[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, May 18, 1995
.1107 
[English]
The Chairman: Order.
Let me begin by welcoming our witness, Mr. Mendel Green. Mr. Green is no stranger to citizenship and immigration committees. He is acknowledged as one of the leading immigration lawyers - if not the leading immigration lawyer - in Canada.
We're honoured to have you appear today.
Mr. Mendel Green (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. May I first comment on the vote you must take and the report you must conclude when you deliberate and hear the rest of the witnesses.
.1110
This is now, since 1979, my third appearance before a parliamentary committee on this subject. I've appeared on two committees and individually before the Law Society of Upper Canada on this particular subject. The federal and provincial governments have done nothing, and as I will say later on, they have opened up to Canadian entrepreneurs an opportunity to lead would-be immigrants like sheep to slaughter.
This ``profession'' that has developed, of immigration consultants, is a very large group of people who, as you are aware, have no qualifications, no previous education requirements, no licensing, and no regulations.
I just found out that I was going to be a witness before this committee on Friday of last week. I was out of town and Monday I was in court. I only had a day or so to get things ready. In the airport, on the way here, I picked up a copy of the telephone book. I see immigration and naturalization consultants in Toronto are almost a page and a half in the telephone book. I've given copies to you.
I note ``Ben And Alexander'': I don't know who they are. I'm sure they're great people, but they say, ``If I can't get you in, nobody else can''. I just want to draw your attention, throughout these advertisements, to the Canadian flag, because that in itself is something that is used worldwide in these areas.
The Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants is in the second column. This is an extremely professional organization. By professional I mean serious about what they intend to do. It's ``a self-regulating body which ensures that its members adhere to a professional code of standards, ethics & rules of professional conduct''. They have no disciplinary rules or ability. They are people of good intention but of absolutely no power.
Unlike a great many of my colleagues who think lawyers should be the only ones dealing in immigration, I disagree with that proposition. I believe in this world of today, the public has to have an option to either have a lay counsel or an immigration counsel. However, the public has no protection whatsoever with respect to immigration consultants. They are absolutely uncontrolled, undisciplined in many respects, and unfortunately, what I'm about to tell you is more the rule than the exception.
I must say that there are many competent persons who call themselves immigration consultants, many former immigration officers who actually know what they're doing. I don't know much about most of these individuals on this particular page but if you go into places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and India, you'll see our Canadian flag, which apparently is the only qualification most of these people have.
Everyone in this room could today, now, say they are an immigration consultant. You would be afforded respect, courtesy, and rights on behalf of whomever you represent before Immigration Canada, externally and from within Canada. If you here today tell me that you're immigration consultants, that's all you need. You can hold out. There are no checks or balances. There is no taxing master, as there is in every single province of Canada. Hong Kong controls foreign lawyers but does not control immigration consultants.
The Government of Taiwan came to me about three years ago and asked for assistance with respect to controlling Canadian immigration consultants and members of the legal profession. Now Taiwan has recently implemented visa requirements and very strict control over disseminating immigration information in Taiwan.
.1115
India is a bloodbath, not only politically but also in this immigration area. Pakistan is no different.
The emerging immigration interests in the former Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China are mind-boggling as to what is going on. There is a nouveau riche developing there, people who fit into the entrepreneurial class of immigrant. I must say that fees beyond anyone's dreams or expectations are being paid to come to our glorious country because of its international reputation as a safe and politically stable place to live.
I say this to this committee, and I say it seriously. I have appeared before parliamentary committees and the Law Society on this subject, as I've said before, and no one has done a thing to protect the public. I am saying to you that the public is ill-served by federal and provincial governments. Regretfully the police authorities are apparently not interested in enforcing against the multitude of frauds that have been perpetrated by immigration consultants. Their constant response is that they don't have resources.
What I'm going to do is review with you, as an immigration lawyer, the conduct of immigration consultants and show you the lack of protection. It might open your eyes.
I appoint you all now immigration consultants. You can go to a hotel in Shanghai, Moscow, or wherever, or you can put your name in Toronto's yellow pages or anywhere. You can advertise that you do it all: refugee sponsorship; entrepreneurs; family business; independents; visas; and work permits.
The majority of these immigration consultants, because they speak English and the language of the person who's dealing with them, gain certain respect in the minds of the different cultures and different nationalities that deal with them. They also, unfortunately, seem to indicate, as is the culture in many parts of the world, that because they are Canadians or permanent residents of Canada and speak English and know everything about immigration, they have an inside track on getting individuals help and assistance.
We all know, sitting at this table, that hiring even Mendel Green won't help you one iota in the decision an immigration officer has to make on whether or not you're going to get to this country.
It may shock you if I were to tell you that in 33 years of practising law, Mendel Green has never flown around the world and attended immigrant interviews, holding clients' hands. I have only sat in on six immigrant interviews in my career, because the immigration officer's job is to assess that client's merit and whether or not he or she complies with the Immigration Act and regulations.
On the six occasions I have sat in on an interview, my client has been told that although their lawyer is present, he will not answer any questions for them, and will not respond on their behalf. The immigration officers, subsequent to an interview, have always given me the courtesy of discussing the interview with them privately, but never in front of the client.
You'd be shocked to know that many immigration consultants sell their services on the basis that they will go with clients to interviews and are paid tens of thousands of dollars just to travel from Toronto to Dublin and sit in a lobby with an immigration officer. I must tell you that it is commonplace for this to happen.
.1120
Once again - and I will repeat this many times - the qualifications of immigration consultants vary from absolutely none at all, which is the unfortunate majority of them, to very experienced former visa officers who are competent and actually know what's going on.
There's not a single regulatory control in Canada or the world that controls immigration consultancy. They set up in hotel rooms, other people's offices, other law firms, other trading companies, other visa and tour companies abroad. They take substantial retainers, and unfortunately, the majority of them never show up or follow through.
The biggest problem I'm having now, as a lawyer dealing with clients in the former Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, is that most people who have dealt with immigration to Canada have dealt with immigration consultants who have taken their money and have not in fact done anything for them.
Common abuses are making false claims about how one emigrates to Canada.
Last week I had a Yugoslavian national, living in this city, a very well-to-do business person who had many millions of dollars...his wife, a lawyer from Yugoslavia. They went to a Yugoslavian immigration consultant because they could communicate and was convinced by that consultant, for the sum of $12,000 U.S. for his services, that his wife should apply to Immigration Canada as a legal secretary, because obviously a lawyer would know something about being a legal secretary.
Unfortunately, no one has seen my typing ability.
In any event, the application proceeded. By some luck or mistake they came to my office three days before the interview in Buffalo. They had no U.S. visa to go to Buffalo, they didn't know how to get to Buffalo, and they wouldn't have gotten to Buffalo. I was able to get them a U.S. visa rather quickly, which is difficult.
