Public-Interest Directors Appointed to Immigration College

Summary#

The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship appointed five Public Interest Directors to the Board of the new College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants on March 7, 2022. The appointees — Normand Beaudry, Timothy D’Souza, Jennifer Henry, Ben Rempel and Nicholas P. Summers — will serve terms of up to two years (anticipated to end March 6, 2024).

What it does#

• Uses the authority in the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act to add five Public Interest Directors to the College’s initial Board.
• Names the five specific appointees and sets their start date as March 7, 2022 and their term as up to two years (anticipated end March 6, 2024).
• Confirms the College’s initial Board will include these five ministerial appointees plus four directors who are members of the College.
• Notes that the appointees represent the public interest and are not becoming part of the public service.
• Says the selection was carried out through an advertised, merit-based process and that the order came into effect on March 7, 2022.

Who's affected#

• People who use paid immigration or citizenship consultants — often newcomers, applicants, and their families — because the College is the new national regulator for those consultants.
• Immigration and citizenship consultants who will be licensed, regulated, or governed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.
• The former regulator, the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC), which was discontinued on November 23, 2021 as part of the transition to the College.
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and other government bodies that work with or oversee consultant regulation.

Why it matters#

• This is a step in putting the new national regulator in place. The College is meant to set standards and discipline consultants who act dishonestly or incompetently.
• For people hiring consultants, a regulator with public-interest directors aims to increase oversight and reduce the risk of fraud or poor advice.
• For consultants, it signals a new governance structure and a national licensing and oversight regime.
• The Gazette notice is mostly administrative (naming directors and dates). It does not itself change rules about who can practise — it records the appointments that help run the regulator created by the College Act.