Fifth Round of Questions at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Chair:	Thank you Mr. Sharma. Perhaps you could continue that later. Mr. Saroya, you have five minutes please.
Mr. Saroya:	Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you both, Raj and Lorne. The two fine lawyers are here but we are talking [inaudible 00:45:25] consultants. I agree with the both of you, what you have said so far. The real issue is previous terms of the government, they're trying to fix the issue. They're [inaudible 00:45:39] the problem still exists. We hear it every single day. Most of the [MP's 00:45:47] have at least two members looking for answers on a daily basis. I think the problem is we have consultants, they have the sub-consultant, then they have the ghost consultants and each sitting back in India, back in Pakistan, and Hong Kong and China.
	I even heard from somebody that said consultant number so and so is looking to hire some people back home who can find some cases. Then he will go back twice a year, three times a year when he can fix the fix. The crookedness has gone so far, I don't think ICCRC have the courage to fix it. It hasn't worked, it won't work, is my personal opinion. Is there any other way these consultants could work under the lawyers if there is a complaint against a lawyer? As Mr. Sharma said, they're ashamed, they're scared, they are afraid to lose their living, their licenses, but there is nothing happens here.
	ICCRC, I asked them a question a few months back. They said it was 300 complaints in one year. It's just hard to buy this sort of argument from ICCRC, that there was only 300 complaints in the entire year, and God knows how many complaints we get on a daily basis. My question is, what can we done, how can we fix it? Either they can work with the lawyers or they should be a separate body, absolutely separate body and the government, they should operate it, not self-regulated-
Mr.  Waldman:	Perhaps I could answer. I think that there are two options that the government can ... There are only two really. I can sense a huge dissatisfaction about ICCRC and its ineffectiveness in terms of properly policing the consultant profession. Option number one is to change the model and to do a model that is not self-regulating. Option number two would be, I think, to leave the model but to include in the regulations enforcement powers that CIC or CBSA could engage in independently of the ICCRC. What I'm suggesting is that you could put into the regulations the power to audit, the power to discipline, the power to suspend, and allow CIC to do that in circumstances where ICCRC does not.
	That's a simpler solution than changing the model completely and going to some other form of regulatory model. That might alleviate some of the concerns, allowing bills to be taxed through the regular legal process that's available to lawyers, and that's something that needs to be considered because as you've said, there's a huge abuse in that area.
Raj Sharma:	You may wish to consider amending Section 91. Basically we're here because Mangat v. Law Society of British Columbia. That turned out to be a paramountcy issue. That's why doing federal legal work like immigration is allowed in the first place. If you eliminate that but allow the consultants to perhaps register with their Provincial Law Societies, and then the Provincial Law Societies might be able to take jurisdiction over them just like the Law Society of upper Canada has taken jurisdiction over paralegal, so that might be the other option. I see where you're going, sir, so it might be the option is to force consultants to go through the Provincial Law Societies.
Mr. Chair:	Thirty seconds.
Mr. Saroya:	How expensive the system would be if we put all these consultant under CIC in this, Mr. Waldman? Is this very expensive to set this thing up or it's not too bad?
Mr.  Waldman:	I think there'd be some upfront expense for sure. Then there would be an ongoing expense of administering the consultants. I think it would run into the millions of dollars, I would think. It wouldn't be just a few hundred thousand dollars to run it because there's a large number of consultants that would have to be supervised and yo would have to set up a structure to supervise them.