I called the visa officer in Buffalo and told him the story. I interviewed these people. Naturally, on the paper alone, I found out this woman was not a legal secretary but a lawyer. She had to fail.
Fortunately, with the help of Tourism Canada.... Her husband was the largest tour operator in Yugoslavia. Tourism Canada was anxious to try to get relationships with Yugoslavia and even consulted with me to see what could be done to help this individual.
We reconstructed his application into an entrepreneurial application, as it should have been at the beginning. Five months later, he is now an immigrant. But I can tell you this family has horrible concerns about immigration consultancy.
We then went to try to find the immigration consultant to get back the $12,000. Of course, he'd disappeared.
I always warn people when I speak publicly that the minute a lawyer or a consultant says you have to invest a nickel in this country to get here, except in the immigrant investor program, beware. Most immigration consultants - and they're rampant in Hong Kong right now - are selling condominiums.
In China today condominiums in Markham, Scarborough and Vancouver are hot items. In order to sell the condominiums the consultants are saying, ``Buy a condominium, and we'll get you to Canada as an immigrant''. One thing, of course, has nothing to do with the other.
On buying a business in Canada, you have no idea how many consultants go around to various businesses and say, I'll sell your business; I'll get you people to invest in your business; they'll put the money in your business; keep $50,000; give them back their money once they get here. It's commonplace. I must see it six or seven times a year.
Until just six months ago Taiwan was rampant with false advertisements indicating to Taiwanese that they could get them immigration to Canada; that they did not have to live in Canada to get citizenship; that they could go right back to Taiwan and make money.
.1125
False advertisments: they were advertising the immigrant investor program of Canada by buying government bonds. Venture capital investments are being promoted as guaranteed government bonds in Canada. Nothing in any way like that is available.
Unfortunately, the Canadian government does not in the visa post become proactive in the press in refuting these false advertisements. It astounds me that they don't do anything.
When I complain to the ambassador in various countries they say the press is not interested in what they have to say about it. I ask them why they don't take equal advertisements in the paper to protect these people.
Right now, as you are aware, there is the new right of landing fee. You'd be amazed how people are now taking substantial retainers from individuals, prior to the imposition on February 1 of the right of landing fees, and then calling up the people and saying they won't go ahead unless they bring them in another $975 times how many for their family. Many people can't afford that, and they're keeping the initial retainer fees.
Many immigration consultants, especially for those people coming from these new emerging economies where the security of Canada and their involvement in get-rich schemes and the possible links of organized crime are on the top of the list of the concern of Canada immigration and our security people, are not being warned that it's going to take two to three years to get into this country, because we are checking them. One of my criticisms is that we don't check them, first, well enough, and secondly, fast enough - but that's another issue.
Many of these would-be immigrants are paying an immigration consultant large sums of money, being told everything is okay, disposing of their assets and getting stuck where they are.
At tab 1, this translation of the document that appears at the back is presented by a man called Peter Lam. I don't know who he is. I don't know what his qualifications are other than what he says on his name card. This name card was received by three of my Chinese clients last week in the waiting room at the Canadian consulate general while they were waiting to be interviewed by an immigration officer on their immigrant applications to come to Canada.
They were each given his card. The interpreter I sent with them gave him her card and she received the faxed credentials of this individual. Here is what he's saying. I'm not saying that it's not true, but he says he was a former senior instructor of an Employment and Immigration Canada committee, responsible for carrying out job training of immigration officers from the bureau chiefs to the sub-bureau chiefs across the country. He says he's recognized by the federal ministry of citizenship and immigration, qualifications verified by the association of Canadian professional immigration consultants.
I hope he is. In your deliberations you may want to have one of the bureau chiefs, from the top to the bottom, find out if they've been taught by Peter Lam. They may very well have been, but here you have an immigration consultant in the waiting room of a Canadian immigration office handing out his card and promoting my clients.
Fortunately - this is just hot off the press - I've checked out as best I can this gentleman. From the sources I've tried to check out, nobody seems to know about him in Canada immigration. Now, that doesn't mean he is not who he says he is. But this is commonplace in the immigration area.
Perhaps the greatest abuse by immigration consultants abroad has been the promotion of our immigrant investor program. There are many good funds in Canada for people to invest their money in. Unfortunately, most of them are bad.
.1130
The bad funds pay high commissions. Funds like the Saskatchewan government growth fund, the island fund and the quorum fund pay reasonable commissions. So what is an immigration consultant going to do abroad? Not look to protect the client but look to line his or her pocket.
I was the person who created the island fund for the Government of P.E.I. I had a great deal to do with its promotion. I had difficulty obtaining immigration consultants who would promote that fund because it only paid a $10,000 commission on a $150,000 investment. Other funds were paying $18,000, $20,000 and $25,000 for $150,000 to that immigration consultant. He wouldn't even talk to me. Fortunately, I was probably able to distribute most of the island fund through my own efforts, and none of my clients was ripped off.
I draw your attention to tab 2. A recent Report on Business Magazine in The Globe and Mail talks about how Canadians were ripped off. I can tell you that although some of my legal colleagues were involved in the rip-off, and I don't deny that for the moment, the majority of funds were sold by immigration consultants. If you'll turn to page 28 of the third page left-hand paragraph, it says:
- In Hong Kong, Taiwan, Dubai, South Africa, the news is out that Canadians are bilking
investors through mismanaged, unregulated and outright fraudulent immigration funds. Tales
of investors' money paid out in exorbitant management fees, expenses, personal loans to fund
managers and funds placed in non-arm's-length projects....
- The answer, according to Neil Maxwell, is hardly anyone. Many funds employ agents,
mostly in the Far East, who are paid on a commission basis and who contact prospective clients
through private immigration consultants.
I condemn those ``private immigration consultants'' in the marketing of those shoddy funds for giving Canada probably the worst black eye imaginable in the economic sense.
Let me talk about another area, namely, the ``no training or credentials are required'', and the ``majority of consultants use the Canadian flag''. I must tell you that recently our office participated in a joint seminar in South Africa, where the Canadian immigration office participated and where the countries of New Zealand, Australia and Canada were putting on a joint seminar on immigrating to their various countries. We were criticized quite properly by the ambassador in South Africa because the advertisement contained the Canadian flag.
There should be some proactive enforcement of the use of that logo. As you see, it's all over here, and I must tell you that when you go to some of these immigration consultants' offices in the far east and in India and in other countries in the Third World you'll see a great big Canadian flag there and you'll see a Canadian flag on their letterhead. It is just unbelievable. They think there is some official blessing by having this flag there. That is the culture.
