HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)
Mr.Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Patrick Dunn
Mr. Keith Bain
Mr. Graham Steele
Mr. David Wilson (Sackville-Cobequid)
Mr. Keith Colwell
Mr. Leo Glavine
Ms. Diana Whalen
[Mr. Leonard Preyra replaced Mr. David Wilson, Sackville-Cobequid)
WITNESSES
Mr. Vahid Kermanshah
Mr. Afshar Ghasemi
Mr. Alireza Aghajan
Mr. Farzin Farrashzadeh
Mr. Ian Russell
Ms. Annemarie Schep-Stiger
Mr. Leo Karunanayake and Maureen Perera
Mr. Jaime Guerrero
Mr. John Huang
Mr. Elvin Reyes
Ms. Astareh Kiani
Mr. Ken Friedman, NAABEX
Dr. Michael Chang
In Attendance:
Ms. Charlene Rice
Legislative Committee Clerk
Mr. Jacques Lapointe
Auditor General
Ms. Evangeline Colman-Sadd
Assistant Auditor General
Mr. Gordon Hebb
Chief Legislative Counsel
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HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008
STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
9:00 A.M.
CHAIR
Ms. Maureen MacDonald
VICE-CHAIRMAN
Mr. Chuck Porter
MADAM CHAIR: Good morning and welcome everyone here today. Today, the Public Accounts Committee is conducting a public forum with respect to the Provincial Nominee Program. We have a number of witnesses who have joined us here this morning. You have a list of people who will be presenting.
I want to thank Legislative TV - they are providing a feed into the other room where quite a few people are watching the proceedings and hearing the proceedings.
The process we're going to use here today is the clerk has indicated to our witnesses that they have about 10 minutes to present. There will be modest flexibility around that but not a lot of flexibility so that we do, in fact, get to hear from everyone in the time that we have allotted. There will be an opportunity for members to ask questions to witnesses, if they wish. This is the way we will proceed.
It will not be the normal allocation of time per caucus for questions, it will be the Law Amendments kind of procedure where you indicate to the Chair that you have a question. I will keep a list and we will proceed in that fashion, just for the efficiency of the committee. So we will begin by having an introduction of members of the committee, staff from the Auditor General's Office, Legislative Counsel and clerk to the committee - our usual fashion.
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[The committee members and staff introduced themselves.]
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Our first presenters here today, I believe, are Vahid Kermanshah and Afshar Ghasemi. Good morning, please introduce yourself and begin.
MR. VAHID KERMANSHAH: My name is Vahid Kermanshah. I would like to express my gratitude to every member of the Public Accounts Committee for having the opportunity to be present here to speak about my mentorship experience.
I am going to begin by briefly explaining my 10 years management experience in three different major industries. Between 2003-07, I worked as manager of a department store with 600 employees, 450,000 square feet of selling space, and an annual turnover of nearly $35 million. From 2002-03, I was commercial and sales manager of a chemical production company which produces pesticides, insecticides and liquid manures, with 25 employees under my management and an annual turnover of nearly $8 million. Between 1997-2002, I was export and domestic sales manager of a pharmaceutical hygienic and cosmetic company producing 75 different kinds of pharmaceutical hygienic and cosmetic items with an annual turnover of nearly $14 million and 38 employees under my management. In 1986, I was a graduate of Tehran University and received a Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Engineering. Between 2001-03, I took intensive courses in export, finance sales, marketing, public relations, commerce and all the modules of Microsoft Office 2003.
By my agent and Cornwallis in January 2006, I was promised that after a six-month mentorship program, I would be offered a job matching my background with an annual salary of $50,000 to $60,000 and would also be assisted to settle down in Halifax. On April 27, 2007, when we landed in Halifax, we were informed that Cornwallis was no longer in charge of the Nominee Program and we found ourselves without any assistance.
On July 20th, when I signed my mentorship contract with a fishing company situated in Shag Harbour, in good faith and trust in the Immigration Office, I was assured that I would be mentored on how to plan, organize, direct, control and evaluate the activities of the company and the departments of wholesale, e-business sales marketing, advertising and public relations. When I went to Shag Harbour, they had no such departments and were doing business in a traditional way with no valuable experience and knowledge in the majors I was supposed to be mentored in.
The company did not provide me with the least facilities as a sales advertising and marketing manager needed to perform his daily duties, even a desk or a computer, and I realized that the company was not a good match and could not mentor and give me the experience I needed for my future occupation, according to my credentials.
I informed the Immigration Officer, but when I was told that I could not cancel my contract and there were no other options but to continue, I decided to encourage the company
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to use my experience by initiating them into preparing a sales and marketing plan. Therefore I collected some data about the fishing industry in Nova Scotia and asked them to send me some information to assign the company position in the Nova Scotia fishing market, but they expressed they did not have high speed Internet and told me not to come to work and mailed my salary in post-dated cheques, half of which bounced.
Then my mentor showed me the contract signed between him and the broker in which he agreed to pay $15,000. I really became disappointed and realized that I had been unexpectedly plunged into a scam because my money had been treated as a pie from which everybody has taken a piece through my immigration to Canada and it is under my dignity.
When the residency refund option was announced, I was shocked because I asked the immigration officers twice whether they could be able to refund the mentorship fees of those nominees who could stop with the business plan, and every time they responded they did not have the authority to decide. I finally contacted the Immigration Officer and informed them that my mentor is unable to give me the promised valuable experience and they cancelled my contract and forfeited my mentorship and refund entitlement, which was an unjust punishment and illegal.
[9:15 a.m.]
We were very prosperous in our homeland. We did not come to Canada for money, but for the ethical aspects of life. We came to Canada to preserve our integrity and live more authentically to drop all falsities and be exposed because we want to spiritually grow and become mature before death. We came to Canada to trust and to be trusted because the capacity to trust is the greatest treasure of life and without it neither love nor God is possible. We came to Canada to co-operate rather than compete because co-operation teaches us to be creative, loving and blissful without any comparison with the others. We came to Canada because we believe Canada's personal and professional integrity alongside qualifications are considered decisive factors for prosperity and success. We came to Canada because we believe Canada is one of the most developed pluralist democratic countries in the world, therefore we expect to be treated according to democratic values.
