrated and stymied. People who are qualified and would make legitimate immigrants look at their options around the world. They look at what it takes to move to Canada, to Australia and to the United States. Not all of them choose Canada because it is difficult to move here.

I recently helped a nurse specialist move here from Australia. She was trained in New Zealand. We need these advanced practice nurses in our country. It took 18 months, and that was after the job offer. We really do have problems to the point where it is no wonder people will look to anyone who can provide them with assistance to try to get through the quagmire of the bureaucracy of our immigration system.

I remember when we were at the Canadian embassy in China. We were in Fuzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. They showed us some of the clever forgeries on immigration documents. They can reproduce almost anything and these forged documents are often what are selling for a premium price in terms of getting access to Canada.

I do not think we catch them all. There is more work we could do to enforce the system. I am not suggesting making it more difficult, because it is difficult enough as it is. However, there are checks and balances that we are leaving unchecked and unbalanced in terms of legitimate, honest people trying to get in and also the fraudulent examples that are being coached and guided by these expensive immigration consultants operating at home and abroad.

While we are busy working to fix the system, the one thing we could do is provide more assistance in our immigration offices in our country and take some of the burden and pressure off MPs offices. It is not really our jobs as members of Parliament to run an immigration office, yet that is what many of us end up doing about two-thirds of our time. Granted, we help a lot of nice people weave their way through the quagmire.

The way the Liberals balanced the budget in the 1990s and the early 2000s was by cutting and hacking and slashing the civil service by 30%. First one trims the fat, but when the fat is already trimmed, some cuts do not heal. Some of these cuts have not healed. The government cannot cut the civil service by 30%, increase its volume of work by 30%, and then not have something fall apart and break.

What happened here was that the government left a gaping hole in service in that immigration department. That void, that vacuum, is being filled by an unscrupulous mini-industry of immigration consultants.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Before we go on to questions and comments, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, Arts and Culture; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, Aboriginal Affairs; the hon. member for Etobicoke North, Health.

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the member for Winnipeg Centre.

Before I ask him a question, I just want to make a comment. He said that when the Liberals took office in 1993, we slashed and cut, and so on. I am not going to deny that we fined-tuned the system. However, compared to now, it took less time to process those immigration applications. He was not a member at that time. I was a member. I was elected in 1993. Processing an application was much faster at that time than it is today.

We did reduce staff. We did fine-tune. Nobody denies that. The country was almost unofficially bankrupt.

The member talked about immigrants coming in and about part-time workers. He talked about money going out. He talked about refugees. He talked about competing for immigrants. I was a little bit confused. I know that we need to fix the immigration consultant process, but can he clarify for me whether he is for the one per cent of our population immigration policy for bringing immigrants to Canada, or is he against it? I was just not clear on that.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, let me be perfectly clear. I am very much in favour of the 1% per year target. I believe that we need to strive for more immigration, and we need to compete internationally so that more people choose Canada as their destination.

One per cent of our population per year would be about 330,000 per year. We have come nowhere near that. My first choice would be that we do.

I will comment briefly on my colleague's opening remarks. In 1993, when the Liberals took over, maybe it was faster to process an immigration file, but by the time they had finished gutting the immigration system and had laid off one-third of the civil service, trying to process anything became a nightmare. That is when the burden fell to MPs' offices to become de facto immigration offices.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

St. Catharines Ontario

Conservative

Rick Dykstra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the member's comments. He is always very good at keeping my attention, presenting an interesting dialogue, and offering up some good points for debate.

The member did not speak as much as I would have hoped about the purpose and intent of the bill and the fact that his party has indicated that it is in fact going to be supporting this bill to get it through second reading and to committee.

I want to comment on a couple of things and ask for clarification. He alluded to the temporary foreign worker program as somehow being a problem with respect to this piece of legislation. I am not sure how. I have been across this country, from province to province to province. There are large companies, but mostly small businesses. In fact, he need not to look further than two seats behind him, to the member for Welland, whose riding encompasses a great deal of agriculture. These small companies need to have temporary workers to assist them to actually stay in business.

The member needs to understand how these companies work. I do not know whether the member has misunderstood or is unaware of how the temporary foreign worker program assists Canadian after Canadian company to stay in business and provide goods for this country.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to clarify my remarks. Maybe I was not clear in the connection I was making between the unscrupulous immigration consultants and the temporary foreign worker program.