.1135
I must tell you that in days gone by there were not that many immigration consultants, although their conduct, regrettably, was very bad. But today there are more immigration consultants in the world than there are lawyers, legally trained people, helping people come to this country.
The situation is very bad. One of the constant abuses I find is that people get degrees, LLBs, Bachelors of Law, and they hold themselves out in Canada as being lawyers. For example, if you'll turn to tab 3, you'll read, ``Roy M.A. Bailey L.L.B.: Specialist in Immigration Matters - Over 17 Years Experience''.
I'll say nothing about Mr. Bailey - I just know he's a very nice man - but I would invite you to enquire of Immigration Canada regarding the nature and type of his practice. I can only say that the majority of my clients report to me after they come from Mr. Bailey's office that they assumed and thought he was a lawyer.
If you'll just turn the page, you'll read, ``Dr Emmanuel E.M. Feuerwerker, L.L.B.''. I don't know whether he is a lawyer in Canada. However, this is a company called Axio International Corporation.
Next turn to tab 4. I had an acupuncture doctor come to see me from China. He was brought to Canada by this gentleman, Dr. Feuerwerker, who had him sign this agreement. The agreement provides for a $250 down payment; another $10,000 when they receive the preliminary application form; then another $10,000 mentioned in paragraph d on page 3.
Look at paragraph 2: ``No payment shall be refundable in any event.'' Through the terrific efforts of Dr. Feuerwerker, for those sums this poor doctor, an acupuncturist from China, got a temporary employment authorization.
This is not uncommon. I don't know this man; I just know what I read on this paper. He thought he was getting immigrant status in Canada, and all he was getting was a temporary employment authorization in Quebec.
He found some organization to pay him $200 a week for a period of time and encourage the Quebec authorities to approve this individual who had no intention of going to the province of Quebec. In fact he wanted to come to Toronto or Vancouver where there was a Chinese community that understood his reputation in acupuncture.
Just imagine. I mean, I must admit a failing as a professional because as a lawyer with some modest experience I unfortunately have never been able to command a fee of $20,000 in an immigration matter. Obviously there must be something wrong with me, because I see this type of fee....
This, of course, is Canadian money. The majority of fees exerted from would-be immigrants in the Third World, in the emerging economies of the former Soviet Union and China, are in U.S. dollars because there's no way anybody is going to find Canadian dollars in China. It's very difficult to find Canadian dollars in Russia.
You'd be amazed at the $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, and yes, $100,000 U.S. fees paid to these kinds of people. I see it regularly. What troubles me is that no one does anything about it.
Now, I understand the Ottawa Police have recently charged this particular individual with certain offences. I don't wish to comment on that; he's before the courts and presumed innocent.
.1140
I say nothing about him. I don't know him or his conduct. But this is not uncommon. I just give this as an example pulled out of one of my files on short notice.
Now, let me tell you about something that has cost Canadians hundreds of millions of dollars. There were two Portuguese immigration consultants...I say, Canadian citizens who are of Portuguese origin. A few years ago they went to Brazil and Portugal, two countries that we all know are predominantly Roman Catholic.
Suddenly Canada had in excess of 10,000 refugee claims, the claimants asserting that they were persecuted in Brazil and Portugal because they were Jehovah's Witnesses.
You and I paid millions of dollars to process those claims, pay the people's welfare while they were staying here and all the medical services on top of that. The government a few years ago had, because they were in such a kerfuffle over the numbers of people who got into the backlog of these refugee claims -
Mr. Mayfield (Cariboo - Chilcotin): Would you repeat that number?
Mr. Green: Thousands, tens of thousands probably. I am telling you they had to declare an amnesty and a special program to facilitate these Portuguese people who were in the construction industry. Eight years ago the construction industry was booming. The government didn't do a damn thing to control the immigration consultants who created the problem.
Let's move along a few years. One of the people whose LLB credentials I mentioned earlier went to a country called Trinidad, and we are just cleaning up the Trinidadian refugee claim hoax. Out of many thousands of Trinidadian refugee claims, only four or five persons were accepted.
I don't have the exact details, but they're on record as refugees and only recently because of spousal assault and inability to obtain protection. In addition some refugee board members may have erred in their decisions. There's another horror story of Canadian immigration consultants going to Trinidad saying, come up here; we're suckers for this type of thing.
The tragedy is that it has killed the opportunity for legitimate refugee claimants to make claims in our system. The refugee determination system is a system I'm very proud of, notwithstanding the criticism levelled at it. It is designed to protect real refugees and as a result of this abuse, principally caused by immigration consultants, we Canadians have suffered the loss of millions of dollars.
I must tell you that this concern was raised with prior governments - I can't blame this government for it. This happened before this government got here. But not one single government has taken one step to regulate these individuals.
I must tell you that I have had great difficulty with my colleagues in the profession because I have taken the position that I would not permit my office to represent any of these manifestly unfounded refugee claims.
My colleagues have been very critical of my position in that regard, because they said that everyone is entitled to a lawyer. It is an interesting professional and ethical debate, but I have stayed away from probably 8,000 to 10,000 of these cases where people have come to our firm to ask us to represent them.
Legal Aid in Ontario has been a patsy - I use that word directly, and I'm sad to say it - for these claims. Regretfully, I must say that many of my colleagues have overburdened the refugee system with these manifestly unfounded claims on the ethical basis that everyone is entitled to a lawyer. I took a different tack.
.1145
However, although I criticize the legal profession, the overwhelming majority of ``counsel'' before the refugee determination process were immigration consultants.
Today, sir, you could go there and say, ``I represent Mr. Green from Sri Lanka, as his counsel'', and, by God, they'd listen to you. And you could say to me, ``Mr. Green, give me $5,000 for representing you, sir; I am an expert in the field''.
If I came from Sri Lanka, I saw your Canadian flag, I saw your membership in the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants Inc., and I saw the Immigration and Refugee Board giving you due respect as counsel, as they are required to do by law, I'd probably pay you the $5,000.
Now, I am sure you are all aware that.... I should perhaps preface this by saying that lawyers also overcharge, absolutely. I don't deny that lawyers are not lily-white professionals, as every lawyer would like you to believe. There are bad apples in our profession as well, and they do overcharge.
But I must commend the Law Society of Upper Canada and the law societies of the various provinces for prosecuting a number of lawyers criminally and having them disbarred. In the province of Ontario in the past five years in excess of five lawyers have been criminally charged, and a number of lawyers have been disbarred because of immigration fraud.
There is no protection for the public against immigration consultants. You cannot disbar them. You can charge them, and many of them have been charged and convicted, but only the glaring ones.
