We previously reported that Steve Ellis, a former Immigration and Refugee Board Judge, had been accused of offering a favorable refugee adjudication in exchange for sex. The National Post reported on April 21, 2010, that Mr. Ellis has been found guilty of one count of breach of trust under the Canadian Criminal Code and of illegally seeking a benefit contrary to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Thea Herman concluded that it was clear that Ellis was seeking to trade sex for a positive ruling when he met with Ji Hye Kim at a Toronto coffee shop in September 2006. “We can do things together on the side,” is a “euphemism” for a sexual relationship, said Judge Herman as she read out her verdict ruling. “This was not a conversation between two equals,” said the judge, who observed that the actions of Ellis were a “marked departure” from what is expected of an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator.

“Mr. Ellis owed a responsibility to the public and the refugee claimants who came before him,” said Judge Herman. “He literally held Ms. Kim’s life in his hands as he leafed through her file. He was trying to use his considerable power for his benefit,” she added.

The central piece of evidence at the trial was an audio and video recording of the meeting, made by Ms. Kim and her boyfriend (now husband) Brad Tripp. The recording was played in court during the trial and showed Ellis talking about how he wanted to help Ms. Kim, even though refugee claimants from South Korea are rarely successful.

The idea to record the September 2006 meeting was that of Mr. Tripp, who was concerned when Ellis visited the restaurant where Ms. Kim worked on two occasions, after her refugee hearing. “We had no idea what was going to happen. Otherwise it would just have been Ji Hye’s word against his,” said Mr. Tripp outside court.

Ellis remains free on bail pending his sentencing hearing on June 4. He declined comment. His lawyer John Rosen said he was “disappointed” with the verdict and “one of the options” is an appeal.

Ms. Kim was accused by Mr. Rosen during the trial of being willing “to do anything” to get her status as a legal immigrant in Canada, which she adamantly denied. He noted that the couple approached the media with the recording of the meeting, before speaking to police. Mr. Rosen also unsuccessfully argued that his client was not explicitly asking for a sexual relationship in exchange for a positive refugee ruling.

Mr. Ellis was appointed to the Immigration and Refugee Board as an adjudicator in 2000. He was dismissed in 2006 after the allegations by Ms. Kim were made public.

The full National Post article appears here.

On April 9, 2010, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced that the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City has established a special visa application program for Mexican business travellers. “Canada welcomes travellers from Mexico and has been looking at ways to provide enhanced services to applicants. The Business Express Program is another example of our commitment to making service improvements where we can,” said Minister Kenney.

The new Business Express Program was created to provide qualified businesses and their employees with a number of service advantages, including less paperwork, priority processing of visa applications, and a dedicated service to respond to the needs of those within the program. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”) is working closely with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and visa application centres in Mexico on this initiative.

The Business Express Program is modeled on a similar successful program introduced in New Delhi, India, in June 2008. The program in Mexico is targeted at people employed by companies in Mexico who have a proven need for frequent travel to Canada.

Participation in the program is by invitation only. Businesses with key connections to Canada are identified by the visa or trade sections of the Embassy of Canada in Mexico City, or Export Development Canada.

Businesses that have good immigration track records, meaning those with employees who were admissible, who previously travelled to Canada and adhered to Canada’s immigration laws, and who have a significant number of business visitors destined to Canada are then invited by the Embassy of Canada to register for the program. Only businesses that are registered can submit visa applications through the facilitated process. So far, the embassy has invited 113 companies to enroll in the program; 12 businesses have registered.

Qualified applicants from businesses that are enrolled in the program can apply for their visa at one of the three visa application centres in Mexico, located in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara. Processing by the Canadian visa office will be swift, with a turnaround time of 24 hours.

This program is clearly intended to relieve some of the delays experienced since the Canadian Government’s decision to impose a visa requirement on Mexican citizens last year. As previously reported, temporary resident visas have been required for Mexican citizens travelling to Canada since July 14, 2009.

The official CIC notice appears here.

On April 3, 2010, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) published a proposed regulatory change that alters what factors will be considered to determine whether or not a family relationship was entered into in “bad faith.” For immigration purposes, “bad faith” is understood to be entering into a family relationship to circumvent the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). CIC is also proposing to clarify the regulations surrounding the assessment of adoptions.

