Karen Gordon

CANADA REGULATES IMMIGRATION CONSULTANTS


On December 13, 2003 the Canadian government introduced legislative
amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations setting
the stage for the regulation of immigration consultants in the Canadian
immigration industry.

The new rules require fee charging representatives to be a member in good
standing by April 1, 2004, of either a provincial or territorial law
society, the Chambre des notaries du Québec or the recently created
Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC), a Canadian non-profit
self-regulating body for immigration consultants.
[....]

The governments objective in introducing these amendments is therefore
intended to protect applicants from unscrupulous representatives while
preserving the integrity of Canada's increasingly complex immigration
system.

Effective APRIL 2004, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) officials
will no longer deal with any fee-charging representative presenting new
applications who are not a member of a provincial or territorial law
society, the Chambre des notaries du Québec or who is registered with the
Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.
_____________________________

(K): Translation: If you're dealing with an 'Immigration Consultant',
you'd better be sure he's been approved to do such work by the Canadian
Immigration department.

Andrew Miller

Just a small although important correction:

It is not Citizenship and Immigration department that "approves" immigration
consultants. As you can read in the material you quoted it is Canadian
Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) that has been established by
government to regulate immigration consultants.

BTW - most participants in this forum already know about regulation of
immigration consultants since December, it is no longer a news. The matter
has been well explained many times here by contributors (including myself)
to this newsgroup.

Please visit CIC and CSIC websites to find more information.