Let me ask you to please turn to tab 5. Ms Kwan went to this immigration consultant and was told that she could do what is called an intracorporate transfer. If you are a manager of a company that has a subsidiary or affiliate in Canada, the company is entitled to transfer you to Canada under the intracorporate provisions of the Immigration Act.
This particular immigration consultant told her that she was a manager of a company called Trade Board Investments Inc. that had a subsidiary in Hong Kong, and he transferred her to Canada through the border at Niagara Falls. For $75,000 he sold her a food court in a little fast food stand in one of the shopping malls in which he had a personal interest. She paid him $10,800 for his immigration consultation.
I reported that to Pat Borelli, the manager of Canada Immigration at the port of entry. On the next page you'll see that I reported it to Sergeant Adrian Moore of the RCMP in Newmarket.
I called them, I begged them to do something about it. I offered cooperation. The client was prepared to cooperate. Nothing has happened.
In an immigration lawyer's life this is a common practice. The consultant was Chinese. The client was Chinese. The client was shown all kinds of credentials. It is shocking that the authorities do not have the resources to stop this abuse.
This particular individual was cheated out of $75,000. I ultimately went to Immigration. Quite frankly, through the generosity and really good heart of the immigration officer, they were able to change this woman's status to that of an immigrant. She's now gone off to quite a successful business career in Canada. But that's a good story.
.1150
Although not on topic, I think I should say to you that when people go to immigration consultants, are told to cheat and lie and then get caught, or wish to clear their conscience and come to a lawyer who wants to disclose everything, as they must, and when you go to Immigration and try to clear the air and say, look, I am really not a PhD or a brain surgeon, as I was represented to you by my immigration consultant, but I'm a tool-and-die-maker and I would be eligible to come to Canada, will you let me come, the common result is that Immigration will refuse them.
Then if a person gets involved in an investigation by the police authorities and they are cooperative with the RCMP, telling them what the immigration consultant has done and how they have been cheated, and the RCMP ask for Immigration's assistance in doing something for this cooperating witness, Immigration Canada has a policy that they will not in any way assist the cooperating witness who may have been involved with the immigration consultant in telling a lie.
Now, I say that is wrong and counter-productive to protecting society, because people don't want to come forward and tell their stories. The only thing Immigration will do is keep them here until the immigration consultant is prosecuted and convicted, and then deport them, or deport them first and let them stay here. They rarely even give them permission to work while they're here.
The Americans have a different system. If an illegal immigrant comes forward and assists the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an investigation, they are usually granted some indulgence and given a green card, but not in our country.
The very psychology of the immigration and police authorities.... Believe it or not, it is not uncommon for me to be asked unofficially by the RCMP to see if I can get Immigration to cooperate to keep a willing witness here, whom the RCMP needs for a prosecution against an immigration consultant.
It sounds crazy, but that's the reality of the world out there.
The police have only laid charges in the most glaring cases. I think they are truly under-resourced.
Let us deal with the immigration consultants who are active in the country, because most of the things I've been referring to are about immigration consultants from Canada or abroad, who are helping people come into the country.
But once the people are here and once the people are in the refugee stream or attempting to adjust their status in some way, you can see that they do need help.
If you'll turn to tab 6, I have an excerpt here for you from the Law Society's minutes of convocation, 1982. On page 551, the second page of that tab.... Here we go again; it's like déjà vu:
- The improper conduct about which the Minister was concerned was:
- (1) charging fees for incompetent service;
- (2) charging unduly high fees for simple services;
- (3) express misrepresentation and fraud in the extraction of fees.
Then on the next page, page 552, in paragraph 3, it says:
- (3) It was recommended that immigration consultants who expected and received remuneration
for their services should be required to work for and under the supervision of lawyers as The
Law Society of Upper Canada has regulatory and disciplinary procedures already in place. It is
acknowledged that this might be a politically unacceptable proposal, however, it would be the
least costly and the quickest to implement, and it was felt would offer the best control.
So the Law Society said - and I was part of that deliberation in those days - let immigration consultants do their work. That was just at the time when paralegals were coming into their own. They said that those paralegal immigration consultants should be under the supervision of the Law Society, the lawyers, and they could be controlled.
The next paragraph is interesting:
- The subject of licensing consultants was suggested and it was felt that, due to the limited
number of consultants in Canada, licensing of individuals by provincial immigration offices
could be handled cheaply and effectively if the individuals had taken suitable courses and/or
passed examinations.
Tab 7 is a 1986 submission, prepared by the Law Society when the attorney general of Ontario was looking at non-legal services, supervising legal services by unsupervised persons. They did a whole section on immigration consultants.
On page 46 you will see:
- Non-lawyers who act as immigration consultants have a very low reputation for servicing the
public. In 1981....
- And they refer to the previous report.
- The Law Society forwarded these recommendations to the Minister of Employment and
Immigration. Since that date, however, no legislative or regulatory steps have been taken to
address the problem of immigration consultants.
- (i) a willingness to place special trust in an adviser simply because of a shared language or
cultural background;
They talk about the ``Harm to the Public'' on page 48:
- (ii) a feeling that to succeed in an application, something more than mere compliance is
necessary - something in the nature of an `inside track' or special advantage over other
applicants;
I must say I highly regard those officers as being at least a source, people who know something about immigration, but there may be an appearance of conflict. In most government bureaucracies there usually is a cooling-off period before a person can enter into the same area. For example, Immigration Appeal Board members are restricted from practising immigration law for a year after they leave that area.
There may be something you want to think about respecting former immigration officers in the immigration consultancy business.
.1200
The next concern or harm to the public is a feeling of general distrust of government officials, perhaps based on experience in the country of origin or the belief that the payment of a bribe is the ordinary manner of transacting business with officialdom.
I can tell you that in the former Soviet Union you got nothing from anywhere unless you greased the wheel, as we say in this country, with a bribe. In China they call it guan xi. The bribe makes the wheels turn.
Because of the culture in those former communist nations, the mind-set of the individual is that you have to bribe to succeed. They are not used to our Canadian culture. They then become, as I've said before, lambs being led to slaughter. The immigration consultant says ``I need extra money because I have to do this'', and they believe it.
The public is not protected because, as they quite rightly say, there's a tendency not to report an incident where one has been victimized in the light of the above factors, or simply to avoid making waves for fear of being viewed as a troublemaker and thereby jeopardizing the potential success of an application.
Clients fear transferring a file from an immigration consultant to Mendel Green because they think it will destroy their chances of success in the immigration visa office. They believe this because their former immigration consultant has told them the patch is in and everything is fine. It is a culture.
