Douglas Todd on the recent immigration fraud trial and verdict (while fraud and misrepresentation need to be countered, the overall number in percentage terms is small – see earlier “Protecting Canadian Citizenship” – Citizenship Fraud Update – Numbers Still Small):

[Judge] Harris could not find another Canadian immigration scam that matched “the scale of that perpetrated by Mr. Wang,” a former insurance agent and father of two who previously had no criminal record.

In determining Wang’s sentence, the judge took into account the punishments meted out in a range of earlier migration scams.

One case involved a man who imported 6,000 fake Alberta drivers’ licences. Another Ontario man filed 150 tax returns falsely claiming his clients lived in Canada, so they could obtain child-tax credits.

A woman in another case counselled au pairs on more than 100 occasions to lie to work in Canada. A B.C. woman was convicted of 16 counts of “arranging sham marriages between Chinese nationals and Canadians.” An Ontario duo arranged impostors to take English-proficiency tests for would-be immigrants with no ability in the language.

But how could Wang have pulled off a covert scheme involving more than 1,000 illicit would-be immigrants for eight years?

Barry Cartwright, senior lecturer in Simon Fraser University’s criminology department, said immigration fraud is “hard to catch. It’s expensive. It’s time consuming. And it’s resource-consuming.”

Even though Cartwright is not aware of a criminal case as extensive as Wang’s, the immigration specialist said he knows of larger questionable schemes involving loopholes in the immigration policies of Ottawa and Quebec, especially those to do with investor-class immigrants.

While Cartwright doesn’t want to take away from the value of Canada welcoming what he estimated to be the “nine out of 10” immigrants who end up contributing to the country, he said it’s difficult for officials to carefully screen applicants when “you’re bringing in almost 300,000 immigrants a year, or 25,000 refugees in two months.”

At his sentencing hearing, Wang’s lawyer argued his client’s punishment should be lenient since there was no “breach of trust.” The lawyer said the people who enlisted Wang’s services did so with “their eyes wide open.”

The judge, however, countered that Wang did not mastermind “victimless” crimes. The innocent children of his clients, he noted, could now be deported.

The judge also suggested the country’s entire immigration and taxation systems were victims of Wang’s elaborate cheating.

Wang’s subterfuge, Harris said, undermines whatever confidence Canadians have in the immigration process and is keenly relevant to “today’s age of international terrorism” and people smuggling.

In weighing Wang’s contributions to mass tax avoidance, Harris quoted Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory, who maintained the vast majority of Canadians who pay income tax by way of payroll deduction have little or no opportunity for evasion.

“Those who do evade the payment of income tax not only cheat the state of what is owing to it, but inevitably increase the burden placed upon the honest taxpayers. It is ironic that those who evade payment of taxes think nothing of availing themselves of the innumerable services which the state provides by means of taxes collected from others.”

In further justifying Wang’s seven-year sentence, Harris quoted B.C. Appeal Court Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein, who said those who facilitate illegal migrants into Canada put an “astronomical cost” on the Canadian taxpayer, “fuel racial prejudice and racial tension” and “adversely impact all aspects of Canadian society.”

Even though Wang pleaded guilty, he has launched an appeal of his jail sentence.