TRANSCRIPTION - Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenney following his news conference in Montreal to update on the Government’s commitment to tackling citizenship fraud

StarBuzz Weekly, Toronto-Operator: Thank you for joining us for a conference call hosted by the honorable Jason Kenney, minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Please note that during the Q&A portion of the call, you need to press star one to be placed into a queue to ask questions. We ask each journalist to please limit to one question. I will now turn things over to Nancy Caron, media relations at Citizenship and Immigration Canada to moderate the call.

Nancy Caron: Hello and welcome to this conference call with the honorable minister Jason Kenney.  The format we’re going to take is that minister Kenney will make his remarks which will be followed by a question and answer period. We ask that you limit yourself to one question only when it’s your turn. The conference operator will identify you when you turn arrives. If you have any questions that are unaddressed, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the CIC media line. The number i613-952-1650      end_of_the_skype_highlighting             and we’ll be more than happy to help you. Ministre Kenney, je vous donne la parole.

           

Hon. Jason Kenney: OK,  This morning, I made an important announcement that the enquiry launched by my ministry three years ago into widespread fraud in our citizenship program has yielded impressive results.

Today, I announced that to date, we’ve identified some 6,500 foreign nationals who fraudulently obtained Canadian citizenship or are in the process of doing so. These are individuals who hired crooked immigration consultants to create fake proof of permanent residency in Canada. 2,100 of these individuals actually did obtain Canadian citizenship. We’re now in the process of seeking to revoke their citizenship because they in fact never lived in Canada . They were always living overseas, simply paying a consultant to create fake proof of residency such as through fake rental receipts, fake addresses in Canada, fake utility bills, etc.

Similarly we’ve identified to date some 4,400 permanent residents who have not lived in Canada, who have not met the minimum requirement for maintaining permanent residency which is to be here for two out of five years and who have hired these consultants to create fake proof of residency with the intention of eventually applying for citizenship and so we’ll be preventing those individuals from becoming permanent residents where appropriate, if they have not met the legal requirement to maintain residency, we’ll be revoking their residency. If they’re in Canada, we’ll be eventually pursuing deportation against those individuals.

I want to underscore that today’s announcement and these enforcement measures are designed to protect the value of our citizenship for the millions of people from around the world who have come to Canada and become citizens the right way, the legal way. Every year, I’m honored to meet thousands of new Canadians at ceremonies across the country, many of whom have tears in their eyes as they achieve their dream of becoming Canadian citizens and they’ve done so because they respect Canada and its laws.

I have an obligation to those – to the vast majority of our citizens, new citizens who become citizens the legal way. I have an obligation to them to protect the value of their new citizenship, to safeguard the value of their Canadian passport and not to allow crooked consultants to sell Canadian citizenship illegally, using fraud for foreigners who have no roots in Canada, no intention of living here and only regard Canada as a source of benefits of free health care, of a political insurance that the Canadian passport represents.

So I want to be absolutely clear. The cases that we’re talking about today are not about individuals who have lived in Canadafor a couple of years, but maybe have moved – have been working abroad and going back and forth. It’s not about cases that are in the grey zone. It’s not about a subjective argument with applicants over whether they’ve met requirements. No, these 6,500 cases deal with people who deliberately, we believe, hire crooked consultants who are creating fake proof of residency at fake addresses with fake receipts in a clear – with clear criminal intent to break our laws, the vast majority of  these people never having really lived in Canada.

So we’re not – this is not a message of that should concerned bonafide legitimate permanent residents or citizenship applicants. If they’re following our law and they meet the legal requirements, they will in due course be citizens and of course no enforcement action will be taken against those people, the vast vast majority who are lawful. This is limited to those who have hired crooked consultants to create fake proof of residency and have never lived here.

Operator:Thank you, merci. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. S’il vous plaît, appuyez sur les touches étoile un maintenant pour poser une question. There will be a brief pause while the participants register for questions. Il y aura un court délai vous permettant de vous enregistrer dans la file d’attente pour la période de questions.Thank you for your patience, merci de patienter. Our first question is from Mohammed Nadim from Pakistan Times Weekly Toronto. La parole est à vous, please go ahead.

Question: Yes, minister, thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question. My question is that you are taking action against these 6,500 individuals, but what about those consultants who particularly are crooks as you said and they are cheating people because people are innocent sometimes and then those know exactly what’s happening?

                      

Hon. Jason Kenney: Well, we’ve identified a handful of consultants responsible for the vast majority of these fraudulent applications. The consultants, the particular consultants  we have focused on have been operating in Montreal, Mississauga and Halifax and the RCMP has ongoing criminal investigations into the fraud that we believe these individuals conducted and I would hope and expect that criminal charges for fraud will be brought against these consultants in due course when the police and prosecutors believe they have sufficient evidence to obtain successful convictions. And so, no effort will be left spared in pursuing criminal sanctions against the consultants.