They are also fearful of coming forward and saying they have been cheated by immigration consultants. Interestingly, in the story of the rip-off under the business immigration investor program, the overwhelming majority of those people who lost $500 million were Chinese. They didn't come forward and complain or sue. The simple fact of the culture is they would lose face. It was far better to lose $150,000 than to lose face and admit they'd made a mistake.
These people are fearful of losing face. That is the culture of many countries. They're also fearful that if they go to the bureaucracy - the government officials or the police - to complain about the fraud, they won't be treated right, because that is the culture from whence they come.
The Chairman: I think you've done an excellent job of summarizing the problem. The tough nut for us is going to be what should be done and by whom.
Mr. Green: Yes.
The Chairman: I'd like you to move to that part of your presentation, as long as you feel you've....
Mr. Green: I just want to point out that in the refugee termination process, one glaring abuse is being perpetrated upon the public by immigration consultants. It is what we call the boiler-plate leave application to the Federal Court.
Immigration consultants, and unfortunately, I'm afraid, some of my colleagues, have gone to the Federal Court and secured precedents prepared by very competent immigration lawyers on how to obtain an application for leave to appeal the refusal of a refugee claim. They sell the slug to the refugee claimant - in many instances $500 is not unusual - and the refugee claimant fills in his or her name, goes down and pays a fee to the Federal Court. As you are aware, Immigration doesn't usually remove people until their legal rights have been determined by the courts.
I'm suggesting to you - and I blame immigration consultants for this practice, principally - that we Canadians are being horribly abused by our court system being tied up. Your researchers can obtain the numbers of these non-represented claims for leave to appeal before the Federal Court of Appeals and the Federal Court, Trial Division. They are filed by former refugee claimants who have failed and have just put in their own name, with no legal counsel. I must tell you it is common.
.1205
What should be done about the problem?
The Chairman: I don't mean to ruin your train of thought, but one other thing I'd point out is we're also having difficulty with the constitutionality of who has authority to -
Mr. Green: Yes.
I must apologize. There's a typo in my brief. On page 17 my secretary refers to the BAA Act; it's the BNA Act.
As you are aware, licensing is under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government does not license.
Mrs. Gagnon (Québec): I'm sorry; I have to go. Somebody is waiting for me. This has been very interesting, though.
Mr. Green: Thank you.
Immigration has had, in the predecessor acts and in this present act, under paragraph 114(1)(v), a regulation:
- requiring any person, other than a person who is a member of the bar of any province, to make
an application for and obtain a licence from such authority as is prescribed before the person
may appear before an adjudicator, the Refugee Division or the Appeal Division as counsel for
any fee, reward or other form of remuneration whatever;
You do have that power, but it has never been implemented, and I don't know why it has not been implemented. I think the federal authorities said it's a licensing authority. I've thought about that, and I recognize the difficulty of licensing.
I've recognized there is a tremendous abuse of the public - not only the public within the system, but also the Canadian public, who are truly being subjected to millions of dollars of excess expense in the operation of the immigration system because of unscrupulous, improper and unprofessional conduct.
Therefore it's my suggestion that firstly, if a person wants to be an immigration consultant, with respect to licensing, the federal government could quite simply say it will not deal with any immigration consultant, lay counsel or any other person who is receiving a fee for what they do unless the province in which that individual operates licences them, period. It's very simple.
The ball then shifts to the provinces. If they licence them, you deal with them. If they don't licence them, you don't deal with them, and the public is protected. I don't think that's too simplistic. I think it would work.
It would then place on organizations - and I suggest the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants is a very credible organization - the obligation to go to the Attorney General of Ontario and say ``Implement licensing provisions so that we can represent our clients.'' It would take it right out of the federal sphere.
Or the federal government could implement a bonding procedure to protect the public. I would suggest that a very substantial bonding procedure be implemented. If you are receiving a fee for immigration consultancy work, you must be bonded.
I know we're going to be implementing a system for bonding Canadian citizens who are sponsoring their family members. It may be the ideal time to say we're going to insist that a bond be posted for immigration consultants.
.1210
You note I keep repeating ``immigration counsellors who receive a fee'', because if your neighbour or your minister, rabbi or priest helps you in an immigration proceeding, I'm not uncomfortable with it. I don't think they should do it, but it probably is always going to help the person. If they do it for nothing, I don't have a problem.
But these consultants are holding themselves out as experts, and rarely have they read the Immigration Act. So what if you said ``We won't deal with you unless you are bonded''? In order to become bonded, I have suggested they must write a basic examination. That is something the immigration department probably already has in place for an immigration officer.
I don't want to create, and I don't think the government wants to create, a new bureaucracy to control these people. It's very difficult. You have enough expense. I don't want you to go to expense.
But you surely have some check-and-balance system to see if an individual who is a junior immigration officer is capable of being a junior immigration officer. At the very least, wouldn't you think an immigration consultant who's out there charging tens of thousands of dollars should pass that examination?
Immigration consultants who deal with Canadian immigration worldwide should be Canadian citizens or permanent residents. It may shock you when I say that, and maybe it's too simplistic. But every Tom, Dick and Harry in India, in Pakistan, in China, everywhere - not Canadian citizens, not permanent residents - calls himself a Canadian immigration consultant, and our visa officers affords him the same if not more respect than I get.
The Chairman: How would we enforce that?
Mr. Green: No immigration officer would permit an individual to have as his or her consultant or counsellor an individual who is not a Canadian citizen and/or a permanent resident, period. It's very simple.
When you apply for immigration, there is privacy legislation that prohibits the release of information to anyone unless you file on your application a direction and consent to the release of information, in my instance, to Mendel Green. They adhere so rigidly to it that if I were to put the firm of Green & Spiegel, my law firm, they wouldn't accept it. It would have to be to Mendel Green directly.
Why is it such a complex matter to ensure that Canadian immigration consultants are permanent residents or Canadian citizens? I don't understand why it's such a problem.
Are we going to be concerned about the Hong Kong bar saying ``We're experts in Canadian immigration; let us represent clients''? I suppose you will be met with that in various places of the world; the Indian lawyers or the Pakistani lawyers may say that. But if they were Canadian citizens and/or permanent residents, and perpetrated a fraud upon the client, we Canadians could deal with them. We could charge them here and stop them from dealing with any further clients.
You see, the problem with immigration consultants is if I cheat a client and Immigration reports me to the law society, I get disbarred. Interestingly enough, tomorrow I can go and call myself an immigration consultant. Instead of paying tax at the rate I presently pay it as an individual, I can incorporate a consulting company and pay it at 27%, and I'm an immigration consultant, and Immigration Canada has to deal with me. It doesn't make much sense. It doesn't make any sense.
