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.