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CIMM#115: Pension Transferability and Access to Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF), and Delays in Permanent Residence and Visas for Hong Kongers Recent Reforms to the International Student Program

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would say that's generally the case. If the work permit they obtained was originally connected to the public policy, that's correct. I don't know if that's the situation in all cases. In some cases, applicants may have had an LMIA-based work permit to begin with.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC, NDP
That's right. However, under the special immigration measure, the LMIA is not required.  I have a list of applicants in those circumstances. Their work permit renewal application was rejected. They were asked to submit an LMIA, which makes no sense. I want to flag that as a deep concern now emerging for people whose open work permits are being rejected as they wait for their permanent resident status. At this rate, given the immigration levels plan numbers and the processing delays happening, and with the number of applicants in place, you can imagine that it's going to take something like eight years to get through the backlog of people getting their PR status. This means that if they are trying to get their pension, they will not be able to do so for eight years, because they are required to provide proof of permanent residence.
I want to flag this as a major concern. I hope the department will take action to fix the error being applied to applicants whose open work permits are being rejected under this stream.  Can I get a confirmation from officials that this will be undertaken?

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, that issue has been raised with the department already, and we're looking into it to see what exactly happened in those situations.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC, NDP
Okay. Officials are aware of it, and yet it's still happening.  I have cases coming to me that are happening. I'm about to prepare a giant pile of this stuff for the minister, so I hope the officials will fix that.  The other thing related to the pension, of course, is lengthy delays for people to get their permanent status.  Based on the immigration levels plan and the number of applicants in place, is it the officials' anticipation that it will take about eight years to get those applications processed?

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We have looked at that possibility. Certainly, it will take longer than we had previously indicated to the committee. I would note that the first year of the levels plan is the fixed year. The years that follow, in this case, 2026 and 2027, are flexible. There are opportunities to adjust those numbers in the future, and that could affect that timeline. It's hard to say whether eight years will be the timeline, but it will be longer than had been originally predicted because the numbers have gone down.

Globe NEWS: More than 10,000 foreign student acceptance letters may be fake, says top immigration official

Enhanced checks by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada have found scores of would-be foreign students who said they had a genuine place to study may have been attaching a fraudulent acceptance letter to their application to get into Canada.

The tighter checks were introduced after a group of international students applying for permanent residence last year faced deportation because an unlicensed immigration consultant in India had submitted fake acceptance letters with their applications for study permits.

Bronwyn May, director-general of the International Students Branch at the Immigration Department, told MPs last week that since IRCC started verifying acceptance letters from colleges and universities in the past year, officials have “intercepted more than 10,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance.”

She said 93 per cent of the 500,000 acceptance letters attached to study permit applications the department checked in the past 10 months had been verified as genuine by a college or university.

But 2 per cent were not authentic, 1 per cent of applicants had had their place cancelled by a college or university, while in other cases, colleges and universities failed to respond to say whether the letters offering applicants a place to study were genuine.

She told the Commons immigration committee that the IRCC was making further inquiries into the source of the fraudulent letters.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said “the revelation that the government recently uncovered 10,000 fake admissions letter is extremely alarming.”

“It’s unconscionable that the Liberals allowed unscrupulous actors to exploit and abuse international students for so long,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “Not only does the government need to identify who those actors are, they need to also identify the institutions that may be collaborating in any fraud schemes.

“It is important to not just protect the integrity of the program, Canada also has a responsibility to ensure that international students in Canada that have been defrauded are protected.”

Ottawa launched a probe into 2,000 suspicious cases involving students from India, China and Vietnam last year. It found that around 1,485 had been issued bogus documents to come to Canada by immigration consultants abroad.

Many were refused entry to Canada after their letters of acceptance from colleges were found to be fake, but others had already arrived.

Since December last year, colleges and universities have been required by IRCC to verify letters of acceptance through an online portal. On Jan. 30 this year, the measure was extended to study permit applications and extensions submitted from within Canada.

CIMM#114: Recent Reforms to the International Student Program

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
Aside from looking at patterns of potential violators—the groups and organizations taking advantage of students with these fraudulent letters of acceptance—will you be including in the analysis what types of institutions are being utilized for these fraudulent letters? In other words, is it private institutions versus public institutions, colleges versus universities and so on? Will that be part of the analysis?

Bronwyn MayDirector General, International Students Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's not always the case that a letter originates from an institution. We would need to look at various possible sources.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
Maybe I can reframe that.
Obviously, as these are fraudulent letters of acceptance, they wouldn't be issued by the institutions. However, regarding the list of institutions being used for the purpose of these fraudulent letters, I would be interested in obtaining information to determine what percentage are private institutions and public institutions, how many of them are colleges, how many of them are universities and so on. That will tell us very specific information that I think is important when trying to tackle fraudulent activities.