I have to say that I doubt there are many of their clients who engaged in this innocently. I’m quite sure that people must have known that if they were paying a consultant to create fake addresses, fake rental receipts, fake utility receipts and the like and they were applying for Canadian citizenship without ever having lived here, I think that these people must be sophisticated enough to know that that would be against the Canadian law and so, in any event, the main focus of our investigation is of course the crooked consultants themselves.

I should underscore that our government has put in place tougher regulation of immigration consultants through the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act that we passed last year which includes tougher fines and penalties for crooked consultants. It requires that consultants be licenced at all stages of the immigration process, including that it is a crime to be a ghost consultant and we will also be bringing forward changes to the Citizenship Act next year to create a specific regulatory framework for citizenship consultants as well.

Operator:Thank you. Merci. Our next question is from Eric Chung for AM 1470 Vancouver. Please go ahead, la parole est à vous.

Question:Yes, minister. Of the total 6,500 persons investigated, how many are Chinese nationals?

Hon. Jason Kenney: I don’t have the exact list of cases by country here, but I can tell you Eric, that the cases are quite evenly spread around the world. We’ve identified out of the 6,500 cases that these are citizens of 100 different – over 100 different countries of origin. So clearly there are some cases coming from China, but I would say that it’s – it’s a relatively small minority and again, the cases are spread right around the world. I believe none of the consultants that we’re dealing with had a particularly large clientele of Chinese applicants. So that China would not be in the top source countries of these fraudulent applications.

Operator: Thank you, merci. Our next question is from Felicity Wang from SingTao Daily. Please go ahead, la parole est à vous.

Question: Good morning, minister. I just have a question regarding specific practices or actions that were taken by the CBSA or RCMP. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?

Hon. Jason Kenney: Sure, first of all, for those who were identified as having obtained citizenship fraudulently, 2,100 cases, we either have sent or will be sending them letters indicating our intention to pursue revocation. They then have the right under the current law to challenge that intention at the federal court. If the federal court agrees with me, the minister, that there are reasonable grounds to pursue revocation, we then proceed for final decision at the federal cabinet which decision they could appeal to the federal court. So it’s a lengthy process which we’re actually looking at streamlining in legislative changes next year.

In those cases though, we do not expect that most of the fraudulent citizens will challenge our decision because most of them have never lived in Canada and they know that we have very compelling evidence of their – of the fraud that they were engaged in. So we actually thing that most of the revocations will be fairly straightforward.

In terms of the 4,400 permanent residents that are involved in this investigation, we will be – the CBSA, I should say my ministry will be contacting those individuals to tell them that if they have a citizenship application in process, that they’re being rejected for citizenship and if they have not met the residency requirement to maintain their PR status, we will also be notifying them that they are no longer permanent residents in Canada . If those individuals are actually in  the country, following the revocation of their permanent residency, the CBSA would commence removal proceedings against them. Of course, they would have the normal legal remedies at their disposal including the client removal risk assessment.

And finally, the RCMP is looking into the criminal aspects of this and I believe that they are conducting an investigation which I hope will lead to criminal charges for misrepresentation and fraud against the consultants involved who are primarily inMississauga, Montreal and Halifax.

Operator:Thank you, merci. Our next question is from Mary Yang from A1 Chinese Radio. Please go ahead, la parole est à vous.

Question:Hi, minister.

Hon. Jason Kenney:Hi, Mary.

Question: Hi.  Could you tell me if you have any information regarding the timeframe of those cases which you are looking at, No. 1, and No. 2...

Hon. Jason Kenney: Sorry, regarding the what of the cases?

Question:Time frame of those cases?

Hon. Jason Kenney; Time frame, yes.

Question:                                Yes, because we talked to a Chinese immigrant – immigration consultant and he’s involved in cases like that, but he feels like working normally right now, he told me that it is a loophole in the Citizenship Act...

Hon. Jason Kenney: Please give me – please give me his name, Mary.

Question: I will give in private if you want, but he says that there’s a loophole there, so you are – you mentioned that (inaudible) is not correct, because basically right now, they can’t do things like that.

Hon. Jason Kenney: Yes, I understand.

Question:Will you stop the loophole in the future and how will you correct (Inaudible) an immigration consultant who is involved in this kind of things?

Hon. Jason Kenney:         Well, the main consultants we’ve been focusing in Halifax, Montreal and Mississauga are not of Chinese origin. Having said that, I want to be clear. Today’s update is not the end of our investigations. This is probably a process that will be going on I suspect for a number of years and the message should be clear to people like the consultant you were speaking with, that indue course, we’re going to track down all of these – all of these crooked consultants.

