Dirty Politics in the Regulation of Immigration Consultants

Mark Davidson from Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) sat on CSIC's board in the beginning. He left the board, and CSIC no longer had any government officials on their board. Yet when the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) went after CSIC, CIC was on the same side as CSIC at Federal Court. Ultimately, CSIC and CIC won the case in a decision that was issued in July 2008; the LSUC's application to the Supreme Court for Leave to Appeal was dismissed in December 2008. The Federal Court of Appeal decision confirmed that CSIC was sufficiently independent from the government so that the sub-delegation of authority to CSIC was not a threat to solicitor-client privilege. Thus, CSIC was deemed to be the proper body to regulate immigration consultants, and one wonders if Mark Davidson had still been on CSIC's board if the court would still perceive CSIC as independent from the government.

IP9, CIC's operational manual gets introduced in the meantime, authorizing anyone to complete immigration work prior to the submission of the application. So, CIC is supporting CSIC's authority to regulate authorized immigration consultants; yet at the same time, they are stating explicitly that it is ok for anyone to charge a fee for work that is completed prior to the submission of an application. CIC is undercutting CSIC's authority, and openly supporting ghost consultants allowing them to operate outside of CSIC's jurisdiction! At the same time, the Standing Committee in June 2008 is telling the government they need to impose sanctions against ghost consultants to protect the public.

CIC's support for ghost consultants in IP9 is thus completely contradictory to their standing with CSIC before the Federal Court, and the recommendations of the Standing Committee! Now, after endorsing ghost consultants through IP9, and supporting CSIC right up to at least July 2008 when the Federal Court decision was issued, CIC now turns against those who do pre-submission work as per IP9, and CSIC, whose real problem according to the Standing Committee report, was the fact that CSIC was never given the tools needed to succeed.

ICCRC's only proposals thus far are to get rid of CSIC, transparency to Members (nothing about regulating their Members) and going after the ghost consultants rather than regulating their own Members. Has ICCRC made some secret deal with CIC to clean up and hide the mess that was created by CIC policies up to June 2010? Is CIC's support for ICCRC self-interested, hoping to scapegoat CSIC to divert everyone's attention from the mess they have created; an immigration system plagued by fraudulent job offers and marriages of convenience facilitated by IP9s endorsement of ghost consultants?