We have honoured all other commitments such as contributing $130,500 of our life savings in bringing our family to the province. The Nova Scotians are very kind, sincere and have cordially welcomed us, but we never imagined that we would be abused and oppressed and not be treated transparently and sincerely throughout the process of immigration to Canada.
All the nominees have immigrated to Nova Scotia through the same category, hence should be benefitted and treated equally and fairly. The residency refund option is a good program to help the nominees out of the flawed mentorship program, but should cover all
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nominees, particularly those who have been loyal to the government by settling down in this province.
I have been living in a very stressful situation for the last 10 months, not merely for the gloomy picture of my occupation in here but for my integrity which has been insulted, and I hope the decision makers will show their humility and sense of justice by reviewing my case as soon as possible.
I would like to thank those local authorities, particularly Ms. Elizabeth Mills who have dedicated so much to the immigrants' issues. I would also like to thank MISA employees for the useful services they offer the immigrants and believe that this association could have been considered as a good choice for handling the Nominee Program, rather than Cornwallis. Thank you very much.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. I think we'll hear from the next presenter and then we'll open for questions.
MR. AFSHAR GHASEMI: Actually, my friend will present for myself as well.
MR. KERMANSHAH: I have been asked to read it on his behalf:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Afshar Ghasemi and I was owner and manager of my own company, Afshar Fabrics, in my country and I have been living in this beautiful province for the last two years.
First, I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity. Secondly, I would like to thank Ms. Elizabeth Mills for bringing up the residency refund option, but I have to acknowledge that I was really surprised when I heard that we were excluded from this option.
Let me start my story in this way. When my family and I decided to immigrate we chose Canada because of its unique multiculturalism, justice and freedom which has made Canada well known around the world. Since we landed, we have been treated as a member of a huge family amongst Nova Scotians. I'll never forget the way Canadians showed us their warm affection with intimate smiles and eye contact.
After landing the second day, I went to Cornwallis Corporation for choosing a job, but they did not have any job offer regarding my field which is fabrics and they told me just that, you have a one-year deadline to sign the contract, otherwise you will not be eligible for the six-month job offer. The day after, I met some of my co-nominees who had already signed a contract. They told me the whole story about the Mentorship Program, that they did not work and their mentor told them that they did not need to show up at work, actually they wanted only your money. As a matter of fact there were a lot of unpleasant stories about this program and many knew it was not a successful mentorship from the beginning and just a
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few nominees, whom I have never met, may have been given matched mentors and this is not a good criterion for estimating the success of the program.
I went to Cornwallis Corporation three times and I told them I really wanted to start a business here and I had heard what happened to other nominees who had started mentorship, is there any possibility to have some of my money as a refund to start my own business but I received the same response, one-year deadline, so I signed the contract under duress.
After signing the contract, I had the same experience as the other nominees, working in a construction company which did not have a position for the job title, marketing manager, mentioned in the contract. This company did not even have an employee and I did not have to show up at the workplace. After all that, whenever I applied for a job to use my mentorship as Canadian experience, and my mentor as a reference, many of the employers sarcastically told me, we heard about this so-called mentorship, we don't have any job for you at this level of management. Eventually for two months I worked as an employee in the Everything for a Dollar store, stocking the shelves, sweep, mop the floor and carry the garbage out of the store which shows how effective the so-called Mentorship Program has been in my career.
Let us be neutral and just. Who can call this Mentorship Program a success from the beginning? How many received the valuable work experience they deserved which cost them a huge amount of money? With this money, I would be able to get my PhD in a major from an accredited university.
As feeling obliged to be loyal to the friendly people and contribute to the economy of this province, I stayed and started my own business which is a pizza shop and right now I am suffering because I am not interested in this business. If the residency refund option had been introduced to us from the beginning, I could have gone into a business according to my credentials.
We would like to live in a society with the others with integrity but the residency refund option has divided the nominees. Some of our friends believe that if we had not been involuntarily treated as guinea pigs in the Mentorship Program, they would never have benefitted from the residency refund option and they have also banned us because they think their refund entitlement would be in jeopardy if they contact us and this kind of treatment is really painful.
I have to acknowledge that I really believe in Canadian justice, thus I hope the committee will make a fair decision regarding including us in the residency refund option. Please do not disappoint us of restoring our rights. Ladies and gentlemen, once again I would like to thank the committee members for listening to my presentation.
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MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Mr. Preyra and Mr. Steele.
MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Thank you, Mr. Kermanshah and Mr. Ghasemi, for coming in today. I have a number of very short questions I hope, for Mr. Kermanshah mostly. Mr. Kermanshah, when you first applied for the Nominee Program, were you aware that $20,000 of your money was going to go to the consultant who drew your case to the attention of the Office of Immigration?
MR. KERMANSHAH: As I have mentioned, nothing was transferred from the beginning. Nothing was explained to us, I even paid $6,200 to my agent in Iran.
MR. PREYRA: So you paid $6,200, in addition to the $20,000 . . .
MR. KERMANSHAH: In addition to the $20,000 that was allocated to the agents.
MR. PREYRA: Now when you came to Canada, were you made aware that there was a list of business mentors? How did you get in touch with Emery Fisheries?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I was introduced to Emery Fisheries - I was not informed that there was a list of mentors. I was introduced to Emery Fisheries company through a broker which was introduced to me by the owner of China Town Restaurant, with an Iranian.
MR. PREYRA: And that broker was paid $15,000, to your knowledge, by Emery Fisheries?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I wasn't informed until I saw the contract in my mentor's office. He was not supposed to charge me. He was supposed to start a business with me because he said that he was importing and exporting USB cables from China, and I told him that I can introduce some of my customers in Iran to import USB cables. So we started sort of a friendship, kind of relationship and he wasn't supposed to act as a broker. He also took me to some places to introduce some prominent people of this province.
MR. PREYRA: But you were not aware that there was a business transaction?
MR. KERMANSHAH: No, no, when I saw the contract, I was really shocked in his office.
MR. PREYRA: Now you were supposed to be in a middle management position at Emery Fisheries.
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes.
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MR. PREYRA: What did you find when you got there and how much were you eventually paid for that position?
