Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. My name is Robert Kewley. I spent 26 years serving our country in the RCMP, including about 10 years investigating immigration fraud and other related cases. I was the director of complaint

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With regard to ghost consultants before 2004, before there was any regulator, and even up to today, the number of ghost consultants out there has increased and nothing has been impacted. You need the tools to work with. We need seasoned investigators, people who know how to do an

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's one of the reasons I'm here today. I want to make it clear. There's a misconception out here on complaints about consultants. There are definitely two sets of complaints. There are complaints against the regulated immigration consultants, and there are complaints against

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Since 2015 to date, my sole responsibility to ICCRC is investigations. We complete an investigation, and we send the investigational report on to the complaints and discipline section, which then, in turn, sends it to the discipline section, which then makes that.... I know that

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You know, it's like how many people were in courts when I was with the police, how many people were charged with theft.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, you know they were, but—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is with respect to the number of immigrants who come here and who run into problems. If the number increases, that's going to spill over, but I still maintain that there are people out there. Criminals make a full-time job of being criminals. They're good at it. They know what

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They don't know. We're not just limited to Canada for these unauthorized representatives or ghost consultants. We have them in all countries around the world. They have offices and do seminars. They do lots of things. There's a big problem over there. How does the judicial syste

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think not. I think that probably part of it is resolved as far as regulated consultants go, because you have a “use of a representative” form that's submitted with the application or process, and it clearly states who the consultant involved is. It's easy to determine at that s

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I definitely think that giving the tools, for example, some powers through statutes or other means so the investigators can go out and do a job, will make a big difference. I believe from my experience, and I'm an investigator at ICCRC, we do a tremendous job. I think that we are

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Definitely. I think the problem is that we see all the solving and good work and showing of results on regulated consultants' complaints and so on, yet back before there was a regulator, and to today, there's such a backlog of these ghost consultants that we'll never.... What hap

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think that you have to understand it's a unique situation when you're talking about immigration, and I think it's a unique situation when you're talking about how they deal with clients and the different processes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's out of my realm or scope to comment on. I'm not involved in that at all.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If there is evidence to support that the consultant in Canada cohorted with the individual or consultant or whoever it is overseas and that an illegal act took place, then that consultant can be held accountable here in Canada. The consultant can be, because his practice—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What we've been doing, because we have that case—that happens on more than one occasion—is to work with the client or the victims and have them go to the local authorities. Now, I realize that in some countries that's a waste of time, maybe, or intimidating, but we have to follow