We know of and hear of examples of these immigration consultants advertising overseas, and in some cases in Mexico, on this continent, that for a fee they can get people into Canada as temporary foreign workers. These people pay quite a large fee up front to the labour broker, but then they are disappointed when they arrive and find that either no such jobs exists or that the terms and conditions are far less than promised. That is the problem I was trying to illustrate.

In that context, I raised another issue, which is that these labour brokers in the construction industry—not at Tim Hortons but in the construction industry—are undermining and debasing the industry. They are bringing teams of these temporary foreign workers, who are being paid peanuts, and are displacing crews of Canadian construction workers.

The charge-out rate for these guys is about $25 an hour total, all included. The charge-out rate for a unionized tradesperson can be as high as $40 to $45 per hour. So there is a 25% or 50% advantage for using temporary foreign workers instead of legitimate Canadian tradespeople on these jobs.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

NDP

Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for raising some important issues on the problems there have been with immigration consultants. I want to come back to the issue of temporary foreign workers, live-in caregivers, and farm workers.

What we know is that either immigration consultants or labour brokers often misrepresent what is going to happen to these workers when they come to Canada. Then we find out that when these people actually get to Canada, after this misrepresentation, the labour laws of this country are not upheld. I know that in my own riding, we have had farm workers who, when they complained, were immediately given a plane ticket back home. Not only do we have this issue of the problems with these labour brokers and these immigration consultants who are, quite frankly, ripping off people who are least able to afford to be ripped off, but then when they come here, they are not protected.

I wonder if the member could comment on the fact that not only do we have to clean up the issue of the immigration consultants and the labour brokers, but we also have to look at how these workers are protected by the labour laws in this country once they come into Canada.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan for those legitimate points.

It is true that temporary foreign workers find themselves in a grey area when it comes to their rights, and they are extremely vulnerable to the whims of the employers. If they complain that they are sleeping 12 to a hotel room, as we have heard, if they complain that they are being paid $10 an hour cash instead of the $25 an hour they were promised as tradespeople, they are simply sent home.

Again, there are unemployed Canadians standing at the gate wishing that they had their old jobs back. I am talking about big projects. I am talking about high-rises. I am talking about schools. I am talking about airports. It used to be skilled, qualified Canadians with journeyman carpenters tickets in their pockets building those projects. Now a team of Mexicans, who were brought up here under false pretenses and are treated like galley slaves, are building Canada. To whose benefit is that? Why are we letting in 200,000 people a year, 50,000 for the construction industry alone? Tim Hortons gobbles up a lot of temporary foreign workers.

There are an awful lot of unemployed construction workers in western Canada who have been put out of work because of this government's propensity to allow temporary foreign workers, willy-nilly, anytime anybody asks for them. The room for abuse at both ends of this process is enormous. The Mexican worker is being sold a bill of goods that says that there is a job in Canada that pays $25 Canadian an hour with a good place to live while they are working. They arrive here, and they get $10 or $15 an hour and sleep 10 to a hotel room, and they are taking jobs away from us. If this bill will stop that from happening, it has my vote.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to add by voice on Bill C-35, the cracking down on crooked consultants act.

The only thing I would add is the word “immigration” consultants. I think that clarifies it.

It has been stated by my party that we will be supporting the bill at second reading to send it to committee. That is where we are going to be able to do a lot of fine tuning. From what I have read in some of the notes, this bill needs a lot of fine tuning. I will cover some of the areas where I think we need to address some of these concerns.

Immigration, as mentioned by many other members, is really the foundation of our country. I remember speaking at Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate in my riding many years ago. We talked about immigration. As I said to the audience, young men and women, when we look at every one of our family trees, at some point in time one of our ancestors, whether it be our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, arrived on these friendly shores from somewhere, aside from our first nations people.

It has been a great mix. It has been the formula for making this country one of the best countries in the world to live. If anything, some years ago, for seven consecutive years, Canada was recognized as the number one country in the world. I believe that we are number two now.

Nevertheless, there have been problems. Policies, such as our immigration policy, are evolving. The member from Winnipeg Centre talked earlier about today's immigration problems. The immigration of today is different from the immigration of 20,30,50, and 60 years ago. Fifty years ago we did not have a temporary workers program, for example. We did not have such an extensive refugee program. We did not have a board, per se.

If we look at the trends of yesterday, we would look at vast numbers of family reunification, such as war brides, for example. Things have changed.

