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In 2002, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada created an Advisory Committee to identify the various problems within the immigration consulting industry. The committee’s job was to report back and propose recommendations on how to regulate and improve the industry. The need for regulation stemmed from a number of factors. For many years, there were no set standards for the levels of education, the quality of services, or the professional accountability necessary to offer one’s services as an immigration consultant. This lead to confusion among the immigrant and refugee communities. For example, many did not understand the differences between a lawyer, an immigration consultant and a non-governmental organization and were unfamiliar with Canada’s official languages and immigration laws. Even the filling out of forms was an intimidating task. The committee found that some consultants were indeed unscrupulous, holding themselves out as experts on the subject of immigration despite the fact that they had little or no training or experience. There was also a concern that this was just the tip of the iceberg – because many victims were either afraid to complain or resided outside of Canada. As well, there was no formal complaints process established to deal with those consultants who abused the trust of their clients and therefore tarnished the industry as a whole. These findings, coupled with the Committee’s recommendations, eventually resulted in the creation of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) – an independent and self-regulating body for immigration consultants who are members and who charge a fee for their services. The CSIC is now working to finalize the rules of conduct for members. As part of the proposed
April 2004 amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations,
all practicing immigration consultants in Canada will need to be members in
good standing with either the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, a
provincial or territorial bar association or the Chambre des notaires du
Québec in order to participate in new matters before Citizenship and
Immigration Canada (CIC), the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and the
Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). After April 2004, these three
government agencies will only conduct business on new matters with immigration
consultants who are members in good standing of one of the three groups
mentioned above. |
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