Telephone hotline aims to help weed out dishonest consultants

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• Historic Fort York David Spittal courtesy murmur.com
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Third-year U of T law student Joel Hechter has had enough of unscrupulous immigration consultants taking their vulnerable clients for an expensive ride.

Last summer while working for Downtown Legal Services, the community legal clinic for U of T's Faculty of Law, Hechter saw first hand the extreme breaches of trust that some of his clients experienced with the so-called immigration specialists they'd hired to help them navigate Canada's confusing system.

"We have had a number of clients who have been very badly mistreated by consultants. It's such a vulnerable situation because when people are defrauded they're afraid to go to the police," said Hilary Evans Cameron, the clinic's staff lawyer at its refugee and immigration division.

"It's a big issue, especially in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It really is a national problem."

The straw that broke the camel's back happened when Hechter, an Annex resident, represented a hard-working client who had been cheated out of $1,800 by a consultant.

The client told Hechter that her adviser had promised to fill out permanent residency forms. Two years later, she received a removal order letter in the mail, meaning that the consultant both lied to her and ripped her off.

"A lot of clients are uninformed and are unaware of the legalities and regulators. People also tend to not seek out good representation for immigration matters," Hechter said.

"I took this on personally because I was appalled that the (immigration) representative didn't do anything."

Determined to do something concrete, Hechter took his concerns about the ineffectiveness of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC)- the independent regulator for immigration consultants - to the federal government's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

The committee undertook a second study on the topic this past April. The first one happened in 1995 but complaints persisted.

"They're unaccountable. They don't have any teeth," he said, adding that the regulatory body has no official empowering statute or enforcement ability.

David Folkerson, a communications officer with the CSIC, explained in an e-mail that the society currently has 1,325 registered members in good standing but admitted it has no way of knowing with certainty how many unauthorized agents are currently operating in Canada or abroad.

To become a CSIC member, Folkerson said applicants must be graduates of an accredited immigration practitioner program, must successfully complete a pre-admission course given by the society, must pass a language proficiency test and must provide proof of good character.

To sustain membership, consultants must also acquire continuing professional development points by attending accredited events or by purchasing educational materials by accredited providers.

Immigration consultants must be CSIC members, members of a Canadian law society or part of the Chambre des Notaires du Quebec to legally represent clients before Citizenship and Immigration Canada or the Canadian Border Service Agency.

The society also has a code of conduct for all of its members and has a complaints process with a hearings tribunal.

Further, a detailed parliamentary committee report on regulating immigration consultants was released this past June.

A new organization called SCREWED, which stands for Survivors of Consultant-related Errors and Wilful Exploitative Dishonesty, has also been formed.

They've even set up a Bad Consultant Hotline that victims can call to share their stories of swindling.

Launched Sept. 22, the hotline is run four days a week by law students from the University of Toronto's legal aid clinic and can be reached by calling 416-978-6447.

"We're giving people a voice. They don't have a lot of ways of communicating their issues," he said, explaining that detailed reports of people's real-life allegations will be created and forwarded to the government.

"It'll make a difference when this is before parliament again."