Beyond the well-documented issues of Vancouver’s real estate industry, I have come to realize that there is also a major ethical crisis in the immigration industry. As a society, we are turning a complete blind eye to the swarm of highly unethical, untrained, unqualified, and ultimately illegal practitioners purporting and holding out themselves to be immigration professionals.
Mainstream media and large regulatory and government institutions, eager to paint foreign investment as the blanket source of evil, have largely missed an opportunity to take a harder look at those who are taking the money from new immigrants.
The painful truth is that the who are doing so in an unethical way and providing unethical advice are the individuals and companies who happen to be Canadian registered, Canadian licensed, and Canadian incorporated. Ultimately, in the eyes of the new immigrants caught in the middle, they are also deemed to be Canadian sanctioned by virtue of being allowed to operate freely and with no oversight.
As many of these companies also operate with large international client recruitment mechanisms, these are also the “first impressions” we are providing potential immigrants to Canada – one that we cannot let stand any further if we want to maintain the high values we put in Canadian business and professional ethics..
Specifically in immigration, I would estimate that there are hundreds of individuals and practitioners providing unlicensed (i.e. not lawyers or licensed consultants) providing immigration law services without the correct qualifications.
Often times the storefront signs are not in English, the English version of the websites containing stock and photo-shopped images of nothingness, and the entire staff of employees blissfully unaware of the illegal machine they are feeding into. Often times, when things do unravel, the employees become the innocent victims treated as scapegoats by their pocket-stuffing bosses.
Potential clients are drawn by false advertisements promising 98% success rates, quick and expedient services provided in their language. They are enticed as they are then offered a spot in a “reputable” designated educational institute unaware that the ghost consultant has established a deal with said institutional to receive money from the student’s registration. The potential clients sign up eagerly as they are provided with “guaranteed jobs” with companies that operate as no more than a shell and employer of no one and do-er of nothing good for the Canadian economy. They are provided job offers and LMIAs that often sneak through the eyes of government eyes often not trained to catch the subtleties of the well-thought out scheme.
Too often, immigrants invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for businesses to purchase for immigration when they are not even eligible to qualify or even count that amount as an eligible investment.
Even more disgusting, are those immigrants that are actively coerced into getting into non-bona fide marriages for immigration purposes or even making ludicrous refugee claims on the basis of persecution they never faced. Worse enough, the client signs off on it, painfully unaware of what is even submitted in their application. When CBSA comes knocking on the door, it is the immigrant that gets removed from Canada.
Beyond just the immigration context, the treatment innocent employees face in these companies is just as egregious. Often times, they are paid illegal wages, not provided proper employment contracts, and even monitored at work to ensure nothing ever leaks. As someone who has spoken to individuals who have worked in the industry and attempted to fix cases of individuals who have been screwed over, I have seen this all. It breaks my heart each time. As a province, we have employment standards legislation for a reason and the fact that companies can operate with no knowledge of even the baseline requirements, is shocking.
As a society, what we have done by not regulating these practitioners is we have imported and sanctioned the very worst of the business practices from abroad as practices that are acceptable in Canada. Ironically, even in countries such as China, now this level of corruption and fraud at a local level is not tolerated and in fact would result in serious prison time if committed. Here it goes largely unmonitored and the penalties far too low to act as any deterrent to profit. Most investigations by regulatory bodies take far too long to conduct, if conducted at all.
There is in fact a possible solution, but one that requires internal reflection from regulatory bodies and a commitment to spending money to ensure the well-being of vulnerable immigrants are protected. Without diversity at the top of the organization or even among employees of the organization, the underground ethnic economy will always be one step ahead of the regulators that seek to punish and discourage.
For example, with respect to one of my proposed solutions, I am unaware of any proactive efforts taken by Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, Canada Border Services Agency, or any provincial law/consultant bodies to actually create a task force of diverse, multi-lingual stakeholders to investigate, or at the very least, educate businesses on what is right and what is wrong. I am also unaware of any government sponsored actions to work with government’s abroad to regulate international delivery of Canadian services.
Doing so, in my mind, requires these bodies to coordinate with each other and with the majority of business and practitioners that are doing it right to figure out a better way to address this crisis. If this type of think tank/advisory group was created, I would be the first to sign up. I believe that much in creating an immigration system that is ethical and fair above all else.
If not, these fraudulent companies can continue to get away with confidentially sending their contracts in a third language, hide the fact that an entire firm is piggy backing off one consultant’s ID number without their knowledge, and ultimately keep duping clients into spending thousands of dollars only to put their future immigration at risk.
Personally, I have been toiling with speaking out on this topic for awhile now. I really wanted to write this article in Mandarin for a local ethnic newspaper. However, each of these newspapers themselves are filled with advertisements for the very companies that are carrying on these business practices. I doubt they would want to publish this piece.
It is just my hope, that someone – be it in Government or in the Law Society of British Columbia realizes that this problem is more than just a problem taking place within an ethnic economy, but is hurting everyone.
It is hurting the immigration system. it is hurting the reputation of good, honest, and often times naturally imperfect immigrants to this country. It creates stereotypes based on race that infuses its way into the perceptions larger society. Ultimately, it hurts our commitment to abiding and living by the rule of law, where no one individual can dictate the rules of the game without the scrutiny of the populous.
It is time to shutdown the fraudulent ghost immigration consultants and stop them from ruining innocent, immigrant lives.
