Canada’s federal government is being accused of not putting in place a compliance regime to crack down on fraudulent immigrant consultants, which it had promised to five years ago.
Last year, dozens of international students applying for a Canada PR faced the possibility of deportation when it was revealed that the acceptance letters to post-secondary institutions submitted with their study permit applications were faked by an unlicensed “ghost” immigration consultant.
Former Immigration Minister Sean Fraser granted them temporary residency permits instead.
According to The Globe and Mail, other licensed and unlicensed immigration consultants have been implicated in a jobs-for-sale scam, under which people wishing to work in Canada have been illegally charged thousands of dollars to get a job reserved for an immigrant because no Canadian could be found for that position.
As per the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), between May 1, 2019, and April 9, 2024, 153 people were charged with fraudulent immigration consultant-related offences, with most of them being Canadian citizens or Canadian permanent residents.
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Seventeen were foreign nationals, and there was one refugee.
Licensed Canadian immigration consultants in Canada have expressed their concerns about unauthorized practitioners providing unreliable advice. Some are also questioning why some consultants operating outside the country are not Canadian.
Through an omnibus budget bill, the government gave itself the authority to create penalties to deal with violations by anyone providing immigration-related advice to people.
Three weeks ago, it was revealed that no fines are being imposed as the regime in question has not been put in place yet.
The parliamentary secretary to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, Paul Chiang, said in the reply that delays in implementing the regime were partly due to the pandemic.
“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,” Senator Don Plett told The Globe and Mail.
“Five years ago, the Trudeau government claimed this was important, that it was a priority, and then nothing happened.”
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A Canada government fact sheet on this matter reads that if someone hires a consultant to represent them for immigration to Canada, they must be licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.
IRCC does not accept applications submitted by unlicensed consultants.
Unlicensed consultants are not held to the same ethical standards as members of the College, which is why using their services can have serious consequences, such as:
- The applicant losing their money by paying for a service they never received or paying for fraudulent services.
- Having the application denied, with the unlicensed consultant asking a client to apply for a program they are not eligible for.
- If an unlicensed consultant tells an applicant to lie or hide information on their application, they stand to get banned from entering Canada for 5 years
- Identity theft
- Money theft from bank account or credit card
- Threats of violence
- Exploitation