I am glad that this is coming forward. Many years ago, as I mentioned earlier, when I was elected, in 1993, I had a private member's initiative that addressed some of these issues that came from an industry that I was in, which was the executive search consulting business. I related the rules and regulations that governed that industry to the immigration consultant industry.

Let me provide some examples. In order to operate our business, we had to be licensed by the provincial government, and we had to be bonded. There were guidelines, and there were specific rules and regulations that we had to abide by. If we violated those regulations, that licence came right off the wall, preventing us from earning a living and preventing us from running our companies.

What I think needs to be done here is a clear definition, clear guidelines, and clear rules but also clear, stiff penalties. In addition to that, we need to have a mechanism to enforce those penalties. Otherwise, it all goes for naught.

I am concerned, though. This piece of legislation talks about the creation of a body that will be reporting to the minister. I do not agree with that. I think that is wrong.

The minister has nothing to say about running this body. It should be a totally independent, arm's-length body, with rules and guidelines as set out by legislation. It is not for the minister to interfere in any way, shape, or form. That is not how it works.

In the case of these immigration consultants, let me also point out that it is not just a federal piece of legislation that is going to help us resolve some of these issues. We have to work with the provinces. It affects them too. It is a two-way street.

On that issue, let me just go off track for a moment and point out that in our province of Ontario, we have a minister of citizenship and immigration. We can understand a minister of immigration, because provinces, too, have their own immigration procedures and policies.

The Liberal government allowed provinces to provide immigration facilities according to their needs. They were able to identify their specific needs and recruit as required. But what is puzzling is the fact that provinces do not give citizenship. It is my understanding that the federal government provides citizenship. I would ask the provinces to maybe look at that.

The intent of the legislation is positive, and if properly amended may still produce some good public policy. That is why we are supporting it. We see a lot of good work and a lot of goodwill around the committee table.

I remember former immigration minister Elinor Caplan; I can mention her by name because she is no longer a member. She was a good immigration minister. The member for Winnipeg Centre talked about the abuse that goes on abroad. He is right. Minister Caplan spent her time visiting our embassies and our high commissions in different parts of the world because we in Canada had observed that abuse was going on. Did we address it? We did. Did we improve the situation? We did. Did the problem go back offline again? Unfortunately it did.

Former minister Lucienne Robillard was also a good minister of immigration.

Some of these areas that we are talking about today, like enforcement and regulations and the body that was formed, all came from committee work, all came from consultation.

I remember having the minister in my office in Scarborough Centre many years ago. The local communities expressed a lot of concerns. As a result, the independent consultant body was created. It remains in existence today.

The member for York West did a great job in her time as a minister of immigration. But the numbers were growing each year, the 1% that the member for Winnipeg Centre talked about. It is great to achieve. The member was also right that there is a lot of competition going on out there today in a lot of these countries.

I remember being at the European Parliament many years ago when it was talking about its difficulty in attracting skilled labour. We had a problem here in Canada just a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, Canada, maybe not as much as other countries, had experienced some difficult times. We could not get enough people, so we had to bring them in from Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries.

I have a policy in my office. I refrain from dealing with an immigration file that is in the hands of a lawyer or a consultant, because I too, along with many of my colleagues on the Liberal side, have heard of the abuse that goes on. We have heard about this over the past couple of days in debate. Let me give the House an example.

A person wants to bring in his wife and children and all of a sudden he is approached by some so-called immigration consultant, who comes to our offices and seeks information. Unfortunately, the applicant is ignorant, and I use that word in a good sense, meaning that he does not know that he can approach a member of Parliament and seek help.

We also heard earlier today about how our offices have become inundated with a lot of these files because these individuals reach out to us. We have an obligation as their representatives to address their concerns as best we can.

My colleague from Don Valley West told us about staff being tied up on these issues. All of a sudden they have to squeeze time here and there, maybe to address a pension issue, a disability issue, a passport issue, or whatever. If we are going to take on all of these responsibilities, and we have no objection to doing so, maybe we should be looking at the budgets of members of Parliament so that we can dedicate staff to address these concerns.

Our birth rate in Canada is not that high, and it is down in many other countries as well. If we are going to grow and sustain the social safety net that Canada is so recognized for, then we need immigration. We need input.

Let me get back for a moment to this board. That is my greatest concern in this piece of legislation.