Now the loophole you’re speaking of is probably the fact that there is no legal framework for the regulation of consultants who offer services under the Citizenship Act. The laws that we tightened up last year were for people providing immigration services. This is why we will be bringing back to Parliament a bill that we had proposed in the last parliament, to create an analogous – a similar regulation, regulatory framework for citizenship consultants, those who are providing services under the Citizenship Act, like citizenship applications. So that’s probably the loophole that he’s speaking of.

Now having said that, if these people if they are involved in creating false proof of residency for citizenship applications, that is a crime of misrepresentation, that is a form of fraud which is in itself a criminal offence and that’s where the RCMP comes in. So we – the RCMP of course polices misrepresentation under the citizenship Act and CBSA does so for misrepresentation under the Immigration Act.

So individuals like that, they are not safeguarded. Like they may not be – they may not have a requirement that they be licensed consultants for citizenship applications, but they do have a legal requirement not to commit fraud and that’s why we would encourage the RCMP to pursue investigations against individuals like that.

Operator: Thank you, merci. Our next question is from Apujan Sekon (ph.) from 93.1 Red FM. Please go ahead, la parole est à vous.

Question:Hi, minister.

Hon. Jason Kenney:Hello.

Question:Out of these 6,500 people that the government is investigating, how many are from India and how many are fraud marriage cases?

Hon. Jason Kenney: Oh, this is – this is not related to fraud marriage. Those would be a different kind of offense and that’s dealt separately by the CBSA. A sa you know, we are going to be changing the law with respect to immigration marriages to impose a two-year conditional residency period on foreign sponsor spouses so that those who clearly come to Canada with no intention of entering into a bonafide marriage can be much more easily removed and we will also be bringing in the new five-year ban on the ability of foreign sponsored spouses to divorce and turn around and sponsor people subsequently, and of course, we’re asking the CBSA to make enforcement against fraud marriages a priority.

In terms of many in the 6,500 are from India and Pakistan, excuse me, I don’t have those exact numbers. I can tell you that the largest region of the cases is in the Middle East and many of the consultants we – that we’re focusing on, who have come to light, had a large clientele from the Middle-eastern region. Now that might now mean people who are originally from the Middle East. You know, there are a lot of people living in the Gulf states for example who come from all around the world. So that’s one of the reasons that explains why we’re dealing with people from 100 different countries of origin, but I don’t have the precise number of how many came from India.

Operator: Thank you, merci. We have time for one more question, from Han Fan Chang (ph.) from Fairchild TV News. Please go ahead, la parole est à vous.

Question:Thank you, minister. Something you mentioned, that the consultants are from Montreal,Mississauga and Halifax. So can I assume that most of the 6,500 cases are from those two provinces which – Ontario, those two provinces and not like others, like B.C.?

Hon. Jason Kenney:         Look, most of the cases that we’ve identified came about through identifying these consultants in Halifax, Montreal and Mississauga. Basically the RCMP went into their offices with warrants, went into their paper and computer records and found that these particular consultants had kept scrupulous records about the fake proof of residency that they had created for their clients. So the investigations were pretty cut and dried in that respect.

There are obviously, as Mary Yang just pointed, there are obviously crooked consultants who are doing this work around the country and our message to them is if we haven’t already started investigating them, it’s only a matter of time. I advise those people to get out of this line of criminal business now, because any day, the RCMP might be knocking at their door and bringing charges against them. So this a deterrence message that we’re sending. Whether people are operating inVancouver, Toronto, Calgary, it doesn’t matter. I am absolutely – I and my ministry and the relevant police agencies are absolutely focused on this and we – these investigations are going to continue. We encourage people to call our fraud tip line. Several dozen useful tips have come out of the fraud tip line which have already helped us to deny citizenship to people who were planning on obtaining it fraudulently.

So this is an ongoing national investigation involving people from over 100 different countries of origin. It’s not limited to those three cities, although those are the ones where we started the investigations and therefore have achieved the earliest results.

Operator: Thank you, merci. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Miss Caron.

Nancy Caron: Thank you minister Kenney. Do you have any closing remarks you would like to make?

Hon. Jason Kenney: I just want to underline that today’s announcement is designed to protect and defend the value of Canadian citizenship for all of the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants hoping some day to obtain citizenship lawfully and it’s in their interest that we’re taking these actions today.

Nancy Caron: Thank you minister Kenney and thank you to all the callers that took the time to call in today. We certainly appreciate your interest. If you have any questions and didn’t get your question in today, you can give us a call. The number is 613 952 1650 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            613 952 1650      end_of_the_skype_highlighting. You can also reach us by email at cic-media-relations@cic.gc.ca. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you merci. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your line at this time and we thank you for your participation. La conférence est maintenant terminée. Veuillez s’il vous plaît raccrocher votre ligne. Merci à tous les participants qui se sont joints.