OTTAWA - After being flooded with fake wedding photos, false forms and forged signatures, the Canadian government is sounding the alarm over immigration fraud.
Officials launched a campaign Tuesday warning potential immigrants they could be removed from Canada if they enter under false pretences.
The warning came in a video the government posted on the Internet, and will be carried in brochures sent out in different languages to Canadian visa offices around the world.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney also issued a warning about immigration consultants, saying they don't get you in faster, and if you hire one it had better be from the government's approved list.
Kenney's political opponents say unscrupulous consultants are the real problem - and that the scams will persist until the government starts regulating that industry.
The minister described the elaborate hoaxes people orchestrate to bolster their application chances.
Department officials say they've received forged signatures and letterhead from imposters using the names of members of Parliament and doctors; fraudulent death certificates; and letters from Canadian funeral-home employees who don't exist.
Kenney recounted his recent visit to Canada's consulate in northern India where there's a "wall of shame" - a mosaic of falsified papers tacked up for all to see.
During that trip, he said he learned of a burgeoning industry in which immigration fraud is given a festive twist.
"I heard about the growth of so-called 'marriage palaces', where actors are hired to play the part of guests at weddings," Kenney told a House of Commons committee.
"This is done to create fraudulent marriage photos to fool our visa officers. Some fraud is perpetrated by applicants and some by unscrupulous immigration representatives."
Canadian officials say they began to notice the same guests mysteriously appearing in the background of wedding photos submitted by different immigration applicants.
One said that just a few blocks away from Canada's visa-issuing mission in Chandigarh, India, men loiter on the sidewalk with typewriters and, for a few rupees, they will produce a Canadian birth certificate.
He said fake Canadian passports are more expensive but are also easily available.
Widespread fraud in the area is a main reason the rate of rejected applications is a whopping 60 per cent in Chandigarh - three times higher than the rate of rejections in New Delhi.
Kenney pointed to an even higher rejection rate among Mexican refugee claimants. Ninety per cent of 10,000 refugee claimants from Mexico last year had their requests denied.
Some unscrupulous consultants have encouraged applicants to invent stories about persecution in that country. The false claims include people saying they face danger over their political preference or sexuality.
"I think we need to ask whether that's an efficient use of our resources, or whether that's creating problems for ... legitimate refugees that we're allowing false refugee claimants to clog the system," Kenney said.
The promotional video warns prospective immigrants they risk throwing away their money on consultants, who charge exorbitant fees or try to defraud the system.
It features a Chilean family that wasted $5,000 on a consultant who, they say, delivered no results.
It also shows several falsified documents produced by immigration consultants - including one website that carries an official-looking Canada wordmark stamped over a woolly mammoth.
"(That's) not exactly a Canadian symbol," the video narrator says.
The group representing legitimate consultants - the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants - applauded the awareness effort and said it will follow up with its own campaign.
"Vulnerable consumers can find themselves victims of unscrupulous agents and we support the government for taking this important first step to shed light on this serious problem," said society chair John Ryan.
Kenney said that if prospective immigrants want to hire a consultant, they're encouraged to work with one of the 1,400 recognized by the society.
But one of his political opponents said the promotional campaign doesn't go nearly far enough and doesn't address the root of the problem: the self-regulated immigration consulting industry.
NDP MP Olivia Chow said any huckster can declare himself a consultant and that the industry needs higher professional standards like the ones for lawyers and accountants.
"We have these scam artists teaching people ... how to cheat," Chow said.
"Tomorrow if you want to set up shop ... you will make so much money because anybody can set up shop and call themselves consultants, experts, recruiters, a middle person - whatever name you want to call it.
"Get a photo taken with some politician, which is easy, get a fancy website - my gosh you're going to make lots of money."
Kenney also announced Tuesday he will consult with immigration stakeholders on ways to reduce fraud.
But Chow said the solution is already clear: "No more consultation please, just action to regulate the consultants properly so vulnerable immigrants won't be scammed."
Source: www.brandonsun.com, The Canadian Press
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