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I say that for anyone who is bonded and cheats, we shut the door. I don't think you need a complex problem to be created or a complex bureaucracy. Before the quasi-judicial tribunals, the adjudication process, the Immigration Appeal Board, the Federal Court naturally, only legally trained people should be permitted there.
I have included in my brief a number of horror stories of immigration consultants making mistakes, and the courts have been reluctant to interfere with the decision because they say you have the right to choose any counsel you want. You chose a lay counsel and he has goofed.
Courts are now starting to change a bit on the question of fairness and hopefully it will go further. But it's tough. If you choose a goofy immigration consultant and they miss a time limit, the courts aren't going to be very sympathetic to you. If you choose a goofy lawyer and miss a time limit, the lawyer is reported to the Law Society. If you're in court, the court will award costs against the lawyer personally. There's nothing, not one scintilla of penalty, that can be heaped upon an immigration consultant.
Mendel Green, the former lawyer, disbarred, now immigration consultant - Immigration by law has to reopen the books to Mendel Green, immigration consultant, and let him deal with it.
There has to be a method to require the disbarred lawyer who becomes an immigration consultant to be bonded by Immigration in order to deal with.... You're dealing with a far more serious situation than even a murder case. In a murder case in this country you can only go to jail for 10 to 20 years, and you don't do that much time. If someone fails in an immigration application for permanent residence, it changes the course and life of not only that individual but his total family.
It's a far more heavy, onerous responsibility, and we're letting totally untrained people deal with those things - deal with them in the Immigration Appeal Board, deal with them in the adjudication process. I can tell you that many of them don't know the difference between a deportation order and an exclusion order. It is a highly technical area now.
The Chairman: Maybe we could go to questions.
Mr. Mayfield.
Mr. Mayfield: I found this very interesting. It corroborates a number of things that have been wandering around in my mind.
You mentioned that when a applicant goes to an immigration officer, you or the consultant sits and listens and makes no response. I can see that in some instances, perhaps most instances, a consultant or lawyer would be very helpful in bringing together the necessary information that is presented to the immigration officer. But in the final analysis, how important to the client is the consultant or the lawyer? Would many people fail if they did not have this type of assistance?
Mr. Green: That's a very fair question. I think a lawyer and a qualified immigration consultant are very important - not important in answering questions for clients at an interview, but in packaging clients so that they fit into the immigration process. How you prepare the client, how you prepare the documentation - people are ill-qualified to deal with it. It is a very paper-oriented process. Documentation has to be horrendous, particularly in the business immigration areas.
Obviously if a client came to me and said they wanted to sponsor a wife or a mother or father, that's a total ``no-brainer'', as I call it. I say, here is an application form - go do it yourself. You don't need a lawyer.
.1220
But in many instances, for example, some people say that professionals who meet the selection criteria don't need lawyers. But a simple application for an engineer who speaks English, who would meet the selection criteria at first blush, can go truly off the tracks. For example, if you graduated between 1981 and 1990 from the school of engineering in Iran, our Canadian Council of Professional Engineers won't recognize that degree.
A professional has to understand all the nuances of the paper chase and of presenting the facts to Immigration. The overwhelming majority of professionals I act for are now being waived interviews because they are so well documented. Their lives are made very easy.
Believe it or not, sir, if you were to walk into an immigration office worldwide and ask how to get to Canada, you'd have an awfully hard time figuring out how. There are no resources to tell people how to get there. They'll give you some cursory pamphlet that normally is in English, not in your language, and they don't understand that. Just securing the criminal records of individuals over the past ten years in a world that is getting increasingly smaller - mobile people - getting records from Third World countries is a nightmare. To know how to do that might take longer than structuring the immigration process. A professional should know how to do that.
Establishing the professional qualifications, preparing the individual for the interview, even to the point of telling the individuals to put on deodorant, comb their hair, dress neatly, be clean - in some cultures, in some worlds, that's not done. To a Canadian visa officer abroad, they are human beings. You package your client to best impress them.
I select my clients. My win-loss record is probably higher than I want to admit because I turn away maybe 70% of the applicants who come to me. I say I can't help them, forget it. I wonder if that standard of selection is utilized by...in fact, I know it's not utilized by the overwhelming majority of immigration consultants. That's why you need a lawyer.
Mr. Mayfield: I appreciate the value of the good advice and assistance that the lawyers and consultants provide. I suppose that's why I have on occasion paid them to do that for me.
Mr. Green: The cheapest thing in the world is a good lawyer and a good doctor and a good accountant.
Mr. Mayfield: There are a couple of other things I want to touch on.
Is there a need within the department to simplify the application procedures? Now, I'm not suggesting that the criteria should be changed or less serious attention should be given to the applicants, but you mention that they don't even know how to put together the information. Would it be within the scope of the department, or could you see it being a valid suggestion, to make it easier for legitimate people to -
Mr. Green: I think the department is doing that now. For the first time the department is sending teams around the world lecturing people on how to get to Canada. Believe it or not, Immigration never did that. They are experimenting with Internet. There's a visa office in Seattle where you can communicate by computer and the visa office will respond - you meet the selection, file an application.
It has to be made simpler. I think it is being made simpler. Immigration has finally awakened to the fact that.... If they're going to interview the vice-president of a major bank who has been vice-president of that bank for many years, what are they going to ask that person: are you the vice-president of the bank?
So they are waiving interviews where the documentation demonstrates. They are truly moving rapidly into the 20th century, but that's only in the past few years. Computer-driven applications are being studied by them now.
.1225
Mr. Mayfield: A chairman's gavel is a brutal thing in these committees, and I don't want to get cut off.
The Chairman: Not in this one.
Mr. Mayfield: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Green, you have mentioned a couple of means of approaching the problem you're pointing out to us. I wonder if you have anything you'd like to add in that regard. I wasn't sure you had -
Mr. Green: I must say that there must be an examination process implemented if you're going to control them in some way. There must be a moratorium on the ability of immigration officers before they jump into the profession. They're immigration officers one day and the next day they're immigration consultants. I think that looks bad in the public's eye from a protection standpoint and a conflict of interest standpoint. It's only human nature, but their colleagues cannot help but give them an edge. I don't have an edge and that's what people don't seem to understand. There is no edge. There should be no edge.
Mr. Mayfield: With the licensing by provinces as you suggested, immigration - with one exception, I think - is pretty much a federal matter. Do you see any possible federal-provincial conflict in this licensing?
Mr. Green: There is definitely a conflict because of the BNA Act. However, it is my understanding that if the provinces concur, which I think they would, and they give the whole ball to the -
Mr. Mayfield: I guess the question is, would there be any objection by the federal government to having the provinces do that?
