The CBA’s National Immigration Law Section has for more than 20 years been telling the federal government that the people best placed to counsel new and potential immigrants are lawyers – and immigration consultants only if they are governed stringently by a regulatory body.
With the House of Commons Citizenship and Immigration Committee’s latest study of the framework surrounding immigration and refugee consultants, the Section has withdrawn its qualified support of immigration consultants. Ravi Jain, appearing before the Committee on April 3, firmly delivered the message that the only people properly placed to do that job are lawyers.
“Because the attempts to regulate immigration consultants have proved ineffective – with serious consequences for Canada’s immigration system and those who wish to apply – we believe that IRPA section 91 must now be amended to permit representation for compensation only by lawyers who are members in good standing of a law society in Canada or notaries who are members in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec,” the Section says in its submission.
The Section goes back to its 1995 submission to demonstrate that the issues surrounding immigration consultants have not changed – that submission noted “recurring problems” such as “bogus refugee claims, wrongful issuance of work visas, loss of investment by business immigrants and the increasing number of illegal immigrants.” The Section in 1995 said formally trained lawyers should be doing this work, but if immigration consultants were to be permitted, they should be required to establish a self-governing licensing body with “admission requirements, standards of competency, an insurance or compensation fund, a code of ethics, a complaint mechanism, and defined offences and penalties.”
The Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants began operating in 2004, but in a 2010 submission the CBA noted that it had been ineffective in regulating consultants and that “ghost” and other unscrupulous consultants had continued to operate.
In 2011 the CSIC was replaced by the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council, which is now facing the same kind of criticism about mismanagement and governance issues as the earlier body. In ICCRC’s first five years of operation, 1710 complaints had been made against consultants – and the Section notes that that number is likely underreported.
Would-be immigrants and refugees often lack familiarity with Canada’s official languages and legal system, and are therefore vulnerable to exploitation by consultants operating outside the ICCRC. Even consultants who operate within the Council can, through incompetence, provide bad legal advice that can end up jeopardizing an application.
“We have seen cases where consultants take fees to file work permit extensions from within Canada when applicants are well beyond the 90-day restoration period. In the most serious examples, we have seen cases where consultants have counselled clients to fabricate narratives and file false refugee claims.”
The federal government and the regulating bodies it has established are failing in their duty to protect the public from unscrupulous actors in this field Рand there continues to be a question of whether immigration consultants are capable of self-regulation, the Section says. Lawyers and Qu̩bec notaries, on the other hand, have established self-regulation, rigorous professional, educational and training standards and effective discipline and enforcement.
“Immigration law is an area where incompetent representation can have dire consequences for the lives of applicants and their families,” the submission says. “Given the persistent failure to adequately regulate immigration consultants, the CBA Section recommends restricting the representation or advice for consideration in section 91 of IRPA to lawyers who are members in good standing of a Canadian law society or notaries who are members in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec.”