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

Mr. Chair:	Thank you Mr. Waldman. The first round of questions, Mr. Anandasangaree.
Anandasangaree:	Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you both for joining us and sharing your perspectives. I think one of the major challenges that we are facing apart from the regulated consultants is the issue of ghost consultants and those who are effectively operating under the radar. In Ontario, for example, the Law Society regulates those who are providing legal services, and if they're not licensed to do so, there are provisions for the Law Society to enforce against those people as there are in the medical profession as well as a dental practice.
	What can we do to address the issue of those who are not licensed and who will probably never be licensed? What kind of enforced mechanisms should be use and what is the right authorities at the CBSA or is RCMP, the right organization to do the enforcement whether it's in Canada or outside? Start with you Lorne.
Mr.  Waldman:	Well, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act prohibits anyone who isn't licensed from providing paid legal services in the immigration context, so the law already has in place provisions that would ensure that people who are acting as ghost consultants could be brought to prosecution. It's really a question of enforcement. The enforcement can be done, the ICCRC has no power to enforce so it either has to be done by the RCMP or by CBSA.
	CBSA now has a unit, I believe, that engages in prosecutions. My experience is that the type of issues that arise through those consultants, unless they are on a massive scale, are not the type that would generally be of interest to the RCMP, so I think that the ... If we're going to try and have more effective enforcement of ghost consultants, it's going to have to be done by the CBSA and I think the government is going to have to dedicate funds to that specific problem to ensure that sufficient attention is paid to prosecute people who act as ghost consultants.
Anandasangaree:	Thank you.
Mr. Chair:	Raj Sharma, very briefly.
Raj Sharma:	I think we'll never get rid of ghost consultants. There's a [million 00:16:43] reasons why. First of all, ghost consultants, I'll try to translate this from Punjabi, but basically ghost consultants suck the blood of their own and so they victimize their own communities whether that's the Chinese, Vietnamese, or Indian. There's barriers to those individuals who may be vulnerable, aged, lacking education, or other impediments, and they're not going to come forward. Because they're not going to come forward, we're just not going to have prosecution even if we had sufficient resources for prosecution which we don't.
	We apparently don't even have sufficient resources to combat marriage fraud, so we're not going to get rid of ghost consultants. What I would suggest and I'll refer to the Metro Toronto and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic brief in this matter, and again from my experience on the radio, we really need to reach out to the ethnic communities via their media, radio, et cetera and talk about this pernicious problem of ghost consultants but prevention has to be the best cure. I don't think after the fact exercises and prosecution of someone that's obviously a crook or a criminal is going to detour it.
Anandasangaree:	With respect to going forward, I know you talked about, Mr. Sharma, graduated licensing. I know Mr. Waldman spoke about competencies and what's required to maybe do paperwork, fill out sponsorship may be different from doing a [inaudible 00:18:19]. What are those boundaries and where can we look for guidance in terms of what is an appropriate level of work, duration of work, that a consultant or a paralegal could do as opposed to counsel? Start with you. We only have a few minutes.
Raj Sharma:	Sure. Thank you. I think the line in the sand that's most readily discernible to me is that UK split profession, that solicitor transactional work versus the barrister representation and advocacy. That's a fairly clear line, I think, and I think let's start there.
Anandasangaree:	Based on what Mr. Waldman is saying, there are also lawyers who may be able to practice law but who may not have the competencies, so how do you reconcile that? You're basically adding a third layer with consultants whereas the UK model is barristers and solicitors, both are members of the Bar.
Raj Sharma:	No, I'm not adding another level. I'm saying consultants as of right now do not have the core competencies to practice or advocate at the IRB, so what I would say is that the consultants should have a split profession. I believe that we've had a unified tradition in terms of the barristers and solicitors in the common law provinces of Canada and that seems to be working fine, so I'm not proposing any change to the existing regulation or framework for lawyers.
Mr.  Waldman:	I would add to that, I think that the way to approach this would be to ensure that the requirements of competency, in other words, in order to be a processing consultant, you need to meet certain minimal requirements in terms of studies, et cetera. If you want in addition to that to be a consultant who appears before the tribunal, you have to meet other standards. You have to take courses in evidence, you have to take a course in the charter, you have to take a course in legal ethics appearing before tribunals. These are things that when I looked at the Ashton College curriculum, many of those things weren't there and so I would agree that a consultant that just graduates is not qualified.
	I would think that there would have to be a practicum, and depending on if a consultant wants to practice before the Immigration and Refugee Board, he should declare that and then he should have to be required to have a practicum with either a lawyer or another consultant who is licensed to appear before the Board so as to ensure that when he goes before the Board, he's familiar with the process and the proceedings.