Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's outside of my area of specialization, so I don't think I'd like to comment on that either.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It's right to say there could be a variety of other factors. One of the factors that would be relevant is that people don't tend to go to immigration consultants if they were successful in obtaining legal aid, and in some provincial jurisdictions there is merit to screening to determine eligibility for legal aid.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think law societies have a better track record with respect to monitoring professional competence and professional conduct. I think you can look at the way law societies have been successful in regulating paralegals in Ontario. So I think this would be one route that could be considered, but of course there are jurisdictional issues here.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It might be a better system, but I would go back to my point that immigration raises separate issues from the refugee determination process. So even if the policy were to head in that direction, I think the place to start would be with regulating immigration consultants with respect to the immigration system, and once a good track record had been established, only then opening that industry up to the refugee determination process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for the invitation. My name is Sean Rehaag. I am a professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School, where I specialize in refugee law. I'd like to speak to you today about the role of immigration consultants in Canada's refugee determination system. Immigration consultants operate in two very different fields.