Six hundred immigration consultants are registered to gather at the First General Meeting (FGM) for members of the Canada Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) in Mississauga on Friday. This will be the largest gathering of Canadian immigration consultants in history.
The ICCRC is Canada’s immigration consulting regulatory body, and replaced the previous self-regulatory body of the immigration industry, the CSIC, last year.
The regulatory body has new investigative powers granted to it by Bill C-35, an Act to Amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into law on June 30, 2011. This legislation gives the federal government new abilities to crack down on unlicensed immigration consultants and otherwise illegal immigration consulting activities.
The ICCRC, unlike the old regulatory body, is also directly answerable to the Immigration Minister of Canada, Jason Kenney.
The keynote address for Friday’s FGM will be given by Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Deputy Minister, Neil Yeates.