Community members gather to support over 700 students who were duped by "ghost" immigration consultants in a protest in Mississauga, Ont. on June 14, 2023.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
The federal government has come under fire for failing to bring in measures it promised five years ago to crack down on unethical and fraudulent immigration consultants, with the Conservatives demanding to know why a compliance regime is not yet in force.
Last year, a group of international students applying for permanent residence faced deportation after it emerged that an unlicensed “ghost” immigration consultant operating out of India had submitted fake acceptance letters to colleges with their applications for study permits.
Other licensed and unlicensed immigration consultants have been implicated in a jobs-for-sale scam, in which people hoping to work in Canada have been illegally charged thousands of dollars to obtain a job reserved for an immigrant because no Canadian could be found for the position.
The Canada Border Services Agency said that between May 1, 2019, and April 9, 2024, 153 individuals were charged with fraudulent immigration consultant-related offences. The vast majority of them were Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and 17 were foreign nationals – one a refugee.
In a statement, CBSA spokeswoman Jacqueline Roby said people who violate Canada’s immigration laws face criminal charges, court fines, probation or imprisonment. She said investigations largely target the organizers of fraud schemes.
They include scams such as asking for unreasonable fees with the promise of a job offer in Canada, only to see the victim arrive and find no job waiting for them. Some illicit consultants work in collaboration with people trying to come to Canada and knowingly submit fraudulent or misleading applications, Ms. Roby said.
Licensed immigration consultants operating in Canada have expressed concerns about unauthorized practitioners providing unreliable advice. Some have also raised questions about consultants operating outside Canada who are not Canadian.
Earl Blaney, a licensed immigration consultant from London, Ont., said “mass volumes of immigration applications are submitted overseas by unauthorized immigration representatives,” adding that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is well aware of the situation.
In 2019, through an omnibus budget bill, the government gave itself the authority to create a regime of penalties, including fines, to deal with violations by anyone providing advice to people making immigration and citizenship applications.
IRCC, in a parliamentary reply three weeks ago to Senator Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the Senate, said the department had not yet imposed any fines on consultants because “the compliance regime for immigration and citizenship consultants is not yet in force” and “the regulatory authorities to do so do not yet exist.”
Paul Chiang, the parliamentary secretary to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, said in the reply that there had been delays in implementing the regime, partly owing to the pandemic.
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The department is currently working with the Department of Justice to draft the regulations, and the regime is expected to be in place between this fall and the winter of 2025, he said.
Mr. Plett accused the government of “incompetence” and said he plans to raise the delay in the Senate next week.
“As part of its omnibus budget bill in 2019, the Trudeau government included a new authority for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to impose monetary penalties against fraudulent immigration consultants. And here we are five years later, and the program is still not yet in force, and as a matter of fact the regulatory authorities do not yet exist,” he told The Globe and Mail. “Five years ago, the Trudeau government claimed this was important, that it was a priority, and then nothing happened.”
Bahoz Dara Aziz, a spokeswoman for Mr. Miller, said the integrity of Canada’s immigration system has been a top priority for the minister since his appointment to the role last year.
“We are taking steps to address immigration fraud and cracking down on dishonest consultants who seek to abuse our system and take advantage of those seeking to come to Canada,” she said. “We opened the College of Immigration Consultants as the official regulator of consultants with a mandate to protect the public from those who seek to take advantage of newcomers. The college has the power and tools to investigate professional misconduct and to discipline its licensees, and its code of conduct holds consultants to high ethical and professional standards.”
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The college oversees the 11,749 licensed immigration consultants in Canada, as well as 231 working outside the country.
Between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, it dealt with 755 complaints about consultants, 22 of whom faced disciplinary action. Twenty faced suspension, interim suspension or revocation of their licences.
Earlier this year the college revoked the licence of Manitoba immigration consultant Harar Singh Sohi for job selling and other misconduct. Under provincial law, it is illegal to collect a fee for finding a job for a foreign worker.
Stef Lach, spokesperson for the college, said it has been raising public awareness about unlicensed consultants who provide immigration advice for a fee. Its social media campaign has run in Canada and in India, China and Nigeria in local languages.
“Regulating licensees through compliance with standards of practice and meeting competency requirements is critical to the protection of the public. This is accomplished through the code of professional conduct and the college’s complaint investigation process,” he said.
He added that licensed immigration consultants do not have to be resident in Canada or Canadian citizens; court decisions involving professional regulators have consistently struck down citizenship requirements imposed on licensees.
But Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said consultants “practising outside the country cannot be reasonably monitored by their college,” which is a problem.