Senator Rose-May Poirier

Senator Poirier: Can you give me an idea on the timeline for how long it is going to take for Division 15 to be fully implemented?

Mr. Hussen: I’ll let my officials take that.

Senator Poirier: I can come back and save my time for the minister.

Section 3 of Division 15 of the bill provides that the Governor-in-Council may designate any federal minister to be the minister responsible for the CICCA. Why has your government decided not to designate a federal minister to be responsible?

Mr. Hussen: My understanding is that the Minister of Immigration would be the default minister responsible for writing the code of conduct, establishing the statutory regime and appointing the public interest directors to the board of the new college.

Does that answer your question?

Senator Poirier: In part. I’m looking for clarity when it comes to the transition. I also asked this question yesterday to the witnesses. The bill contains two scenarios, either that it would be to continue as a college or discontinue it completely and have a standalone college. Why would the bill not be clear and just have the ICRC incorporate the modification? Wouldn’t that be more cost and time efficient?

Mr. Hussen: It is and that’s our default position. It’s the first position to try out and see how we can transition the current body to the new college.

But we also have to plan for the worst. If that’s not possible and that doesn’t work out based on the standards that we expect the new college to have, then we’ll list them, either through this body or through a brand new establishment. What we need is to have a college of immigration and citizenship consultants that will have very high ethical and professional standards. If the current body can be transitioned to that new college and that new landscape, so be it. If not, we will have to do it another way.

Senator Poirier: Okay.

To follow up on Senator Forest-Niesing’s question, yesterday the lawyer we had as a witness said that sometimes the lawyer’s fee, because they do pro bono, is not any higher than consulting fees. If I understand correctly, there is a fee with the consultants?

Mr. Hussen: Yes.

Senator Poirier: That’s right. Is it comparable? Will the fee be set by each individual consultant? Or is the fee a set standard that they must follow, like doctors have a set fee they must charge?

Mr. Hussen: There will be a fee schedule. It’s confusing because, when you talk about consultants, who are you talking about? Are you talking about the legitimate consultants or the unauthorized?

In my experience, at least, it is the unauthorized folks who charge so much and don’t actually do the work they are supposed to do and don’t even file the application in most cases.

We are going after those folks in two ways. We are giving the college the power to go after them, but we will also resource CBSA and double the criminal fines and introduce monetary penalties that are outside of criminal behaviour. We are sensitizing and educating and raising awareness about the importance of using legitimate consultants.

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Senator Poirier: Just to get back to the little question I asked before: What’s your time frame for the full implication of Division 15?

Ms. Stephenson: As Senator Deacon mentioned, this is a long-term process. In terms of how this would roll out, provided that the bill is approved, the Royal Assent would be received sometime by the end of June or so. What happens at this stage is the two things that would come into force is the doubling of the penalties and the green light for the government to start working on the new administrative, monetary and consequences regime.

Because of the current timing and the election coming, after the election, the Governor-in-Council will provide the green light to the regulator to hold the vote. The vote is necessary to be able to have the regulator come out of the not-for-profit act. So this is something that Canada’s not-for-profit act requires; that a two-third majority of members vote in order to continue into the new college.

The bill provides, the coming into force, the green light for the current regulator to hold the vote and to come back to the minister with the decision. During these six months, the regulator will have time to hold the vote and start setting themselves up to start functioning properly.

The six months could be longer, or it could be shorter. It depends on how quickly things fall into place.

At the point when the regulator comes back to the minister to advise on the date, the minister sets the date of continuance. At this point the full bill comes into force, so the college becomes the college; that is the official regulator of the immigration and citizenship consultants. The new transitional board is started at this point and comes into force as well, which is up to a majority of public interest directors, which are ministerial appointees.

During the six months when the regulator is working on putting processes in place, the government will be working very hard to ensure that we work on the ministerial appointment process, that we help the minister with choosing the right people, the right experts, who would be sitting on the board, so that on day one, when the college comes into full practice, the board is in place and the college can start functioning.

Another thing that we will be working on together with the regulator during the six-month-or-so period is putting regulations in place. Regulations that are set and identified in the bill to ensure that there is a proper structure that will then, in turn, dictate how the bylaws are set up.

Senator Poirier: Following that, we’re already looking at six months, possibly more. But then you have that training after the bachelor’s degree, which is a 12-month training that the consultants need. Before the consultants are out there and actually working in the field with the qualifications they need under the new system, we’re looking at two years over or close to it?

Ms. Stephenson: Potentially. The postgraduate degree will start in 2021. Everything will be set up. The contract was just signed. In the meanwhile, the current regulator had started on working on increasing the continuing education requirements for the current consultants, including the higher level of language that will be required in both English and French. The continuing education will continue during this whole process. But yes, you are absolutely right that it will take some time for people who will want to enter as new members, new licensees, into the profession to go through the 12-month post-graduate degree.

Senator Poirier: Thank you.