Bronwyn May, Director General, International Students Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I completely agree. That's a very important line of analysis.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
I will make the further request to make sure you share this information with the committee. I'll argue that this information should not be kept secret. It should be public and transparent—shared with all Canadians—so that we're aware of what the landscape is and of how international students are being taken advantage of. With respect to that analysis, will there be information and data on what countries are being targeted?

Click to read the full discussion from the Committee meeting

CIMM#93: Closed Work Permits and Temporary Foreign Workers and Briefing on Recent Changes to International Student Policy and Plans for Future Measures

On the question around student housing, I absolutely think that it is essential for institutions and provinces do their part and I think that the federal government should show leadership and perhaps initiate a program wherein the federal government contributes a third of the funding, institutions provide a third of the funding, and the provinces and territories provide a third of the funding towards the creation of student housing, both for international students and domestic students. That way you can have a robust plan to address the housing needs of the students.

I'm going to park that for a minute and quickly get into the students who were subject to fraud. We have a situation in which students have now been cleared and found to be genuine by the task force, but they have not gotten their passports back yet. I don't know what the holdup is, and I wonder if the minister can comment on that.

Second, there are students who are still waiting to be evaluated by the task force, and the task force work can't proceed because they might be waiting for a date for the IRB to assess the question on their permit on whether or not it was genuine or whether or not there was misrepresentation. They are consequently in a situation in which people are just chasing their tails and they can't get to the task force.

On that question, will the minister agree that instead of making people go through that process with the IRB, the task force evaluation can move forward first so that they can be found to be either a genuine student or not a genuine student?

 

CIMM#91: Government's Response to the Final Report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan and Committee Business

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the committee members for supporting the last motion.

I have another motion that I'd like to move at this point. Notice has been given for it. It reads as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and relevant officials together for two hours, or invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship with relevant officials for two hours, and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities to appear separately with relevant officials for one hour to update the committee on:

(a) the work of the task force addressing the exploitation scheme targeting international students as many students are still reporting that they are in limbo and have not heard back from officials about their status;

(b) the measures taken by IRCC and institutions to help prevent and protect international students from fraud schemes;

(c) the justification to increase the financial requirements for international students by more than 100% to $20,635;

(d) the justification for putting a cap on international study permits; and

(e) the plans to address the housing crisis for international students and efforts made to collaborate with provinces, territories and post-secondary institutions.

I think the motion is self-explanatory on all elements, and I think we would benefit from having the two ministers appear before our committee. We've also deliberated this issue at length at another meeting, so in the interest of time, I won't revisit all of those points.

I hope committee members will support this motion.

 

City News: Canada asked to speed up review of international students defrauded by recruiters

NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who is the critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and who represents the riding of Vancouver East, says she’s heard of dozens of students who are still waiting to for their cases to be reviewed.

“Through the work of the task force, officials confirmed 285 students were impacted by scammers. To date, less than half of the cases have been reviewed leaving many students in limbo. This is unacceptable and the Liberals must act to fix this,” she said on Oct. 27.

While she applauded the federal action, Kwan says this situation likely could have been avoided.

Indo Canadian Voice: NDP MP Kwan Slams Government For Not Having Acted Sooner To Fix International Student Program

FEDERAL NDP Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Jenny Kwan, reacting to changes to the International Student Program announced by Marc Miller, federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, on Friday, said: “At long last, the government is finally doing what they should have been doing all along – work collaboratively with Designated Learning Institutions to verify the authenticity of acceptance letters for international students. If the Liberals acted sooner, it would have prevented the fraud scam by bad actors impacting hundreds of students from India earlier this year.”

She noted: “Through the work of the task force, officials confirmed 285 students were impacted by scammers. To date, less than half of the cases have been reviewed leaving many students in limbo. This is unacceptable and the Liberals must act to fix this.”


Voice: CBSA: Criminal charges against Brijesh Mishra for fake admission letters to Indian students

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on Friday announced that charges have been laid against Brijesh Mishra, a citizen of India, for immigration-related offences.

He has been accused of providing fake college admission letters to hundreds of students from the Indian state of Punjab to enter Canada. The letters were found to be fake only last year when students, who were unaware that they had been duped, started applying for permanent residency.

Following information provided to the CBSA concerning Mishra’s status in Canada, as well his alleged involvement in activities related to counseling misrepresentation, CBSA launched an investigation.
Mishra tried to enter Canada and was found to be inadmissible by the CBSA. He was arrested and remained in custody until he was charged.