When I read in the documents that this board would be reporting to the ministry and the minister, that caused a lot of concern for me, and I am sure many of my constituents and others felt the same way. The minister has every responsibility to try to bring forth legislation, send it to committee, have the members of the committee bring in witnesses, seek input and guidance, and work to fine-tune this legislation. Surely to God, the minister has no business having this board report to him. It should be totally independent and at arm's length. Should people have to compete to be selected to run this board? No.

Let me simplify it. Anybody who wants to work as an immigration consultant, which I do not think is the exclusive business of lawyers, should have the proper training, a proper course to go by. They should make themselves aware of the legislation, seek a proper licence from the ministry and the province, because it is a business. They would charge a fee for service according to specific guidelines, and then there would be a board to make sure that these guidelines are followed, to ensure that immigration consultants do not violate the rules that the ministry and the board set down.

The moment those rules are violated, these individuals should be penalized with stiff, enforceable sentences. The worst-case scenario is to yank their licences off the wall and shut them down, period. It would be a totally independent mechanism. That is how I suggest this system should operate.

When the member for Bourassa was the minister of immigration, he moved into that area and made a quantum leap forward. Almost every minister under a Liberal government, let me point out very proudly, moved this file forward in a positive manner. Never have I seen a perfect piece of legislation. We do the best we can today, and if something unfolds three or five years down the road, then we have to make adjustments. That is exactly what was happening under a Liberal administration.

When the cuts were made, I agreed with the member for Winnipeg Centre that trimming needed to be done, but I pointed out then, and I will point out again today, that the system was working better. Somehow it was working better.

What I found unacceptable, and I am sure my colleagues on the Liberal side would agree, is this: when a constituent said that he or she was having a family wedding, or that a family member had passed away, or that he or she had not seen a brother, a sister, or parents for a long time, and the constituent wanted to sponsor these people to come over for a holiday, the way these applications were being put in abroad and assessed was problematic.

Let me provide a scenario. Somebody from country A goes into one of our offices. The person is as nervous as can be, forgets maybe to add one word, and all of a sudden that person is denied. I believe the Immigration Act has to change to address the way our offices work abroad. Do the offices want to give members of Parliament a little more? Fine, they can set guidelines. Maybe they should take it totally away from us, but that is taking a service away that MPs get voted in to perform, namely, to serve their constituents.

I encourage the minister to look at how we can work with our offices abroad. I am sure the minister's intent in addressing this horrible situation is to address the abuse that has gone on throughout the years. I personally have heard horror stories and I will provide an example.

An Albanian mother and daughter some years ago approached me from St. Irene's, the church that my dad built, and my dad told me I had to help this family. They were not even in my riding, but they came to see me. The story I heard raised what little hair I had left.

This mother and daughter were working three jobs, day and night, cleaning, doing anything they could. They were using a lot of their earnings to pay a person who was like a paralegal, nothing wrong with the profession, but she portrayed herself as an immigration consultant. Meanwhile for four or five years it dragged on until, by God's will and some good fortune, they came to my office and we addressed their concern. It really was a simple issue. It was a matter of communication, getting paper documentation for them. Today, several years down the road, they are a happy family. They are working for themselves. They are contributing to our system and glad to say they are Canadian citizens. There are many other examples that I could talk about.

The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants is a good idea. It is a body that could be empowered with more tools to oversee the enforcement of the legislation. That is as a result of input from a Liberal government. Was it the right thing? Maybe it was the right thing at the time. Maybe today, four or five years down the road, it needs to be changed. Circumstances have changed.

However, I do not believe a competition has to be put out, that a board has to be established that reports to the minister. Members and the audience will say I have said this twice, but I am saying it again because I see great danger in reporting to the minister. In essence, the minister would have absolute say, period. The minister could do anything he wanted. We know he can do anything he wants as a minister, but surely this is not transparent. The board should be able to work totally independently.

There was a comment made that lawyers should be looking after these immigration files, as they know better and there is technical data, and so on. With the greatest respect to the profession, I do not think that is the only way to go. An individual could approach a lawyer if he wished to, but if an immigration consultant is properly trained, then he or she should be able to do the work properly. If proper guidelines are set, then we as members of Parliament might feel much more comfortable in dealing with these people.