Relationships entered into primarily to attain an immigration benefit have not been considered bona fide relationships under Canadian immigration law since the mid-1980s. These relationships are currently prohibited by section 4 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). The intent of R4 is to protect the integrity of the immigration program by preventing individuals from using relationships of convenience or bad faith relationships to circumvent immigration law. The provision currently states that a foreign national will not be considered a spouse, a common-law partner, a conjugal partner or an adopted child of a person if the relationship is not genuine and was entered into primarily for immigration purposes.

The current R4 specifies two mandatory elements for determining “bad faith” relationships: (a) that a relationship is not genuine, and (b) that it was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the Act. This leads to a requirement that CIC be satisfied that both elements have not been met when refusing a case under this regulation and supporting that decision on appeal. However, CIC believes that a “bad faith” relationship is present when either of these related factors is apparent.

Among other things, the proposed regulation will create a disjunctive relationship between the “genuineness” element and the “purpose” element of the bad faith assessment. This will clarify that a finding of bad faith can be made if either of these elements is present.

Immigration practitioners have objected to this regulatory change for several reasons. First, it seems unreasonable that a marriage or adoption found to be genuine would still result in a denial; if the regulations are amended as proposed, this illogical result could occur. Second, under the current regulations, a couple can accumulate new evidence of a genuine relationship even after a final refusal under R4. However, if the proposed amendment passes, a couple might be able to later establish that their relationship is genuine with additional evidence but would still likely be denied because they could not provide any new evidence to establish that their intention was to marry or adopt primarily for immigration purposes at the time of the application.

The proposed regulation, as published in the Canada Gazette, appears here.

Today, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney introduced proposed legislation designed to improve Canada’s refugee system, to deliver quicker decisions on asylum claims, and to provide faster protection to those in need. “This balanced reform would both increase support for refugees in need of protection and discourage many of the unfounded asylum claims that burden our system,” said Minister Kenney. “These changes would result in faster protection for those who need our help and quicker removals of those who do not.”

As the Auditor General of Canada has said, delays in rendering final decisions on asylum claims leave the system open to abuse. Canada’s existing system is crippled by long delays and a cumbersome process which results in many claims taking years to resolve with finality. These delays encourage people not in need of protection to make claims knowing they will be able to live and work in Canada for many years.

“Canada’s asylum system is broken,” said Minister Kenney. “We must act to avoid a two-tier immigration system: one for immigrants who wait in line – often for years – to come to Canada, and another for those who use the asylum system, not for protection, but to try to get through the back door into Canada.”

It currently takes an average of 19 months for claims to be heard by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (“IRB”). The proposed measures would shorten this so that claimants would generally have a hearing at the IRB within 60 days. “This would allow those in need of our protection to have security, and to build their new lives in Canada much more quickly,” said Minister Kenney.

All eligible asylum claimants would continue to get a fair hearing by the IRB based on their individual circumstances. Most claimants would also have access to a new appeal process at the IRB including the opportunity, in certain cases, to present new evidence.

“Through these changes, we would create a more efficient system where most failed claimants would be removed from Canada within a year of their final IRB decision,” said Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety. “This would benefit all Canadians and protect the integrity of our immigration system.”

In general, failed claimants would be removed within a year of their final IRB decision, compared with the status quo in which it generally takes 4.5 years to exhaust all recourses and remove a failed asylum claimant. Quick removal of failed claimants would help discourage individuals from using the asylum system to try to jump the immigration queue to enter Canada. These new measures exceed Canada’s international and domestic legal obligations to asylum seekers and address key concerns raised by the Auditor General of Canada in her May 2008 report on managing the detention and removal of individuals.

Following the example of several democratic countries, the new measures would also allow the government to designate safe countries of origin. As in the current system, all eligible asylum claimants, including those from designated safe countries, would continue to receive a hearing at the Refugee Protection Division of the IRB. All claimants would continue to be able to ask the Federal Court to review a negative decision.

Ottawa has yet to determine which countries are safe and which are not. Senior government officials said the process of making those designations could take some time.

The intention of the proposed law is to reduce the substantial list of asylum seekers living Canada. The backlog of cases now sits at about 60,000. There are about 38,000 claimants whose whereabouts are unknown. Critics argue that one of the reasons the list is so long is that the government, for many years, failed to make an adequate number of appointments to the IRB.