MR. KERMANSHAH: My contract was $37,000 and when I went there, I found that they had a very small office with two rooms and both of them were occupied by himself and his son. They had not even made any preparations for helping me to settle in there, to give me a desk or anything. I found that when I went through their business I found that they were not knowledgeable enough to give me the information I needed for this middle management position. Then they did not, they haven't paid half of my salary.
MR. PREYRA: So you got, you were saying, about $8,400 of the total amount?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I have received $1,200. Actually the totals are half of that $19,000 - $6,000 was paid as tax and I have received net, somewhere about $12,000.
MR. PREYRA: You say that your contract was signed at the end of July, which is a few months before the refund program was announced in itself. Now when you went to the Office of Immigration, after several meetings with them you were sent a letter on January 11th, in response, which is what you alluded to. I would like to read that letter into the record, which Mr. Kermanshah sent to me.
MADAM CHAIR: No, just table it. We have a limited amount of time, so just table it.
MR. PREYRA: Essentially the letter accepts the idea that there was no bona fide mentorship arrangement with Emery Fisheries, that, in fact, you didn't get any of the middle management position that you were promised and the Office of Immigration stopped a payment to Emery Fisheries of about $50,000, but also informed you that you had lost your $50,000 and your entitlement to further participation, both in the Mentorship Program and in the refund program.
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes, that's right.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you, Madam Chair.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: Mr. Preyra asked the questions that I was going to ask him.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Ms. Whalen.
MS. DIANA WHALEN: Yes, I was very interested in the fact that you had signed in July because the changes to the program clearly were in the works and being considered
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at that time. I wasn't aware that you were one of the individuals who have actually had their contract null and voided because of the inability of, I guess, the business company to actually meet the demands or the commitment that they made to you.
What I wanted to ask you was when you arrived, what was the date that you arrived in Canada?
MR. KERMANSHAH: April 27, 2007, I landed in Halifax.
MS. WHALEN: During that year, there was a change after Cornwallis was no longer in charge, where the one-year deadline for signing a contract came into play. Was that made very clear to you that you had only a limited amount of time in order to sign a contract, otherwise, you would forego all of the $100,000? You would lose it all.
MR. KERMANSHAH: That's right, yes, they told me that.
MS. WHALEN: So I guess what I want to know is how much pressure you felt to sign and actually . . .
MR. KERMANSHAH: Well I mean these things were not - we were not informed of these regulations while we were signing the contract in my own country.
Now why I selected Canada actually, apart from the good society, a developed society and a democratic society, they were giving me a guarantee of having an occupation in here - that really interested me. I was not even really interested in getting that minimum of $20,000 which they were supposed to allocate for the salary, because I was calculating on myself that even in two or three months employment, I would be able to get this money back and also ensure my life in here. You know, according to the equivalency of the foreign exchangers, I have been spending and bringing money in here and changing into dollars from my own country which has been really unaffordable. I can't afford any more.
MS. WHALEN: Perhaps I'll just ask a question on that. I've heard from a number of the nominees who have come here, that it has been difficult to take your money from your home country to this country. Is that what you're alluding today, the difficulty of converting the currency?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes, that's right, and that is also difficult. Do you know why? Because all the banks are banned internationally; we cannot send the money through the banks to Canada.
MS. WHALEN: So it was really a lot of difficulty to get the $130,000 . . .
MR. KERMANSHAH: Lots of difficulty then to get the money in here.
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[9:30 a.m.]
MS. WHALEN: Yes, I think that's important for all of the nominees that we'll see, that other people as well have come here, so it doesn't mean you have a . . .
MR. KERMANSHAH: All the Iranian banks are banned by the United Nations.
MS. WHALEN: I have just one other question. The original description of the program from Cornwallis indicated that you would receive a list of companies and that you would be able to select from that list. When you arrived here, I understand that Cornwallis was no longer in charge but perhaps for both of you to answer this question maybe - were you shown any list? Was there any choice whatsoever, or were you thrown basically to your own resources?
MR. KERMANSHAH: We not only received actually any lists of mentors, but also we were not even informed by our agent or the Immigration Office that Cornwallis was not even in charge of the Nominee Program any more.
MS. WHALEN: They didn't inform you until you arrived.
MR. KERMANSHAH: They didn't send us an e-mail. If I had known, I would have stepped more cautiously into the program.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, I think that's very significant as well. I wonder, with Mr. Ghasemi, if you could tell us as well, did you pay a broker separately, in Iran, before you came here? Just as we've heard, you paid $6,500 or $6,200 to a broker?
MR. AFSHAR GHASEMI: Actually I paid just my lawyer and he explained to me how this - I have this six-month job offer here in relation to my field. After I landed over here, I was really surprised. I didn't know that the transparency of the program and once I was over here I just went to Cornwallis and I hear the news the day after from my co-nominees that it is not a good program and all of us are suffering. I didn't pay to the brokerage, I paid the amount to my lawyer, it was almost $10,000 U.S. dollars at that time.
MS. WHALEN: Would you think that he was acting as a broker, essentially, because you didn't need a lawyer to sign with the Nominee Program.
MR. GHASEMI: Yes, he did. He was as a brokerage because I didn't know how to apply for immigration.
MS. WHALEN: So you paid quite a hefty fee as well.
MR. GHASEMI: Yes, that's right.
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MS. WHALEN: And I think it's important to know that the original program said that the nominees should not have to pay any separate brokerage, that it was covered by Cornwallis' fee to a broker in the home country.
MR. GHASEMI: Oh, I didn't know that, it is the first time.
MR. KERMANSHAH: We were not informed of these facts at all.
MR. GHASEMI: I paid $10,000 U.S. dollars at that time, yes. I didn't know that, this is my first time I explained.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you for your answers.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter.
MR. CHUCK PORTER: I am really pleased that you came to the committee today. We're very interested in hearing your story. There are a number of questions I have and I know time's short, so I'll get the first few out.
You talked about the program - it's really confusing, it seems when I listen to your story. There's a piece that's almost missing and it's the beginning. Where did you go to find out there was a mentorship and an opportunity to come to Nova Scotia? How did you decide and who did you contact?