I know I speak on behalf of my colleagues on the Liberal side. We hesitate to deal with these so-called immigration consultants, primarily because of the horror stories that we have not only heard but also, in essence, experienced. It is not a matter of $100 or $500. It is thousands of dollars. It is shameful. It is unacceptable when these people come here wanting to start a new life and get taken for a ride. It is unacceptable when an individual in another country who wishes to immigrate to Canada walks into one of our offices and is not even given an interview. That is another area the minister has to look at. Sometimes a person cannot even get in the door of one of our offices or embassies and the application is turned down.

There are offices in our embassy in one specific country where the moment the applicant comes out the door the so-called consultant says the person will be given one-stop shopping, guaranteed. The person is promised a ticket and a visa for a fee. That is unacceptable. Those are some of the areas the minister also has to address.

In closing, on behalf of the Liberal Party and our critic, we will support sending the bill to committee. That is where a lot of good work will be done, where good input will be provided. We will bring in witnesses and seek their guidance, and at the end of the day we will come up with a piece of legislation that will help our country continue to grow and grow properly.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

St. Catharines Ontario

Conservative

Rick Dykstra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the dialogue by the member and certainly the ending of his speech where he indicated that the opposition party, the Liberal Party, will be supporting the bill at second reading to move it to committee.

I have heard now from two members of the Liberal Party today on the bill with respect to the issue of the regulatory body that will exist. There is a bit of a misunderstanding here. This would be a self-regulating body. While we have spoken this afternoon about the difficulties we face with fraudulent consultants, rip-off artists and all of the other names that we use to describe these individuals who take advantage of other human beings, we also have a number of people in this industry who are legitimate. They would like the opportunity to self-govern and to ensure there is no place for those who are not in this business to help people but only to hurt people and for their own financial advantage. This will not be a regulatory body with the same sort of statutes as some of the provinces use with their agencies or regulatory bodies, depending on the profession, but it will be one that is set in place and it will be a self-regulatory one.

Part of the problem of getting into creating statutes is that we end up creating bodies that are costly. There are many bureaucracies that exist for years upon years and end up costing the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars. We do not want that. We want a very simple straightforward piece of legislation in this process that will do what its title says, which is to ensure that crooked consultants no longer have a place in this country to do business.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the parliamentary secretary. I will take his word for it because all of that will be judged when the bill goes before committee.

There is no reason that an organization must compete to be selected to be this regulatory body. The legislation and the guidelines are in place. It is like when we bring forward an amendment to the Criminal Code. Canadians know exactly what the do's and do not's are.

Once this legislation spells out the do's and do not's clearly, with no ambiguity of what a consultant can and cannot do, then why do we need to put out a bidding process for a board to be selected to oversee this? Of course, the minister will have the final say over this. This is absolute and total control in my mind.

However, I will give the parliamentary secretary the benefit of the doubt and, when it goes before committee, we will see where it goes.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Mr. Speaker, the immigration committee studied this issue at length, travelled across the country and discovered that the existing group that the hon. member was talking about had lots of difficulties. I spoke about those problems yesterday, and I can highlight a few more, but it is certainly in the immigration committee's report that was before the House and which Parliament adopted in November last year.

One of the issues we have is that the legislation that was created by a former Liberal government is deeply flawed. It actually allows people with no licence to practise. Why would people belong to an organization if they can practise anyway? As a result, half of the people are licensed and the other half are not. There must be legislative change because this is a huge loophole, which means that we have a body that has absolutely no power.

The member talked about the provincial government, and there are lots of provincial nominee programs. How does the member see that this new body would end up working with the provincial governments so that we can ensure that any applications, whether they are through the provincial nominee program or the federal program, are only done through regulated immigration consultants?

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, when I referred to the province, I was referring to the actual duties of the immigration consultant, a consultant who is properly trained, properly prepared to take on an immigration file, whether he works on a provincial side or a federal side, and follows specific guidelines clearly knowing what the repercussions would be should he or she violate the rights of that individual and the law as it is.

However, I will get back to the member who said that the Liberals did nothing. It was as a result of the Liberal initiatives that the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants was formed. It was what I was referring to earlier. Any piece of legislation, in this case immigration legislation, 15 years ago was different than it was 10 years ago or what it is today and, I can guarantee the member, will be different 10 years from now. Parliaments exist to address circumstances as they change.

