Public Safety committee  Thank you for inviting me again. I appreciate having a second opportunity, and I appreciate what I have just heard. I'm an immigration lawyer, and I come because I have a particular concern, as an immigration lawyer, with how this will affect my clients. But I want to make it c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I looked at the call for proposals, I discussed with people what it would take to come up with a reasonable proposal and also the amount of money it would take to get together everything that's required, and it would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given that I don't

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, on the preferred course, number one would be a self-regulating body. Number two would be a government regulator, and this would be the least preferred option, because it's the one that provides the least ability to exert any kind of public control over the regulatory body.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's my view.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a very good idea. You're precisely right. It wouldn't be breaching the law if a person handed out cards saying, “I'm John Smith, Immigration Consultant”. People only breach the law when they start giving immigration advice. I think it's a good idea to regulate the use of t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The only governance provision in the bill, the only new power the minister has, is the power to demand documents. That's why I've said there would have to be amendments. The minister can demand financial statements or other documents from CSIC, but that's not enough to answer a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think Mangat made it pretty clear that the federal government has jurisdiction to regulate consultants. That would allow them to create a regulatory body like CSIC and then to impose conditions on the body. I don't think any constitutional issues would arise from this legislati

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In Ontario there are a lot of provincially regulated professions: architects, engineers, lawyers.... I think most professions are regulated provincially.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, for example, I've looked at the legislation of the law society of which I'm a member. It allows the Attorney General to intervene in certain situations to require documents and things like that. I think the same would be true with most other regulatory bodies. The ministe

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You'd have to amend the legislation to increase the power--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, it would be a significant improvement. Remember: there are two concerns. One is the governance concern, which means that you have to make sure that any--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that's right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree with you that it's an improvement, but you need to amend the legislation to allow the minister to acquire specific governance minimal standards that exist with all other regulatory bodies but don't exist here.