CIMM#72: Exploitation scheme targeting certain international students

"Madam Chair, at this juncture I'd like to raise an issue as a question of privilege. As you will recall, I flagged the issue and discrepancy around the press release. It's very upsetting to me that this has occurred. I note that you have since sent an email to all committee members with your explanation. However, your explanation, frankly, does not resolve the issue, in my view.


Just by way of background, on June 5, I moved the following motion:

That, following news reports that international students admitted into Canada with valid study permits were issued fraudulent college acceptance letters by immigration consultants, and are now facing deportation, the committee issue a news release to condemn the actions of these fraudulent ‘ghost consultants’ and call on the Canada Border Services Agency to immediately stay pending deportations of affected international students, waive inadmissibility on the basis of misrepresentation and provide an alternate pathway to permanent status...or a broad regularization program.

That motion was subsequently amended by MP Sukh Dhaliwal to add the following: “that the committee invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship for one hour, the Minister of Public Safety for one hour, and department officials for one hour each to provide a briefing on the situation, for a total of four hours.” That amendment was passed unanimously.

Following that debate, a Conservative member, MP Brad Redekopp, moved an amendment to change the language of my motion from “provide an alternate pathway to permanent status for those impacted” to “provide a path to reapply for permanent residency for those impacted”. I objected to that proposed amendment. After some debate with the committee, that amendment was called to a recorded vote and it was defeated. There was some other ongoing discussion, but ultimately the motion that was finally passed unanimously incorporated my wording of the motion along with the amendment proposed by MP Dhaliwal. I won't belabour the point in terms of what that language is. I already put that on the record.

Then on June 14, one week following the adoption of that motion, committee members received a copy of the press release from the clerk. To my dismay, the release did not reflect the language of the motion passed. In fact, it misconstrued the motion that was passed. It contained information that was not part of the motion. Namely, it indicated that the committee will begin a study on the issue.

Moreover—and more critically, from my perspective—it omitted critical language, that being the call for the government to waive inadmissibility based on misrepresentation and to provide an alternate pathway to permanent residency to the international students. That language was not incorporated. There were clearly editorial measures taken with the drafting of that press release.

Madam Chair, after I raised that with you, as indicated, you sent committee members an email on June 19. We received your email, and your explanation is as follows:

The text was drafted with the intention of providing a coherent, accurate, and faithful news release based on the information available at the time and the motion adopted by the committee on June 7. As Chair, I approved this draft and instructed staff to publish it.

Then you went on to say, “It is regrettable that all members of the committee were not satisfied with the final form of the news release.”

What's clear, Madam Chair, is that you directed this press release to be issued and the press release does not reflect the direction from the committee. It omitted, as I indicated, critical information. It editorialized other information that you perceived to be valid for the press release.

To that end, I believe that all committee members' privilege has been violated. In the past, press releases have been issued. For example, I cite when my good colleague sitting next to me, MP Brunelle-Duceppe, moved a motion related to the Uyghurs. That motion and the intent of it were entirely reflected in the press release. It did not have editorialized language in it, as we do in this instance. The press release did not omit critical information, as we are seeing in this instance. That is to say that I believe a violation of privilege has occurred, and I am therefore seeking a remedy.

On the committee chair's role, the online “Privileges and Immunities” chapter states:

Unlike the Speaker, the Chair of a committee does not have the power to censure disorder or decide questions of privilege. Should a Member wish to raise a question of privilege in committee, or should some event occur in committee which appears to be a breach of privilege or contempt, the Chair of the committee will recognize the Member and hear the question of privilege, or, in the case of some incident, suggest that the committee deal with the matter.

It goes on to say:

The Chair, however, has no authority to rule that a breach of privilege or contempt has occurred. The role of the Chair in such instances is to determine whether the matter raised does in fact touch on privilege and is not a point of order, a grievance or a matter of debate. If the Chair is of the opinion that the Member’s interjection deals with a point of order, a grievance or a matter of debate, or that the incident is within the powers of the committee to deal with, the Chair will rule accordingly giving reasons. The committee cannot then consider the matter further as a question of privilege. Should a Member disagree with the Chair’s decision, the Member can appeal the decision to the committee.... The committee may sustain or overturn the Chair’s decision.

Madam Chair, I do believe—and I'm so sad to say this—that committee members' privilege has been violated. This is not something I enjoy doing today, but I am very upset about it. We debated the issue. I trusted that the process would follow suit, but the end result shows something different.

I have a motion ready and written out in both French and English, Madam Chair, if you find this was indeed a breach of privilege.”

Are you ready to take action?

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