It is estimated that each failed asylum claim costs Canadian taxpayers $50,000, mostly in provincial social service and health costs, and that these reforms would reduce this cost to $29,000 per claim. By shortening the time failed claimants remain in Canada, it could reduce the costs faced by provincial and territorial governments.

These improvements to the asylum system would also allow the Government of Canada to help more refugees resettle to Canada through a commitment to increase the annual refugee resettlement target by 2,500, to a total of up to 14,500 refugees per year.

In addition, as announced yesterday, the Government of Canada would be able to increase Resettlement Assistance Program funding to $54 million, the first increase in over 10 years, in order to help these refugees successfully integrate into Canadian society. Funding would also include an investment to reduce the existing backlog of asylum claims.

The official press release appears here.

The Toronto Star reports that, despite controversial measures introduced two years ago to speed up Canada’s immigration process, a backlog of pending federal skilled worker permanent residence applications appears to be re-emerging.

On November 28, 2008, Immigration Minister issued Ministerial Instructions regarding the processing of federal skilled worker cases filed on or after February 27, 2008. Federal skilled worker applications submitted on or after this date were required to meet specific criteria before they would be accepted. Subject to certain exceptions, only cases filed by applicants falling under one of the 38 listed occupations were eligible to apply. These Ministerial Instructions were considered controversial but were deemed necessary to eliminate the excessive backlog of pending cases.

According to an analysis of data provided by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”), the average processing time from all visa posts is 7-1/2 years, with 600,000 people in the queue for the 80,055 skilled immigrant visas granted in 2010. The problem, immigration critics say, is twofold: (a) longer waits as the government slowly sifts through the old backlog of applications that still runs in the hundreds of thousands, and (b) a glut of applications to the 38 specific job categories introduced in 2008.

“We have a growing inventory because we have an oversupply of eager candidates,” said Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigrant lawyer and policy analyst who obtained the data. “The processing time is going to balloon. This is an early warning of a backlog returning.”

To reduce the volume of applications, Kurland said Ottawa needs to trim the occupation list and install a warning system that alerts officials to remove a job category when it generates too many applications. “It may be unpopular politically, but the immigration minister needs to fix this,” Kurland said. CIC just announced this month plans to review labour market needs to update the occupation list.

CIC spokesperson Kelli Fraser acknowledged this week that between March 2008 and now, the department has received 327,843 skilled immigrant applications for the 38 occupations, everything from geologists and specialist physicians to chefs and plumbers. But she said 80% of decisions have been made within seven months or less.

Visa offices facing high workloads include Damascus in Syria, Guatemala, Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, and Kingston, Jamaica. The old backlog has been reduced by 40 per cent from 640,000 to roughly 400,000 applicants, she said. Under the old rules, a skilled immigrant application took four to five years to process; “given the size of the backlog, it cannot be reduced overnight,” said Fraser.

The full article appears here.

According to the Globe and Mail, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is kicking off a major overhaul of the country’s refugee system by increasing the number of people Canada accepts from UN-designated refugee camps overseas. Mr. Kenney said Canada is now prepared to accept 2,500 extra refugees selected by the United Nations, bringing its annual total to 14,500 coming from refugee camps and urban slums.

“Millions of people have fled violence and persecution to seek refuge outside their home countries and we would like to do more to provide them with protection in Canada,” Mr. Kenney said in a statement. The government will sponsor 500 of the new places. The other 2000 will be under the Private Sponsorhip of Refugees Program, which allows church and community groups as well as individuals to bring in designated refugees.

Ottawa will also increase funding to resettle this group, adding $9-million a year to an existing budget of $45-million. This would be the first permanent funding increase in a decade.

Mr. Kenney said he will follow up the announcement by tabling far-reaching legislation on Tuesday, targeted mainly at people claiming refugee status after they arrive in Canada. That package aims to speed up the approval system for refugee claimants who come to Canada looking for asylum by efficiently sorting out legitimate refugees from those who are trying to abuse Canada’s system.