Obviously you are a knowledgeable, experienced businessman and you made a decision, I want to go to Canada, it's a great country, we want to live there. How did that whole first beginning transpire?
MR. KERMANSHAH: These brokers have offices in our own countries. They put advertisements in the newspapers and also on the Internet - if you go to the Internet Web site you can see lots of the companies. They even have offices not only in the Province of Ontario, but also in their original country.
MR. PORTER: So you went to see the broker, the broker outlined for you a program that existed in Canada and specifically, in Nova Scotia?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes.
MR. PORTER: All of those details were provided to you at that time?
MR. KERMANSHAH: No, nothing was provided. Coming to Canada is really difficult, even to go through the federal procedures that would take a long time. I thought what would be the fastest, the most extreme and he said, this is the fastest way, but you have
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to pay this amount of money and you would be provided with job experience and occupations.
MR. PORTER: So there was some detail obviously outlined in that meeting, there was a contract that was signed. Did you read that contract and understand what it was you were getting into?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I read all the contracts, but nothing was explained over the Nominee Program and we were not even given any catalogues. They said that we would be briefed at the time of our interview here. They acknowledged that they didn't even have any information on the program, just that this was the fastest way of getting into Canada.
MR. PORTER: You obviously were wanting to get here more quickly, rather than taking - I don't know how much time it takes to get through, I know it's probably a few years?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes, that's . . .
MR. PORTER: But you wanted to get here for whatever reason, set up a business, go to work, contribute and so on.
MR. KERMANSHAH: That's just one of the privileges, but everything has a price.
MR. PORTER: Somewhere there though there must have been figures outlined, it's going to cost you this much money. Did you deal with an agent then outside of the broker? When you arrived here or prior to getting here, the details, I just want to clarify that step because I'm actually confused on this step right now from what you've read? You met with the broker who set you up with an agent, is that correct?
MR. KERMANSHAH: No, no. That agent was the broker.
MR. PORTER: The agent was the broker, same guy.
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes, the agent was the broker.
MR. PORTER: So you paid him a fee.
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes.
MR. PORTER: How much did you pay him?
MR. KERMANSHAH: It was $6,200.
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MR. PORTER: And sir, how much did you pay him?
MR. GHASEMI: I paid $10,000.
MR. PORTER: Was there any question as to why it was different or is that just open-ended in your country?
MR. GHASEMI: Because it is different with my company, I always go over to buy the goods from those companies and I bring them to my country and I actually just sell across the country. I saw the advertisement in the newspaper over there.
MR. PORTER: So when you set up with the agent/broker, you went and again, just for clarity, you knew what you were coming to do or you understood that you were coming to do whatever business you were in, whatever your profession was, you understood that to be the case, that you were coming to Canada, to Nova Scotia specifically, to work in the same kind of job?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I was promised that I would find a job in a department store at the management level.
MR. PORTER: Who was your mentor?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Emery Smith Fisheries.
MR. PORTER: And they are located?
MR. KERMANSHAH: In Shag Harbour.
MR. PORTER: In Shag Harbour. Did you go to work there?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes.
MR. PORTER: How long did you work there?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I went there twice.
MR. PORTER: As in two days in the beginning?
MR. KERMANSHAH: No, I went there exactly four days after signing the contract. I arranged everything with him and I told him that I would be there on a particular date, at a particular time, please make everything ready and introduce me to the people that I'm going to work with.
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MR. PORTER: And did this company outline . . .
MR. KERMANSHAH: When I arrived there I was really shocked, shocked in a way that how could they coordinate the facilities of that company with my credentials? I was asking myself, has there been any monitoring or a system of evaluation that this company could give me the experience I needed according to my credentials? I realized and told myself, maybe my file has not been studied by the authorities well enough. The most important thing of any company is the intellectual and intelligence aspect of each business company.
MR. PORTER: Do I still have a little bit of time? Just a very quick question - in your opening statement, did you say you contacted the Office of Immigration or you did not with regard to your issues?
MR. KERMANSHAH: Yes, I did. After that I contacted the Immigration officer who was in charge of signing the contract, who was present at the signing of the contract. I told him and he said, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win; this time you have lost. You will have to stick with your contract and continue.
MR. PORTER: Verbal conversation. Was there any correspondence that was transferred?
MR. KERMANSHAH: That's what I got for a call from the Emery Smith Fisheries office.
MR. PORTER: But no written correspondence at the time?
MR. KERMANSHAH: I have sent a registered letter to the Immigration Office and it took one month to receive. I followed up through Canada Post and they could not trace the letter and confirm the receipt of the letter. I couldn't even get the confirmation that there was a letter on the line. Canada Post decided to send the charges of the post to me and they said sorry, nobody signed the receipt of that paper. After one month, I received my response in a return form.
MR. PORTER: You said you went to work two different times.
MR. KERMANSHAH: I told them that this company cannot provide me the experience that I needed and the job that I needed, according to code 611NOC and I explained everything to them and after one month they sent me a letter that your complaint is because the residency refund option has surfaced, this was the reason.
MR. PORTER: How many hours did you work total at that place?
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MR. KERMANSHAH: Actually I was present there nearly eight hours all together on two different days, but I worked for the company nearly four days at home going through different sites to collect information about Nova Scotia because they said they did not have highspeed Internet.
MR. PORTER: And you were paid for that time?
MR. KERMANSHAH: According to my contract, they were supposed to pay me a salary, but there is also another point that I want to mention here. The title of the contract is the employment contract which is contradictory to the Mentorship Program. With an employment contract, you receive a salary. Salary means that money is paid from the employer's pocket, not from your pocket. That means I had to work for them, but the title of the contract should have been mentorship contract. That means I paid money to receive the services that I had paid. I called this one, low against low.
MADAM CHAIR: We're going to have to really move on. Mr. Glavine has a 30 second question.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Afshar, I was wondering if you did complete your mentorship? You obviously described it as a horrific experience compared to the credentials that you brought to the country and that you could offer Nova Scotia. What happened in the end in terms of your time there with the company?
MR. GHASEMI: After 10 days of just showing some houses he built, then after 10 days, he mentioned that if you don't want to you don't need to come. I said there is nothing to learn over here. He said, it's a good experience to see how houses are made here, but then after 10 days he said, you do not need to show up.
