Citizenship and Immigration committee  CBSA takes the leadership role in enforcement activities, but we certainly share that information with CBSA and provide what we're hearing as a constant means. In our missions abroad—and again, Ms. Harder or Ms. MacNeil, please jump in here—the integrity officer in the mission is almost always from CBSA, and that interface between what we do and what they do is a pretty smooth process in most cases.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can be very quick. This is part of our existing training. And indeed, having just visited a couple of our busiest missions, I can say that the walls of fraudulent documents and the ever-expanding world of where issues are constitute something that's constant and evergreen in our missions and something we take very seriously.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, it's really for the committee to decide how well we have answered the committee's report. I think what the honourable member has posed, in terms of his questions, is on immigration consultants in Quebec. First, just let me say that those who are members of the Barreau or those who are notaries in Quebec clearly are covered by provincial legislation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  One of the things we were striving for when we prepared this legislation and when we worked on this was a bit of national cohesion around some of the elements of this. So I think in that light what we were looking at was a system where we had a body that was there, recognizing the provincial bars and the notaries, but also seeking to have a system in which we would have some national scope around the body we were looking to regulate, the body for immigration consultants.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll let Ms. MacNeil talk a little more about specifics, but I want to come back to the period of notice of intent. In the notice of intent the department had a fair bit of interest in terms of individuals wanting to have input into what those criteria looked like. We take that as an optimistic sign that there was a great deal of interest out there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It would be difficult for me to speculate on that, Mr. Chair, but again, it has been five or six weeks since that August 28 notice went out, and given some public statements that Ms. MacNeil indicated, we remain optimistic that we will have applications to assess.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, others should please feel free to expand on this. The application closes at the end of December this year, in 2010. The board or the people who will be assessing the application--those factors have been listed clearly--will include officials from Citizenship and Immigration Canada as well as other departments, as well as external members to that committee to look at assessing those applications.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, this is an important point for the department. I want to come back and start my response to this question by saying that people use immigration consultants for very legitimate reasons, and in terms of legitimate consultants with a lot to offer, this is not the point of the bill.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We're going to play this in parts again. I will start and then I'll ask my colleagues to add their own opinions to this as well, or their own experience. First, the legislation expands the period under which you can look at what consultants are doing, so we take it to the pre-application process as well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, we'd be only too happy to do that, and we'll get that to the clerk to be distributed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, I'll go back to the first part of the remarks. The department works within a number of bilateral and multilateral fora with a number of different countries that have faced similar challenges to ours. We would like to continue to work with them and also to support the minister's efforts wherever he has raised this interest internationally.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question. As my colleagues have already indicated, we respect the provinces' jurisdiction with respect to consumer protection and the role they play in it in regulating professions. What we feel is that the establishment of this body complements that role by establishing this body under regulation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's certainly our belief that this legislation moves in the direction and the spirit of the committee's report.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The body itself is created, and I'll ask Ms. MacNeil or Ms. Ménard to chime in here, but the body itself is founded or based in regulation, that the members--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I could add, Mr. Chairman, I think a number of the improvements that we've made to our website, including the advisory in many different languages about unscrupulous consultants, is also helpful in protecting consumers or potential immigrants to Canada.