Mr. Green: Absolutely not. You can't sell a house and you can't sell a stock without getting a licence in a province. You can't drive a car, but you can get $20,000 from an individual by just saying you're an immigration consultant. You can't even go fishing.
Mr. Mayfield: For fishing you need two or three permits.
The Chairman: Or soon to own a gun.
Mrs. Bakopanos.
Mrs. Bakopanos (Saint-Denis): Thank you very much for your very informative brief. Certainly a lot of the questions you have raised, as you said earlier, have been raised many times before.
I want to get back to the question of jurisdiction because I think that's where the main problem will lie. There are certain provinces that have special agreements in terms of immigration, Quebec being one, where my experience lies. I'm not a constitutional expert and I don't think you are either - a legal constitutional expert - but do you feel there may be some barriers to licensing, first of all? It may impede the powers the particular province has if they're imposed by the federal government, or not even imposed but suggested by the federal government. And how do you ensure standards across the country?
Mr. Green: I agree that it is not a simple problem, but I think we all agree here that it is a problem.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Definitely.
Mr. Green: I think the public is being terribly ripped off. This is not just the immigrant public, but the Canadian public. I make that very clear. I, as a taxpayer, quite frankly object to the abuses that have been heaped upon the immigration system.
But for parliamentarians, with the greatest respect, to hide behind the difficulty of the legalistics of the BNA Act and the provincial authority and the federal authority when the Canadian public is being so badly hurt is, in my opinion, not appropriate in the circumstances. It has been the answer of all the former governments. No one has tackled it. I have had only two days to give you my practical opinion on the matter, and I am by no means a constitutional expert, but I can assure you there must be a solution to this problem.
It is, with respect, what we call a motherhood issue. Who is going to object to stopping the cheating and hurting of Canadians, particularly in their pocketbook?
I can't see how anyone would put any impediment in your way. I can tell you that I'm aware that the Organization of Professional Immigration Consultants would welcome licences, because it would give them a higher profile.
.1230
Mrs. Bakopanos: I think your point is well taken, that no one is against this idea and it's certainly not us, as legislators, who are against moving in the direction you have recommended in your brief. But just the same, a legal problem does exist; to a certain extent, you would have to open up the constitutional issue.
Mr. Green: I think it could be solved. I'd welcome, if appropriately retained, reviewing it.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Mayfield: Mr. Chairman, would it be appropriate for this to be a dialogue?
The Chairman: Sure.
Mrs. Bakopanos: I have no objection.
Mr. Mayfield: The question I have is, it seemed to me that he had answered this.
You don't need me to defend you -
Mrs. Bakopanos: No.
Mr. Mayfield: - but if the federal government said, ``Look, we're only going to deal with you if you're provincially licensed'', would the provinces have anything to say about that?
Mrs. Bakopanos: I don't know whether or not they would. We're all making assumptions at this point in time. But the fact that there has been failure in the past to reach such agreements leads me to believe the main reason for that failure is that certain provinces - and I won't name them - may feel we are impinging upon their jurisdiction. It's a valid argument, to a certain extent.
Mr. Green: But I'm saying that there is this problem. If the federal government says, ``We won't deal with your people unless you license them'', then you're giving them their due. If they want to have immigration consultants within their province, let them be licensed by the province, within their jurisdiction, and the federal government will deal with them. It is a federal statute. It's a federal process. I, as a lawyer, am entitled to practise in the Federal Court in any province, because I am licensed by my province.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Then let's take the question another way. The fact that section 114 already exists and has not been implemented leads us to what conclusion, then?
Mr. Green: Again, with respect, I think there has been gross negligence on the part of the government in not implementing that section, because it is referable solely to federal tribunals - adjudication; Immigration Appeal Board - and I don't think the provinces have any jurisdiction in those areas.
Again, I am not a constitutional expert, but I can only attribute that to negligence on the part of the authorities for not implementing that section. They are continually, over the years, saying there is provincial-federal conflict on jurisdiction. They amended the section specifically in the new Immigration Act you now have before you. It was very general before, and did not have specific reference to federal tribunals, which is what this is.
So you do have the authority, in my opinion, to at least do that.
Again, I would have to do a lot of constitutional research to come up with an answer to that problem - that's a most complex problem - but I must say that we as Canadians are being severely hurt by the non-implementation of paragraph 114(1)(v).
Mrs. Bakopanos: Could I just put a question, Mr. Chair? I wasn't here for all the meetings.
When the ministry officials came, was there any discussion around why that section had been...?
The Chairman: No.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Perhaps it's worth coming back to that question.
The Chairman: Sure, and maybe bring somebody in from the Department of Justice.
Mrs. Bakopanos: Yes, that's what I was going to recommend. Thank you.
The Chairman: Some people have suggested that if we implemented section 114 to say that you have to be a lawyer, that wouldn't be enough to make it worth while. But that doesn't solve or get at the problem of the overseas issue, or it doesn't get at the people giving advice.
Mr. Green: It doesn't solve the problem at all. You see, in Canada now - to give you a very practical example - under the refugee determination program, there's a program called DROC for the claimants who are in Canada, and three years after their claims have been refused, they are now allowed to apply for landing from within Canada. There's PDRCCC, another program to adjust people who have been here long term. Many of those applications are being done by immigration consultants and they don't know what they're doing. There is a long-term, illegal de facto resident application being made. Many people don't fit into that, but many consultants don't know it and are taking money to do that. I think implementing this section would help, naturally, but not cure the problem.
.1235
The Chairman: Staying with the constitutional aspect, one option is to throw it over to the provinces, as you've suggested. Presumably, we could come up with a licensing system and by administrative agreement say if the provinces want to come into it, they would come in. Then if they didn't, they could either do nothing or set up a comparable system. Do you see any difficulty with that?
Mr. Green: I don't see any difficulty. I honestly cannot believe that if the justice departments of our provinces and the federal government put their heads together - and I think we all perceive there's a problem here or we wouldn't be here today - they would resolve this very simply, amicably and without any contest. Even the province of Quebec would want this. It's so important for Canada and for the people within the country and coming into the country - it just has to happen.
The Chairman: Off the record, we've allowed the researchers, rather than speak through me, which is the custom, to speak to witnesses directly. Do you want to go ahead?
Ms Margaret Young (Committee Researcher): We had testimony from an immigration consultant and a facilitator - I'm not sure how to describe it. I asked him what proportion of the business immigrants abroad was handled by.... He had said about 75% was facilitated by consultants. I asked him how many of those were based exclusively abroad. His answer was that it depends on the country. Quite a few of them never set foot in Canada, and quite a few have a Canadian base.
If you had a bonding system, all of the people who did not have a Canadian base would not be recognized by the visa offices abroad.