MR. GLAVINE: So that was suggested to you?
MR. GHASEMI: Yes. Then after that I thought I cannot start this business, so I asked him if there was any possibility to just show me because I was a marketing manager, I have this title in your company, so is there any possibility to show me the file for one house to see how much do you make, the expenses of this house and how much profit do you make? But he didn't show me anything he just said, I don't have any files here, I can't show you anything. It was a really bad experience for me. After 10 days, I just went to my home and searched around and after the six months the real Canadian experience I had, I have to mention, was working in the Dollar Store.
After wasting my money in this program, I didn't have enough money to go through my field that was importing and exporting fabric - I worked all the time over there. They said the only job we have, because we heard about the so-called Nominee Program, the only jobs
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we have are like the others - mopping, putting stuff on the shelves, sweeping and I even carried the garbage. It's not fair, as you know.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Before you leave us, there has been an offer from the Department of Immigration for the committee to have access to the files of people who are presenting here today, but we would like to have your consent before those files would be released to us. We have a form that outlines that you would give us that consent and you could see one of our staff on your way out.
Thank you very much for coming today, thank you.
Our next presenter is Alireza Aghajan. Good morning, please begin.
MR. ALIREZA AGHAJAN: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alireza Aghajan, I am a psychiatrist and my wife is a surgeon. We have two kids and moved here in September 2006. We are so happy to come into Halifax - there are many opportunities for living, working and growing up here. On the other hand, I am a nominee of NSNP - the Nova Scotia Nominee Program - that was excluded from the residency refund option. I finished my contract only three months before the refunding option was up.
[9:45 a.m.]
Two years ago, I was approved by NSNP and came here for living, working and post-graduate study. After landing, I had to settle down by renting an apartment, buying a car and some other equipment. I have had to take many exams to get a practising licence. I found a mentor matching my credentials in Dalhousie University by speaking to Dr. Ghatavi, who is a professor assistant of the medical university. He accepted to be my mentor and help me join them in research and clinical observation and also to teaching, but unfortunately the NSNP didn't approve him as my mentor and told me he didn't meet the criteria.
I was introduced by a broker to a company that dealt with housing renovation. This company was approved by the NSNP, therefore, despite the fact that I was told after one year my mentorship entitlement would be forfeited, I signed the contract with that company.
After hearing about the residency refund option, I realized that I had been excluded from that program. Not only have I not received any professional experience, but I have also lost my money which I could have invested in my studies as a medical specialist.
All the nominees belong to the same category of immigration, therefore they should be treated equally and fairly. In my opinion, it is unjust that only a specified group of nominees contribute economically to the province by spending $110,500 and refunded around $20,000, whereas the others spent only $30,500 by staying at home and refunding $100,000. I'm so frustrated here. Thank you so much.
[Page 16]
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Steele.
MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Thank you for coming today. I have some questions to try to clarify what you've just told us. It is my understanding that you tried to arrange your own mentorship which would have been in your field of work, but that was not approved by the Office of Immigration, is that correct?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. STEELE: But you did have an approved mentorship with a home renovation company. Did you work for that company?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes, for six months.
MR. STEELE: What did you do for them?
MR. AGHAJAN: Building representation but only imagination of this work - not really because I studied my textbooks at the office daily.
MR. STEELE: So you went to work for the company, but really you were studying your medical textbooks when you were there.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes, physically only. I went there for my salary, not anything else.
MR. STEELE: Okay, and what are you doing now? What are you doing today?
MR. AGHAJAN: Now I passed the first part of the evaluative exam for MCC, and I am studying a lot for the qualifying exam so I can step off MCC and . . . .
MR. STEELE: Okay, so you are working to be a qualified psychiatrist in Canada? You are trying to become one?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. STEELE: You mentioned also that your wife was a surgeon in your home country. What is she doing now?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes. She is such as me, yes.
MR. STEELE: She is . . . .
MR. AGHAJAN: Such as me and she passed the first part of the exam and she is studying at home.
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MR. STEELE: And did she participate in the Mentorship Program?
MR. AGHAJAN: No, I was the main immigrant, applicant, yes.
MR. STEELE: Okay, thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Porter.
MR. PORTER: Thank you and thank you for coming as well today. Just a couple of quick questions. Given the economic impact - $130,000 is a lot of money. You are aware of that, obviously coming in, in this program. Why did you select the Nova Scotia Nominee Program as your entry into Canada, I guess as an option - we're glad to have you, don't get me wrong, we really are. As an option, though, you had options to go to other provinces. There is a reason you came to Nova Scotia, I guess is what I am getting at. What was appealing about the Nova Scotia Nominee Program to you?
MR. AGHAJAN: In my country I was a boss of a hospital, a manager of a hospital and I wanted to come here as soon as possible. This program was a good opportunity for coming here.
MR. PORTER: Very good, so you ended up having to have an agent. Obviously you wanted to do it yourself but you had an agent to assist you through the process?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. PORTER: Who was that agent?
MR. AGHAJAN: Who is my lawyer or agent?
MR. PORTER: The agent, was it a lawyer acting as your agent, or who was your agent assisting you with this whole process of getting into the Nominee Program and then into the Mentorship Program?
MR. AGHAJAN: I had a lawyer . . .
MR. PORTER: Okay, that's fine. Did you pay this person who helped you or assisted you as the agent, for finding you employment or setting up the Mentorship Program?
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
MR. PORTER: There were no fees.
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
[Page 18]
MR. PORTER: Great. So right now you said you are studying to pass the Canadian - I guess it would be the Canadian level exams, to go into your profession.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. PORTER: As is your wife?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. PORTER: Very good, thank you. That's all from me for now.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Preyra quickly, and then Ms. Whalen.
MR. PREYRA: Just a very quick question to clarify something that Mr. Steele asked. When you were looking for this mentorship arrangement, were you given a list of suitable mentor companies?
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
MR. PREYRA: So you went out looking on your own and you found Dalhousie University where a researcher was doing research in your area. Were you ever told why Dalhousie University was not a suitable mentor company?