Under the new legislation, refugee claimants would be sorted into two groups — those from democratic countries deemed safe, and those from more dangerous spots. The safe-country people would be fast-tracked, but would still have access to a full hearing. Bureaucrats, rather than political appointees, would handle the initial decisions. The bill would also set up a new, more robust appeals system, allowing those who are turned down to introduce new evidence before they are ejected from Canada.

Mr. Kenney wants to get rid of the huge backlog of refugee claimants who often have to wait up to two years before their legal limbo is cleared up. He also wants to close loopholes in the system that allow posers to play the system and stay in Canada for years.

He announced the increase in UN-designated refugees as a way to “balance” the crackdown on refugee claimants within Canada. “We have been clear that Parliament enacting balanced reforms to our asylum system will be met by more government help for refugees living in desperate circumstances around the world and in urgent need of resettlement,” Mr. Kenney said.

The federal government says there are about 10.5 million UN-designated refugees living in camps and urban slums around the world. Canada is responsible for settling about one in 10 of these refugees, and is the world’s second-largest provider of such protection, after the United States.

The full article is available here.

Immigration lawyer Max Berger, who is representing a Roma refugee facing removal, is arguing that the Canadian Immigration Minister’s public criticisms about Czech refugees have prejudiced asylum cases before the independent Immigration and Refugee Board and before immigration officials charged with Pre-Removal Risk Assessments.

Jason Kenny, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, made his comments regarding Czech refugee claims last year, while defending his decision to re-impose the visa requirement for Czech citizens. Among other things, he said that refugee claims from Czechs (who are now part of the European Union) made no sense because they could easily move to “26 other Western democracies in the European Union.”

According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”) there has been a substantial increase of refugee claims being made by Czech citizens since the visa requirement was eliminated on October 31, 2007. More than 840 Czech refugee claims were received in 2008, compared with less than five claims in 2006. In total, nearly 3,000 claims have been filed by Czech nationals since October 2007, with over half of them in the first four months of 2009 alone.

According to Mr. Berger, 94% of Czech refugees were granted refugee status in 2008, with another 81% accepted in the first quarter of last year, just before Minister Kenney said in Paris in April that “it is hard to believe that the Czech Republic is an island of persecution in Europe.” Canada imposed visa restrictions on Czech visitors in July. Between July and September 2009, acceptance of Czech refugee claims plummeted to 30%, said Berger.

In his submission, Berger cited the opinions of several legal experts who questioned Kenney’s political influence into the refugee board’s independence. “When the minister pronounces on the validity, or lack thereof, of refugee claimants from any country without having heard the particular case and knowing the individual circumstances, there is the risk that individual decision makers whose jobs ultimately depend on the minister’s decision to appoint and reappoint, will be unduly influenced,” said University of Toronto law professor Audrey Macklin.

Calling the bias argument a “red herring,” government lawyer Amina Riaz said the acceptance rate for Roma refugees were “sensationalized and inflated” because it only compared asylum claims rejected or accepted by the refugee board and excluded the many cases that were “withdrawn or abandoned.” Riaz also argued that acceptance rates based on decisions by the refugee board have no relevance to Pre-Removal Risk Assessments determined by CIC officials; both operate independently and separately.

The full article is available here.

Jason Kenney, the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, states that professional associations refusing to recognize the credentials of foreign workers are threatening to slow Canada’s economic recovery. Professional agencies have been criticized in the past for too often rejecting training received abroad, making it difficult for new Canadians to find jobs in their fields.

Ottawa unveiled a program last year to streamline the recognition of foreign credentials but, among the hundreds of professional associations across the country, only eight are on board. “The biggest obstacle has always been a gatekeeper attitude amongst some professional agencies that have been in the past unwilling to be part of the solution,” Kenney said in an interview. “I think the pressure is building, (there is) an expectation that all of them will streamline the process and make it easier.”

The Conservatives have shifted Canada’s immigration policy to favour newcomers with skills that match the needs in the economy. Those spots remain unfilled and the economy suffers, Kenney said, when immigrants are prevented from working. Kenney made the remarks after a speech to an immigration conference where he outlined his government’s policies.

As part of the streamlining program, known as the Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications, Kenney expects all professional associations to join by 2013. But the NDP’s immigration critic says the government hasn’t done enough to fight the reluctance of professional associations. “There are not enough incentives,” Olivia Chow said. “There are not enough carrots and sticks to push them into saying yes.” She noted that a parliamentary committee recently recommended that the government provide incentives to employers to hire immigrants. Kenney has rejected that idea.

