Fisheries committee  The parts of the presentation I saw— Yes?

Fisheries committee  All right. I was saying that the minister's speech did not mention any limits on the case that was imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada. No one expected the minister to provide a long legal analysis, but the case law is complex and often misunderstood. Litigation is better

Fisheries committee  Thank you. Can you hear me fine, Mr. Chair?

Fisheries committee  All right. Thank you, Mr. McDonald, and committee members, and your hard-working staff, for inviting me. As a non-partisan witness with no economic interests at stake, I feel free to explain the law as I see it, while recognizing that others may see it differently. My releva

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the lawyers in Newfoundland must be more honest than the lawyers in Ontario, because we've had a lot of cases in Ontario. The cost per case should go down under the new law—the cost of dealing with it—because people won't be able to drag them out forever and just out-wai

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think they will have the necessary capacity and tools, as you say. They already have very competent people managing it, who you saw yesterday. They have increased their staff size. They used to be very understaffed and a lot of the cases against the bad actors failed because th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The discipline process can only be as good as the people administering it. You will need people who are tough enough to say “You're out” to somebody, whom I'd call a bad apple, if they need to revoke a licence or impose a penalty. So far, from what I've seen, the people who have

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think I'm qualified to address what an immigration consultant needs to know. I would leave that to people who are preparing and designing the education program.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it does that very well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This is the first one really, because now there's a law that gives them authority. Before that, there wasn't.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There is such a process, and I've sat through several such hearings where members have been raked over the coals. The complaints can come from anybody. There's no limit to who may complain and if the complaint appears to be serious, the regulator has to deal with it, and when the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe so. I haven't read the Law Society Act lately, but I would be surprised if there weren't such a power. The other part of that is the power to collect costs in hearings. If somebody needlessly goes to a hearing and says, “nyah-nyah, prove it”, and you do prove it, and yo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, they may go to court to try to collect it, but it's always easier and better if you have a clear statutory mandate to do so, because the person being challenged will say, “Show me where you can do that.” If you can point to a place, the litigation takes 30 seconds instead o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm just about finished. The new law doesn't fix these abuses, and I'm going to suggest that it should. In part, the minister's ability to appoint public interest directors will help with that. I would be pleased to answer your questions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for inviting me. ICCRC, as a new professional regulator with a small budget, did an excellent job in the four years that I was its legal counsel, or one of its legal counsellors, which was 2014 through 2017. I've had no connection with the organization since