MR. AGHAJAN: Not in detail, but they told me that we needed a company active in business, in economical field - not in the medical field.
MR. PREYRA: Okay, so you were told that it had to be a business mentor company, a corporate body in fact.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: I have just a couple of questions on how you got matched to the home renovation company. When you first signed up for this program overseas, before you came here, did you expect to be given a list of companies? Was that what you were told, that you would be introduced to a choice of companies?
MR. AGHAJAN: Somebody called me and said, I can help you in finding a good company, who was a broker.
[Page 19]
MS. WHALEN: So you did have a broker who said they could arrange that. Did you pay a broker any funds when you . . .
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
MS. WHALEN: Only because they didn't provide you with a good match.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes, yes.
MS. WHALEN: So you were certainly disappointed on this end, when you arrived and there was no help in getting that.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Can you tell me who introduced you to the company, then, that you ultimately signed with, the home renovation company?
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
MS. WHALEN: Was it the Office of Immigration that said to you we have a company that is approved?
MR. AGHAJAN: No, not from the Immigration Office.
MS. WHALEN: How did you find them?
MR. AGHAJAN: I mentioned this problem to my friend who is a psychiatrist. He told me that somebody can help me and after two days someone called me.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, so it was more through a network of friends that you just - and did you feel pressure that you must find a company, otherwise you're going to lose your $100,000 completely?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes, because I had to meet it for one year.
MS. WHALEN: Were you at the one-year point, almost?
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Could you just tell us again when you arrived and when you signed the contract?
MR. AGHAJAN: I arrived here in September 2006 and I signed after three months.
[Page 20]
MS. WHALEN: But you did feel urgency about making sure that you had that in place. I think it is most unfortunate that where you had a proper match with your experience at the university, that that was not admissible or didn't meet the criteria of the company. I think we would all agree that you had done a good job to find that connection and it wasn't accepted.
MR. AGHAJAN: Unfortunate.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter, quickly.
MR. PORTER: Thank you, and very quickly, why did you choose the economic stream versus a professional stream? Those were options to you at the time - being a professional, your wife a professional person, versus the economic stream.
MR. AGHAJAN: I told that I like to come here as soon as possible and . . .
MR. PORTER: You wanted to come to practice in your profession, though, you wanted to be matched as a professional versus professional, to study and learn your profession and go to work in your profession here. So that was an option to you to choose under the professional stream to come in, but you chose the economic stream to come in.
MR. AGHAJAN: Yes.
MR. PORTER: Okay, and just very quickly, I'll ask you as well as I did earlier to the others, did you have any correspondence with the Department of Immigration or anyone else with regard to your situation, by way of concern or complaint or whatever word you'd like to use there?
MR. AGHAJAN: Unfortunately, for that process I needed to have around five to six years in the waiting list for coming here. But this program I came here only at nine months and I haven't had any time for coming here.
MR. PORTER: Okay, I guess my question was, did you contact anybody in the Department of Immigration to complain about your situation, or to express concerns you had?
MR. AGHAJAN: No.
MR. PORTER: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. We do need to move on.
[Page 21]
Our next presenter is Farzin Farrashzadeh. Good morning.
MR. FARZIN FARRASHZADEH: My name is Farzin. As you know, everybody all over the world has a dream to get to Canada because of the good life, because of the democratic situation. Personally, when I decided to move to Canada I had a lot of dreams, the same as others, but unfortunately after I arrived here I found a difference because of, I think, the unjustice of government.
I found good, hospitable people in Nova Scotia, but when I arrived here it was June 23, 2006, exactly three weeks before Cornwallis unexpectedly closed. I went to Cornwallis and it was forced to me because I was under pressure. All my wealth in my homeland was $300,000 which included my house, summer house and my workshop. Because of paying this much money, I sold my shares and also I borrowed money from my father-in-law and paid it to Cornwallis at that time, I sent my money. It was forced to me to sign the contract because I have two little daughters and I have to finance them.
[10:00 a.m.]
I decided to sign the contract as soon as possible and Cornwallis, at that time, gave me, I think it was, 44 different companies, but none of them matched with my own work or specialty. I decided to sign a contract with one of them and I chose Atbin Homes Limited, a construction company. I signed a contract with that man. At first he talked to me a lot, friendly and also he said to me, I will give you a long-term job. I talked with my wife and she said to me, if he gives you a long-term job it is better, you accept $20,000 because at that time we heard about other nominees without any work, some of them get $50,000, some of them $40,000, but I accepted $20,000 because of the long term, but I didn't know I have to write in the contract.
I signed a contract and went to the company that has just one boss and one secretary and started my work. Every day I went to work around 7:30 until 5:00. I went there as a project manager, but my job was the same as a labourer. I had to carry a big generator back to the truck every day, carrying shingles up three floors and many other kinds of jobs, as you know, in a construction company.
I finished my six-month job on December 8, 2006. At that time I didn't have any money because I was under pressure so I went to the Immigration Office and complained about this situation. When I arrived here I talked to Cornwallis, and said, give my own money to myself, maybe I could establish a job here and it's good for me, but they didn't accept. They said to me, you contribute this money to the economy of Nova Scotia and I said, you're right, I accept.
I went to the Immigration Office to complain about this situation saying I worked as a labourer in this company. I think all the companies just want the nominees' money, no
[Page 22]
supervision from Cornwallis and also from Immigration Office because after Cornwallis I think Immigration Office has to supervise and manage Nominee Program, no supervision. Unfortunately, I finished and complained to the Immigration Office and the lady at the Immigration Office said to me, you can't complain about the money. You contributed this money to the economy of Nova Scotia, so never talk about money. I said, that's okay, so I didn't try to complain.
I went and got my taxi driving licence. Now I am driving a cab for seven, eight months and I come here because of good life, because of justice. I come here because I want my kids to grow up in a safe place. I come here because I want my kids to grow up with a good education and also I think my kids need me as a father, this is more important, safety and other things, but unfortunately I have to drive every day, more than 10 to 12 hours. When I speak with people and I say I drive 12 hours a day they say to me, you're crazy. Yes, I'm crazy, believe me because this is a struggle for life, I have to do something to survive my family here.
