IMMIGRATION LAWYERS COMPLAINING ABOUT IMMIGRATION CONSULTANTS!

While representing the Minister of Immigration as a Hearings officer and as a program specialist for Humanitarian and Compassionate applications I have seen good and bad Lawyers and Consultants. Prior to the regulation of Immigration Consultants Immigration Lawyers always never seemed to complain about Immigration Consultants because there was plenty of Immigration clients to go around. InLand and Overseas processing in those days were very prompt and counted in a few weeks instead of severaal months and years.

Then Immigration Lawyers started to complain to make the system more fair in their opinions. Thats when processing times started to decrease to their numbers today.

Prior to Lawyers complaining about language ability any applicant could check off they spoke English or French fluently, well, with difficulty or not at all and points would be awarded accordingly. The problem arose when an interview was called and the applicants language ability was left up to the interviewing Visa Officers opinion. To remedy what Lawyers saw as a serious problem has cost applicants hundreds of thousands of dollars by forcing language testing . Not counting the millions of dollars the British Council IELTS and other language testers has made from language testing. Lawyers wanted a more fair system and their complaints made it worse.

Overseas FSW applications always received an initial assessment from a Visa Post and then adecision would be made to land the applicant or call them for an interview. Applicants used to be able to submit a FSW application at any visa post they chose. If the applicant was called for an intrview after the initial assessment the applicant could transfer their file to the visa office closest to them so that they could easily attend an interview for just $50.00 Visa Post processing times were listed on the Immigration website so Immigration Consultants were picking the Visa Post that had the fastest initial processing times. Lawyers complained so regulation 11 stopped the shopping around for the Visa Post with the best processing times forcing applicants to submit at their assigned Visa Post location. That caused Visa Posts that had the most FSW applications to get the slowest processing times. Lawyers wanted a more fair system and their complaints made it worse.

While working at Ontario Regional Office as a H&C program specialist I was responsible for replying to Lawyers who were complaining that they felt their client was not given fair consideration in their Humantarian and Compassionate application. I found many of these Lawyers complaint regarding H&C refusals to be frivolous. One area of concern was that Humanitarian and Compassionate applications were being assessed by staff at the Removals Unit. The Manager of the Removals Office was responsible for the amount of removals they could conduct en each year. This was highlighted in the Mavis Baker decision. Decision makers like George Lorenze who claimed the only factors were Mavis Bakers four Canadian born children created the BIOC decisons but all decision makers just said refused and gave little to no details why they were refusing application after application therefore fewer H&C applications were approved.

Immigration Lawyers started complaining about Immigration Consultants the second the Federal Government decided to regulate Immigration Consultants because all of a sudden they saw them as a threat.

I started representing Immigration clients prior to the regulation of Immigration Consultants. I became a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) only because I was forced to join. I opposed CSIC from day one. To join I had to take an open book three hour exam to become a member. I completed the initial membership test in 14 minutes because I went back and rechecked my answers. I felt at that time any grade 8 student could becaome a Regulated immigration Consultant. The educational component of CSIC was hilarious but the cost was kept low. Plenty of colleges sprang up to run a six month course to become regulated. Then CSIC Executives became greedy charging their members more and more for services that did nothing to improve their members quality of service. There was no discipline other then to stop dissent.

When CSIC was replaced by ICCRC the first CEO wrote me and said the reason they do not require their members to know how to represent a client at tribunals was because they could not harm the two hundred consultancy students already enrolled in consultantcy programs. From day one ICCRC sole purpose was to get more and more members by keeping the educational component low enough that anyone could be approved. Since July of 2011 until July 2020 not one ICCRC member was required to learn how to represent a client at any immigration tribunal but the act allowed them to charge a fee for representation. Millions of Immigration Business was not made available to new members so some turned to immigration fraud to pay their bills. ICCRC has a deploarable discipline record taking on usual three or four years to resolve a complaint. All one has to do is look at ICCRC (CURRENT PROCEEDINGS) and notice the date of the complaints 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and only one 2018 complaint. NOTE not one current proceeding from 2019 or 2020!,

Immigration Lawyers have complained for yeaars about CSIC & ICCRC lack of discipline and educational component. I could not agree more with their complaints but……………..

Where was @RaviRandalJain @CBAImmigration & all the other Immigration Lawyers indignaition when @ICCRC was flying across the country getting proxy votes by telling consultants they would be out of business if they didn't sign over their rights to vote? Immigration Lawyers employing Immigration Consultants to fill in their clients forms kept silent allowing ICCRC to stuff the ballot boxes with proxy votes.

Now when the government has decided that more education is required to be an authorized representative LSO Immigration Specialist Ravi Jain complains about Queens University online course. He claims Immigration Consultants that graduate will claim that they have ‘gone to law school.’ Lack of education is a bad thing and now better education is a bad thing!

When one complains their complaint has to be logical.

The head of the Canadain Bar Association Immigration Section Ravi Jain wants the dean of Queens University to show evidence that there are problems with respect to immigrants and refugees retaining lawyers,”

Then he goes on to state “The average income of an immigration lawyer is about $75,000. People go into it out of humanitarian instinct and there's lots of pro bono work and low-bono work where there are very low fees. So, there's no evidence of an access problem. None, whatsoever.”

I can’t believe the average income of a Lawyer is $75,000.00 and that Immigration Lawyers do lots of pro bono and low-bono work because of their humanitarian instincts.

IF THAT WAS TRUE WHY ARE THERE 7,000 REGULATED CANADIAN IMMIGRATION CONSULTANTS?