(OTTAWA) The House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has called an emergency meeting next week to examine allegations of misjudgment by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration — an allegation that former immigration minister Marco Mendicino vehemently denies.
Updated yesterday at 9:05 pm.
In 2020, there were allegations that a new college would be set up to regulate immigration consultants.
An existing company called Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council sued the government in federal court to stop it from using a similar name: College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.
On the day of the hearing, the Privy Council posted an order on its website stating that the law establishing the college had come into force.
The government issued a press statement a few days later, in which Mr. Mendicino stated College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act Actually came into force.
“With today’s announcement, the Minister is delivering on her tenure commitment to advance the full implementation of the new professional governance regime for immigration and citizenship consultants,” the statement read. Released on November 26, 2020, according to a cached version of the Wayback Machine Internet Archive.
In fact, the law came into effect only from December 9, 2020. The press release was corrected several days after publication.
Mr. Mendicino’s director of communications, Alex Cohen, said Sunday that the discrepancy was the result of human error.
Cohen said ministry teams confused the date the governor general signed the executive order with the day it took effect. When a problem is discovered, it is reported to the courts.
On October 4, the independent BlackLock Reporter published a story titled “Minister Backdates Document”, citing internal emails obtained by Access to Information Act.
The outlet reported that the emails appeared to be “an attempt to mislead a federal judge” and that Mr. Mendicino’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The report alarmed NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan, who last week wrote to the chairman of the immigration committee to request an emergency meeting to discuss the “disturbing allegations.”
“It is never acceptable to alter or falsify documents to mislead the courts,” said Smt.me Kwan in an interview on Sunday.
“We don’t know exactly what happened here so it’s important for us to get to the bottom of it. »
A meeting will be held on Wednesday afternoon as MPs are expected to discuss whether to launch a full-scale study into the allegations.
The minister defended himself
“This narrative is false,” Mr. Cohen said.
He denied that the documents were “backdated” and Mr. Mendicino and his office insisted there was no involvement.
Mr. Mendicino’s office provided The Canadian Press with 730 pages of emails that show a significant back-and-forth between department officials and communications staff over sharing the erroneous effective date of the law.
A week after the press release was issued, the department’s legal team pointed out the error and on 1er In December 2020, ministry officials discussed the need for “corrective action”.
Cohen said the government brought the issue to the federal court on Dec. 9, 2020 — less than a week before the court decided whether to force the government to temporarily stop using the college’s name.
In her December 24, 2020 decision, Judge Janet Fuhrer sided with the plaintiffs in the trademark infringement case and suggested proper dates before issuing the injunction.