I'm not complaining a lot. I just want to say the new decision is not fair to people the same as me because I worked six months as a labourer and got just $20,000. After six months the company's owner didn't keep his word and said to me, I have to lay you off because it's shut down. I went on unemployment insurance for four months and after that I started driving a cab. So to get a driving cab licence I passed a lot of red tape and it was very hard for me in a new culture, a new country. Believe me, I am under pressure.
I got my licence just for reading maps. I didn't know any buildings, but I got my licence with a good score and I work with a lot of pressure. I don't have anything to say, but I think you make a decision and refund all the nominees' money. It doesn't matter if some of them have a lot of money or some of them have no money, all of the nominees come to Canada through the same process, so I think the government has to treat them all the same. If you want to refund money, you have to refund all of the money for all of the nominees. If you don't want to refund, that's okay, we are satisfied. You collect all the nominees' money, for example, build a new hospital in Nova Scotia. I think people need a new hospital, new facilities, 800 people plus $130,000, it's huge money, you could build a new hospital for people, I am satisfied if you don't refund my money. But if you want to refund 600 nominees' money and just 200 already signed a contract and finished the job, it's not fair, I think it is not fair. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much for coming today and being so honest and open in telling us about your dreams and aspirations in coming to Nova Scotia. It's very important for us to hear and that's why I'm so glad you were able to come today. One of the things that you pointed out is that you made a lot of sacrifices to find the money to come here
[Page 23]
to Nova Scotia, that you had to sell everything you had and you had to borrow from your family.
MR. FARRASHZADEH: I sold my share actually, I had over there doorhandles production industry, I sold my share and also borrowed from my in-law to pay.
MS. WHALEN: And I think that helps to show that it isn't always people with vast resources who are coming here, that it is regular, ordinary people who have a dream, people who want to make a better life for their family and when you speak about your daughters, it's very clear. I'm sure all of us have been struck by what you're saying. What I wanted to know specifically was about two things, one was that you were promised - in that decision to sign a contract with this company you were led to believe at least that there would be a long-term job? You were told, we'll hire you later on.
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: I know you weren't doing the work you expected to be doing, but when you came to the end of the six months was there any discussion about continuing on or transferring that to a regular job?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: I couldn't understand exactly what your question is, but when I arrived here I went to Cornwallis and found Atbin Homes Limited. That guy promised me, I will give you a long-term job, but he didn't keep his promise.
MS. WHALEN: I think that's the clear point. When the six months was completed you did say you went back to the Office of Immigration and told them how inappropriate the experience was?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: That you weren't learning the kind of experience that matched your background as an owner of a manufacturing company and so on?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: It was not matched with my own . . .
MS. WHALEN: I guess I just want to know, did you put it in writing? Was there anything written to say that you didn't have a good experience?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes. I went to the Immigration Office and actually they write - all my complaint I think is at the Immigration Office. But the lady said to me, I can't do anything for you because you didn't try, for example, a long-term job, blah, blah, blah.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much.
[Page 24]
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: I just have two quick questions. Did you know at the time that you applied that there was a minimum amount of money that you needed to have to get into the program?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes.
MR. PREYRA: So to meet that minimum amount you sold your home and liquidated all of your assets and you borrowed money from your father-in-law to get up to the $300,000, is that right?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Actually, exactly I knew the program because I knew I had to pay $130,000. Also, I knew they guaranteed me a six-month job as a manger in a middle-management job. I knew everything and I knew this program was the fastest program to get into Canada because my wife and I, both of us, have a bachelor degree in nursing, but we didn't want to wait for six or five years to get into Canada; we are skilled workers. We decided to sell my share and borrow money to come here.
MR. PREYRA: When you got into this contract was it your understanding that the business mentor, the company that you were working with, was approved by the Office of Immigration?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: No.
MR. PREYRA: Was it your understanding that the contract was approved by the Office of Immigration?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: At first I thought I contributed this amount of money to the economy of Nova Scotia. I didn't know that Cornwallis or the government wanted to give my money to the owner of the company. The owner of the company has millions of dollars, but I didn't know. After I signed the contract some of the nominees, I found it by accident, he said to me, I didn't work, I got $50,000 without any work.
At that time I said to the owner, could you please let me go to the other company? He said to me, no, by law we signed a contract, I couldn't allow you to leave this job, you have to stay here. I found that the company just wanted my money, not me as a manager and also to mentor me as a project manager.
MR. PREYRA: Just one last question. When you found out that this contract was not going to be honoured and that you weren't going to be a project manager, you were going to be a labourer, did you get the sense from the contract that the Office of Immigration would
[Page 25]
be able to do something about it or was monitoring it or was looking into these contracts at any stage, to make sure that the terms of the agreement were being followed?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: I am not a stupid person but I am a very quiet person. At the time when I signed the contract and contacted the guy I worked for, the first week when I talked with him I found he wanted just my money, not me as a project manager. If he wanted me as a project manager and also if he wanted to mentor me, I would never have worked as a labourer. So he wanted my money, just my money and also during the six months it doesn't matter for him if I worked or if I didn't work.
[10:15 a.m.]
Also, imagine a company just has one owner, one secretary and all the jobs to do with other companies, for example, carpenters, roof lights, shingles, and other companies actually work for him. So I work just labour. I didn't get any experience here so as I say, I need to finance my family and also I need to support them. I decided to be a cab driver, now I am a cab driver.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Dunn.
MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you for sharing your experience with the committee. One question I have, I believe you have already answered it, how much does the experience cost you and you mentioned $130,000. Could you break that down again, $130,000.
MR. FARRASHZADEH: It's $130,000.
MR. DUNN: What I mean is, $130,000 wasn't passed over in one lump sum. Did you have an agent or broker?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Actually when I heard about this program I contacted a lawyer in Toronto, actually they have a large advertisement to the Internet and also on TV. When I contacted them they followed this program. Actually they didn't know at that time there was this program. They search about this and after one week, I think, they said to me yes, I could follow your program to get in Canada and I charge you $6,000 U.S. dollars. I paid to the lawyer step by step, until I get here. I didn't know, again, the government wanted to give $20,000 of my money to that lawyer who did the process.
