Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants

Perennial issue and debate:

Immigration Minister Lena Diab is preparing to crack down on unscrupulous immigration consultants, drawing up new regulations that would give the industry regulator more powers, such as forcing them to compensate migrants they have defrauded. 

The move follows a number of inquiries into the improper conduct of consultants, including one involving an elaborate job-selling scheme targeting migrants.

The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants earlier this year cancelled the licence of Hossein Amirahmadi, a consultant the college found to have orchestrated job selling, faked payroll documents and fraudulently obtained work permits. 

It ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine by October, as well as $49,000 in costs incurred by the college. It also instructed him to reimburse clients a total of $32,000 in fees. 

But the college, which regulates licensed immigration consultants, lacks the power, without going to court, to collect the funds or force him to pay. 

Draft regulations drawn up by the Immigration Department last year would allow the college to impose fines of $50,000 per infringement of the act establishing the college. They would also give it the power to establish a compensation fund for migrants exploited by its members. 

But the proposed regulations, drawn up before Ms. Diab took on her new cabinet role, have been shelved for months. Ms. Diab’s spokesperson, Isabelle Buchanan, said the minister is preparing new regulations. 

…But lawyer James Yousif, a one-time policy director for former immigration minister Jason Kenney, said it is “time to accept that Canada’s experiment with a separate immigration consulting profession has failed.”

“We should return to a model in which only lawyers are permitted to represent clients under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” he said. “The legal profession in Canada is much better governed, with stronger accountability and disciplinary mechanisms.”

Source: Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants