Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it would be useful to look at the mandate of the settlement agencies, which is to provide information and referral services. It's not to provide representation. That said, as I said before, I think non-profit organizations operate in good faith. They are there to serve

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it's a remedy to the current problem. I think issuing open work permits would alleviate the problem of live-in caregivers being left homeless after leaving an abusive employer.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With regard to your first question around whether ICCRC should have more authority to investigate ghost consultants, I think the evidence is clear that the ICCRC has failed to properly investigate and enforce their own codes of professional and ethical standards. I would therefor

Citizenship and Immigration committee  CBSA does not currently have the resources. However, resources should be expanded so that these complaints can be filed, or if the government begins a regime of regulating immigration consultants, resources should be allocated to the department to conduct those investigations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With regard to restricting the practice to immigration lawyers, in an ideal world, everyone would have access to justice and would have the ability to afford services. I think immigration consultants can play a role in certain types of immigration applications. We may want to c

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I would agree that this scenario occurs quite frequently and that IRCC should continue processing those applications if there has been misrepresentation or errors by the consultant, regardless of whether they are a ghost consultant or a registered consultant. I would then su

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Currently, the categories of individuals who can represent clients include lawyers and registered immigration consultants, so to a degree those ghost consultants are already excluded. There is an exception for people who work for non-profit organizations and don't receive a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I would agree with that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think there would be challenges with that proposal because not every applicant or application is the same. There may be complexities in one versus another, so I think it would be a bit of a challenge to come up with a fee schedule. There isn't really a precedent for that curren

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Consultants can play a role in assisting in immigration services, but like Mr. Kurland, I think the issue here is effective regulation of those consultants, making sure we can guarantee that those consultants will be effectively regulated in order to protect the public. We need t

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree that the solution would be oversight by the federal government. This would help restore public confidence in the immigration system. I also like Mr. Kurland's idea about reallocating resources from the CBSA. If we're going to try to protect workers and incentivize them to

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Our office doesn't have the resources to help people to file those complaints. To file a complaint, there is a set of evidence that would need to be brought forward, as well as testimonies of complainants. However, we have been contacted by temporary foreign workers who have trie

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I haven't had the opportunity to look at the Australian model in much detail, unfortunately. However, I think the more information that can be made publicly available to applicants on the IRCC website would go a long way towards preventing abuse, especially if information can be

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm here representing the West Coast Domestic Workers' Association, a non-profit organization that since 1986 has been dedicated to providing pro bono legal services to caregivers and other low-wage,