Mr. Green: That's right.
Ms Young: That's the import of your suggestion.
Mr. Green: That's right.
Ms Young: Okay.
It seems to me that at one point.... I'm a little confused, because I wrote down that you had said that immigration tribunals, adjudicators, refugee division and appeal division should only allow legal counsel as counsel.
Mr. Green: Yes.
Ms Young: I did understand you correctly.
Mr. Green: That's correct, yes, absolutely. That's what's contemplated by paragraph 114(1)(v).
Ms Young: Actually, it contemplates either legal counsel or prescription by a lay counsel as is prescribed if you're receiving fees.
Mr. Green: If you're licensed.
Ms Young: Right.
Mr. Green: I don't see that those immigration consultants who are not legally trained should be in that particular area at all. That is truly an area of high legal technical legalese - I suppose I'll use that word. I honestly think no immigration consultant without legal training is appropriate in those circumstances.
Ms Young: If I understand you correctly, then, it would be perhaps even more direct to amend that section of the act, which is in the inquiry part of the act. It states that anybody can be represented by a barrister, solicitor, or any other counsel.
Mr. Green: I think they should just take out the words ``or any other counsel''. I do not have my copy of the act here, but that is the definition. There is a definition of ``counsel'', and they should remove ``any other counsel''.
Ms Young: So that would alleviate the need then to use paragraph 114(1)(v).
Mr. Green: That's right - absolutely. That's a very simple way of doing it.
Another simple way of looking at that and defining it or fine-tuning it is ``any other paid counsel''.
.1240
Ms Young: We've gone over this territory, and I don't want to be tiresome, but if you were to allow immigration consultants in other areas, through licensing, and throw the ball into the provincial court.... You began your presentation by saying you think there is a role for consultants. I think the committee would be only doing its job responsibly if it were to recognize that the provinces are unlikely to do anything.
As you know, and you've reminded us, the Province of Ontario has studied this matter ad nauseam through two or three changes of government. There have been different reports, the Law Society has weighed in two or three times, and nothing has been done. It appears that nothing is likely to be done, although perhaps I just base that on the past.
Would it concern you if the ball was tossed back to the province's court and it just dropped?
Mr. Green: It would not disturb me one iota. You see, the provinces aren't concerned about this because the political fall-out on a federal immigration program in no way hurts the politicians in the provinces. They aren't embarrassed by it. It's not the Ontario justice minister who gets upset about millions of dollars being squandered in the refugee stream by immigration consultants. So I don't think it would bother me that if the provinces choose not to act, then only lawyers in those provinces could handle immigration matters. But I must say that my philosophy is that the public should be entitled to not necessarily go to lawyers, although my colleagues won't agree with that proposition.
The longer I've been practising law...I think there are many things consultants can do, in many respects as well as lawyers, and the public should have that option. They may not have the protection they get from lawyers, but if you are protecting the public and the province chooses not to become involved in it, then that's too bad for the people of the province of Ontario. They're going to be better protected by going to lawyers, if that's what happens.
Ms Young: You mention another alternative, where the federal government would act directly and implement a bonding procedure so that in cases of defalcation or improper...whatever, there would be a trigger, there would be a mechanism by which the person could presumably both pay for their misdeeds and be delisted.
The committee members, I'm sure, are as sensitive as you are to.... I wrote down that you said there was no need for a complex bureaucracy -
Mr. Green: That's right.
Ms Young: - but some questions out of that proposal immediately came to my mind. For example, you would have to have a mechanism by which the claims.... As with the Law Society, a client can't just say they've been rooked, or the fee was too high, or whatever. You have to have procedures in place and you have to have protections for people.
Mr. Green: We have those mechanisms.
Ms Young: But I'm wondering how you would.... Do you have them at the federal level for consultants?
Mr. Green: First of all, I would envisage that process by.... I think the days of issuing a licence or licensing these consultants for a minuscule fee are over. I've just given you a little sample of a $20,000 fee in an immigration process. It is a lucrative profession. The fee should be substantial to maintain someone or some group of people who would control it.
Secondly, within the immigration process you already have in place a group of individuals called adjudicators. It's a quasi-judicial function. Those adjudicators are highly trained, although not necessarily lawyers, in the immigration process. The adjudication function could be utilized. It's in place. It's across Canada.
It is efficient and intelligent to monitor and control these individuals if they overcharge, if they are going to have their licence removed. It's a very simplistic thing, and I can tell you, they're not overworked. They could be used. They would welcome that. They are now under the Immigration Refugee Board, within that bureaucracy. You have all that mechanism set up so it could be dealt with within that system.
.1245
In the Immigration Refugee Board appeals division and refugee division there are very competent lawyers, sitting members now, who are there and are already in place. I don't see that you have to create a whole new group of individuals to run this thing. It could be tacked onto the existing jurisdiction of the judicial processes you have in place.
I agree with you - we have to have some ability by which people can object to their licence being removed. But again, it could be a system not dissimilar to the rights under the Law Society Act, or what have you. It's not something that I think has to be too complex and I don't think you need extra bodies, which is really the concern of government.
They're going to tell you they're overworked. But I'm going to tell you that the incidence of qualified immigration consultants who got licensed, getting into trouble, if they passed qualifying examinations in the initial stages - you're not talking tens of thousands of people. You're talking hundreds of people, so it would not be that expensive.
I always believe in less government and less regulation. I think within the existing bureaucracy and the judicial process, there is room.
The Chairman: I'm wondering, though, how many of the abuses are not because of lack of skill but just a lack of ethics. It seems to me that a consultant who can go to Brazil and encourage people to apply for refugee status based on their being a Jehovah's Witness would not.... Presumably, they could pass an exam and get their -
Mr. Green: Yes, they could.
The Chairman: How much of that do we solve?
Mr. Green: We would stop it. If they had their licence removed, they could no longer represent clients before Immigration Canada.
I do not deny the fact that I've made a wonderful living practising immigration law.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Green: I tell you, these immigration consultants earn a very good living doing what they're doing. So I'm saying that if there is a safeguard, that they could lose their licence to do this, it would be a governing factor.
We, as lawyers, desperately protect our right to practise law by providing good service, professional ethics, etc. I think they would welcome an opportunity to get into that type of an area, to make it into a real profession.
My colleagues will probably be upset with me for saying this, but I think there is room for them, and the public must have an option.
The Chairman: Thanks very much for your testimony. I appreciate your time. Certainly, you've outlined well the seriousness of the problem. I hope we're not grossly negligent in dealing with this.
Mr. Green: I'm sure this committee won't be.
The Chairman: I don't want to be just another skip in a series.
Thank you very much for coming.
We are adjourned.