The member spoke extensively to the RCMP being the enforcement mechanism. We do not need the RCMP to look into this. We need rules that consultants will adhere to and, if they do not, we simply remove their licence and they will not be allowed to work. Should they work illegally, then we add and enforce the penalties, which would solve that kind problem.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments of my hon. colleague for Scarborough Centre. He said, “with greatest respect to lawyers, it should not just be lawyers”. On behalf of the lawyers, I appreciate his comment and I agree with him. There are certainly lawyers who work in the immigration field and have a great knowledge of the immigration regulations and the laws that apply, but there are other people who are in fact very knowledgeable.

He is also right that the whole industry of immigration consultants is one that has changed and developed a great deal in the last 15 years. He is also right that it is time to regulate this area and take strong action because it is something that many of us, if not all of us in this House, find to be a concern. People come to us and we discover perhaps that in some cases someone unscrupulous was dealing with them. In other cases, we find people who are really knowledgeable, know what they are doing and do a good job. It does not need to be a lawyer but it does need to be someone who is well trained. It is important that we ensure that people working in this field are well trained and have the appropriate qualifications.

I am sure my colleague would like to comment on that some more.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify something for my good friend from Halifax West. I was not saying that lawyers do not do a good job. They do an excellent job. I was not saying that lawyers should not engage. I was simply saying that it does not necessarily take lawyers to work on these files. Lawyers can work on these files but so can properly, and I stress properly, trained immigration consultants who know the legislation.

Lawyers can earn some money as well and immigration consultants can earn some money as long as it is done legitimately, without ripping people off.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand today in the House to speak to Bill C-35 which is set to bring long overdue regulations to the industry of immigration consultants in Canada. This is very important legislation for my constituents of Newton—North Delta and one that inspires great personal interest for me, as well.

When we talk about the immigration process in Canada, the discussion represents a range of issues much larger than forms, applications and interviews. What we are ultimately talking about are the hopes and dreams of people looking to come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families.

As an immigrant to Canada over 25 years ago, I can personally recall how emotional it was to step onto Canadian soil with desire, determination and the will to succeed. So, when I hear off cases where people filled with this spirit of optimism have been taken advantage of and bilked of thousands of dollars, it makes me very angry.

I will now talk about the current situation and how ghost immigration consultants, as they have been labelled, operate with impugnity.

These particular individuals are known as ghosts within the industry because all their activities take place before the submission of an immigration application, keeping them off the radar and unregulated. Their names never show up on the documentation and oftentimes, these consultants do not even bother to show up at the hearings even though they have already pocketed the fees they have charged in advance.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in its current form, has no ability to crack down on the pre-application stage, and this is where immigration applicants become victims in the hands of those who provide bad advice and offer false promises. Sometimes these false promises include fast-track approvals and high-paying jobs. Sometimes applicants are not even eligible for a visa but are told differently by their consultants. These consultants sometimes advise applicants to lie about their past or to fill out their forms improperly so that they are charged with misrepresentation later on.

Ultimately, all of these ghost consultants, more often than not, lead to two outcomes: the rejection of the application and the loss of thousands of dollars of an applicant's hard-earned money. This is a phenomena that has been going on for decades in Canada and the most recent developments to correct the industry's problems have not been effective.

The establishment of an advisory committee by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration in 2002 led to a set of corrective options. However, the creation of a self-regulatory body to regulate immigration consultants in the fall of 2003, namely, the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants or CSIC, has not provided an adequate solution to the problem that arises from the acts of these consultants I am talking about. In fact, some might argue that the conditions within the industry have continued to deteriorate over the past seven years. The problem with the CSIC is that it really has no teeth or enforcement capacity to take the proper measures to crack down.

It also became clear in the standing committee's hearings surrounding the proposed changes that CSIC clearly does not have the confidence of immigration consultants right across the country.

Furthermore, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has little ability to disclose information on those who provide unethical or unprofessional representation or advice.

Bill C-35 represents a series of very positive steps because of the sweeping changes they will bring to this unregulated industry. The bill is proposing that a new entity be established that has the ability to properly license its members; to regulate, conduct and look into the complaints; and to have the government intimately involved in its affairs to ensure that investigations occur and the necessary disciplinary actions are taken.

It is about time that providing professional immigration consultation without the proper authorization and certification is a criminal offence.

It can only be done by looking at the examples of other self-regulatory bodies as earlier speakers have pointed out, such as the associations for lawyers. I personally belong to the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia. I am also a member of the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors that regulates us and disciplines us if we do not perform according to the standards and guidelines it has set.

