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House Hansard - 213

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2023 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 213 - Jun/15/23
Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.)
  • Jun/15/23 12:05:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his questions because they allow me to share some news and to validate some of the concerns that he expressed with today's announcement by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, which addressed these concerns around the report of international students and graduates facing removal from Canada. As he said, letters of acceptance submitted as part of their study permit applications were determined to be fraudulent. The minister today announced that he has created a task force that will see officials at IRCC working closely with the Canada Border Services Agency to identify victims of fraud. He has directed officials to approach every incident on a case-by-case basis and to do so with expediency, flexibility and compassion. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides the minister with discretionary authority, which he has indicated he will exercise in the present context. Therefore, if the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with a genuine intent to study and without knowledge of the use of the fraudulent documentation or participation in criminal activity, instruction has been given for immigration officers to issue a temporary resident permit to that individual. This will ensure that these well-intentioned students and graduates remain in Canada. It will also ensure that they are not subjected to the five-year ban from re-entering Canada that normally follows in cases of misrepresentation. While this process runs its course, a preliminary temporary resident permit will be issued as required in order to prevent an imminent deportation. While we are focused, of course we want to support those who have done nothing wrong. It should also be kept in mind that there are also other foreign nationals who had no intent of pursuing higher education, including some involved in organized crime who may have used fraudulent acceptance letters to take advantage of our immigration system. Officials are currently investigating to identify the innocents and those who are aware of the fraud. IRCC has always taken fraud seriously and it is working with its local and international partners to detect and deter fraud, including working even more closely with post-secondary institutions, provinces and territories, and organizations representing our colleges and universities. The minister of IRCC is taking every opportunity to improve our detection of fraud and crackdown on dishonest consultants. IRCC is also continuously improving the system to detect the evidence of fraud. When fraud tips are reported, IRCC will continue to look into each one of them. To uphold our system, a full review of the international students program is actually under way. The review aims to strengthen program integrity and enhance protections to address the students' vulnerability, unethical recruitment and unscrupulous actors. As I am sure the member is also aware, the government has cracked down on dishonest consultants and is requiring that they be licensed under the college of immigration consultants. Our government has made investments to improve oversight, strengthen enforcement and increase accountability. For students specifically in India, IRCC has also run media campaigns to deter fraud. As recently as March of this year, IRCC ran a campaign in India targeting potential visitors, students and workers to decrease the misuse of permits—
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