Chow says the government’s current policy is incomplete. While speeding up recognition of foreign credentials, she said, it does little to help immigrants secure that vital first job in Canada. “You can’t just blame it on professional bodies and say, ‘Oh well, it’s their fault, we can’t do anything,”‘ said Chow, a member of the committee that in November urged the government to do more to create work opportunities for immigrants. “It’s not only a matter of getting your certification recognized, it’s about what happens after that.”

Kenney dismissed the idea of the government funding job opportunities for immigrants. “Our focus would be, rather than subsidizing tens of thousands of small businesses, create a positive economic policy, including lower taxes, and we’ve done that as a government,” he said. “Small business will be leading us out of the recovery and new Canadians will be a big part of that.”

The full article appears here.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney extended his thanks today to Vancouver police and British Columbia prosecutors for their work recently in convicting an immigration consultant of fraud. Minister Kenney reiterated his intention to bring in further measures at the federal level to ensure consultants are more closely monitored and regulated, and that those who commit fraud are punished.

“Unscrupulous consultants are a significant problem and tackling it requires all levels of government to work together and make it a priority,” said Minister Kenney. “This case sends a message to fraudulent consultants that if they attempt to steal money from people trying to immigrate to this country, they will be caught and they will be punished.”

“Preying on people who are desperate to have a new start in Canada, or who are trying to bring their family members here, is unconscionable. As the Speech from the Throne promised, we will be taking steps to address this.”

Earlier this month in Vancouver, after an investigation by the West Vancouver Police Department, consultant Fereydoun Hadad was sentenced in provincial court to one year in prison after pleading guilty in January to defrauding a man seeking to immigrate to Canada from Iran of over $49,000, and for using a document as if it were genuine while knowing that said document was forged. A one year probation term will follow the prison sentence.

Mr. Hadad had convinced the prospective immigrant to set up a bank account in Canada, saying it was needed to immigrate in the investor class. He helped him set up the account and then forged the man’s signature to take the money out of the account.

The official press release is available here.

According to CBC News, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”) has launched an investigation into a website guaranteeing immigrants easy access to Canada and advising them to use false pretexts in order to take advantage of the country’s free health care and social programs. On its website, which was taken offline on Thursday, Quick Visa Canada offered clients “a cheap, quick and effective way to come to Canada.”

For $2,250 US, the company said, it would help potential immigrants come to Canada as tourists and then assist them in filing a claim for refugee status. “We will provide you with a listing of different motives so that you can choose the one that best suits you,” the company’s website said. “The motives that we will present to you are very easy to explain to the immigration officials. For example many of our clients choose the type of motives in which they claim that there were part of an organization (anti abortion, human rights, Gay or Lesbian movement, etc, etc) back in their home country and that some people were against that movement. We guarantee you that the immigration official will not return you to your country.”

Organizations that provide assistance to immigrants and refugees were outraged by the website’s claims. “As far as we’re concerned it is fraud, it is false representation,” said Stephan Reichold, executive director of the Quebec Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Services. “[The website] puts in doubt the integrity of the system. It opens the door to attacks — people will say all refugees are fraudsters,” said Richard Goldman, co-ordinator of the committee to aid refugees.

On the website, the company claims its founder is lawyer Claude Lamoureux, based in Chateauguay, Que. But, when a team of reporters from CBC/Radio-Canada showed up at Lamoureux’s office — the man they met was not the one pictured on the website. Lamoureux claimed he has been the victim of identity theft and said he has complained to the RCMP.

Quick Visa Canada representative Hayde Linares said her job is only to refer refugees to a colleague in Egypt. CBC/Radio-Canada, with the help of a Spanish-speaking collaborator, called the phone number listed on the website and arranged a meeting with a Quick Visa Canada representative in a Montreal office. Hayde Linares said she could help the Spanish-speaking man get access to medicare and welfare, and that a colleague would help him come up with a story. The owner of the company, Giovanni Germinario, did not return calls for comment.

Inciting someone to make a false declaration to an immigration official is an offence, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine. No charges have been laid to date.

The full article is available here. You are also encouraged to read our article on how to choose a Canadian representative.