It is about time that we bring in an association that would regulate those consultants so the prospective immigrants to this country are not ripped off. It is about time that the industry had a governing body that all consultants could participate in, where being a member of that society would only let them practice in that way.

It is also time for the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to have an ability and oversight to step in and take the appropriate steps to ensure that this new governing body is improving the industry and the conduct of those calling themselves professionals.

While I support Bill C-35 at this stage, I also want to make a note about the current state of the immigration system in our country because the blame for these unscrupulous practices must also fall on the government.

I want to cite a column written in the Toronto Star by Allan Thompson on July 17 of this year. Thompson correctly pointed out that in introducing this legislation, the minister:

--comes across a bit like a doctor, cracking down on the symptoms of an illness, rather than treating the illness itself.

He went on to state that:

--because many of those people are ill-served by the system itself. Because they lack information or the ability to access a confusing and opaque system, many of these anxious applicants turn to unscrupulous consultants--

This is a topic that I have been speaking about for many years. The immigration system as a whole is not user-friendly.

I can give perfect examples in my office or any other MP who has an immigration population in their riding. Our staff are working around the clock to deal with the system. There are no clear guidelines from the minister to the overseas officers that are deployed there. The people who want to come to Canada are on a point-based system. There are 29 new categories that the minister brought in. If they do not fall in the 20,000 applications then they have to receive a market labour opinion that says they have to raise employment in Canada via these consultants who are charging thousands and thousands of dollars to get them that letter and that approval.

Also there is a backlog that has only grown larger since the government has come to power. Severe funding shortfalls prevent adequate numbers of staff both here domestically and internationally.

Immigration applicants are treated as little more than numbers that can be picked, chosen, and often discarded because of the abundance of applications. Information is difficult to navigate both in terms of ease of access, linguistic diversity, and response time for inquiries.

Even on the temporary resident visas that people are applying for every day, we hear from the officers overseas that they have to give proof of relationships in one day. The second month they will see the information about all the siblings that are living in this country. Every day the list is growing and there is nowhere to find on the government website all this information that would be helpful for those individuals when they are filling out the application that could also help when these people are being ripped off by these consultants.

For many other reasons the system is failing and pushing anxious applicants and their families into the hands of those who are looking to abuse their trust and exploit their vulnerability.

To conclude, I want to endorse Bill C-35 as a vital step forward in ensuring that the people are treated fairly when it comes to receiving help for their immigration applications, but I also want to stress that if we empower those tasked with administering our system with support, resources and guidance, then the system would naturally provide the best defence against the kinds of individuals that Bill C-35 is looking to protect us from.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the hon. member. He spoke about the incredible frustration that new immigrants experience. I was wondering if he could give concrete examples of the type of frustrations that lead people to use these charlatans, these ghost consultants, just to show the terrible anguish that new immigrants are going through when they try to land themselves here in Canada.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre for all the good work that he is doing for all those immigrants who are living not only in his riding. In fact, he has talked to me about issues concerning those people from coast to coast to coast. He has brought up a very good question.

A perfect example is the new list of 29 categories that this minister has brought in. Only 20,000 people can qualify under the point system to get in, while others, in order to qualify under the unlimited scheme, need an employment arranged form. That is where the exploitation happens.

The other thing is that when the temporary workers come in, they are promised $25 an hour because they are needy. They are told that if they work two years they will be given permanent status, which is not true. Then they keep working probably at $5 or $10 an hour cash.

There have been many people who have come to my riding and I have had an opportunity to help them. I can quote an enormous number of examples.

We must ensure that we bring in a body that is statutorily regulated, that is self-governing like any other professional body, and will ensure that it takes care of those individuals so that the prospective immigrants are not ripped off by those consultants time and time again.

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Alan Tonks Liberal York South—Weston, ON

Mr. Speaker, would the member think that going out for a proposal call to try to find an oversight body that was objective and up front is going to take too long? Would it not be better to look at the regulatory changes that have come about as a result of what the committee has heard and implement immediately a statutory body that would have the teeth to regulate in a professional and up front manner?

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC

Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree more with the hon. member. This is exactly the way to go. We cannot ask for bids to have a body that will regulate this based on the money that we pay it. I know there are lawyers sitting right next to me, the engineers and accountants. We have those associations. We have--

Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

Order. I will have to stop the member there.