MR. DUNN: You made reference to, as a project manager all they wanted was your money.
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes.
[Page 26]
MR. DUNN: Can you give us some examples why you knew that? Did they say anything? Did they say if it was important for you to be reporting to work, or did it matter to come to work? Basically you had the feeling in that capacity as a project manager, they didn't really care what you were doing. So were there any conversations that made you think that?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: We talked a lot because that guy was Iranian guy and also when I arrived here my English I thought was not good, I need to progress my English. I need to go to some company that I could talk with them, I could relate with them. I decided to go to that company because he is Iranian, I can talk in my own language. I talk with him a lot but . . .
MR. DUNN: Did you work very long with him?
MR. FARRASHZADEH: Yes, I worked for 6 months.
MADAM CHAIR: Order. We're going to have to move on, I'm sorry. We've taken about 25 minutes with one presentation. We want to thank you very much for coming, thank you very much.
Okay, our next presenter is Mr. Ian Russell.
MR. IAN RUSSELL: Good morning and thank you for allowing me to come here to be in front of you to tell you about my experience with the Nova Scotia Nominee Program. I arrived in Nova Scotia in 2004. I have to say to this committee that I'm proud to be a Scotsman but I'm extremely proud to be a Nova Scotian, and I make no excuse for saying that, I truly don't.
I have had really first-hand experience of the Provincial Nominee Program and I must say this to you, that the two and a half years - yes, it took me two and a half years to get in as a landed immigrant - was perhaps the most horrendous two and a half years of my life and I didn't go through the mentorship program.
But please don't think for a second that I blame the provincial Immigration Department, quite the opposite, absolutely quite the opposite. Without the provincial Immigration Department, my wife and I would have simply given up and just gone home, it's just so difficult. With the support that we were given by the Department of Immigration, that's what really made us stay.
I think the committee should know that the provincial Department of Immigration has some remarkable people working there. I would like to name a couple of people who were tremendous support to me and my wife; one was Elizabeth Mills, Director of Immigration; the other person was Frances Wolfe, and I have to tell you that without Frances' support, we
[Page 27]
truly would have been on a plane heading back to Scotland. However, my experience with the whole department has been first-class, absolutely first-class, every single member of staff who we dealt with was supportive.
My wife and I also have experience with Cornwallis Financial Corporation and I have seen the work that the principals put into the Provincial Nominee Program, not necessarily just on the mentorship side. However, I think you should not forget this, that that organization was a Crown representative, they represent the Crown of Nova Scotia. Now whether that was right or it wasn't right is neither for me to say or for me to guess. They were put in place to administer a program, the Nominee Program and its various streams.
The $130,000 option, I never agreed with it. It was, in my opinion, morally incorrect, it should not have been allowed to happen. This was just simply a fast way of getting into Nova Scotia, irrespective of what your qualifications were, it was the fastest way you could get into this province.
I am totally convinced, and I've listened this morning to some of the nominees, that every single applicant who came through that process came through knowing that that was the fastest way to get into Nova Scotia.
The people who went through the Mentorship Program could have quite easily taken the same route as most other nominees did, and then it takes two and a half years. So I can understand and sympathize why they chose to spend $130,000. If you asked me the question today - in hindsight and the knowledge that I have today having lived in Nova Scotia since 2004 - would I pay $130,000 to get into Nova Scotia, I'll give you a simple answer, yes. Even though I think it is morally incorrect, it should not be allowed, I personally would pay $130,000 to come and live in Nova Scotia.
The rights and wrongs of the program are simply irrelevant, they really are irrelevant. What we need to do, I believe, is to look at how we make it better now because the wrong is done and we can't change that wrong. I believe that Ms. Elizabeth Mills and her team have taken tremendous strides to make Nova Scotia a desirable province to come and live in but there is a lot more hard work still to be done.
You keep looking for difficult answers to easy questions. I'm sure everyone here today would agree with me that immigration is essential to Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia and Canada were built upon immigration and continue to be built upon that today. It is this diversity that makes Nova Scotia a wonderful place.
I would like to conclude what I have to say by giving this committee an easy answer to a difficult question, how do we get more immigrants, because that's truly what we're searching for. With a decreasing population in Nova Scotia, we need to bring in immigrants from all over the world. I believe this could be done and made very, very simple. Every
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applicant who wishes to come to the province, upon application should be granted an immediate two-year work permit, subject to a satisfactory criminal record check done in their own country, before they come to Nova Scotia, and then coming to Nova Scotia, having a medical done in Halifax - not in their own country, here in Halifax, so that our surgeons and our consultants in Nova Scotia can see that these people will not become a burden on the health care system.
This will allow candidates to start contributing to Nova Scotia because there's the difficulty, that if you are sitting, as I was, for two and a half years, you're not contributing, although I would add I spent over $400,000 of my own money buying a house and having my cars and all sorts of things and loving here and I was in a fortunate position I was able to do that.
I had had complete support from the Department of Immigration and I'm pleased to see my MLA here today because I also had complete support from my MLA as well. When we were going through the difficult times and couldn't understand why the hurdles were being put in front of us, Junior Theriault was there for us and that's an important part of this immigration process as well.
I think if you allow people and then give them that two-year work permit, what they have is an opportunity to apply through the program that contributes to Nova Scotia while they're here. If, at the end of two years they've done nothing, then you've no option but to ask them to leave the province and reapply in another two years' time, if they choose to come back to Nova Scotia. This is surely the solution and it would attract people to Nova Scotia and make Nova Scotia a better place for every single one of us to live in because that's truly what I believe Nova Scotia is about, making it a better place for us all to live in.
I thank you for giving me the opportunity to give my personal views to this committee and I make you a promise and I will continue to encourage my fellow Brits to come and visit this wonderful province and to continually promote Nova Scotia at all times.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Mr. Steele, and Mr. Preyra, Mr. Porter, Ms. Whalen.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much, Mr. Russell. I can't resist starting off by saying that I am the son of immigrants from Scotland so I've benefited from that pattern myself.
I just want to make sure that I understand your personal situation; you said that you didn't come through the Nominee Program. You've heard some of the previous witnesses say that for them and all of the previous ones, I believe, were from Iran, they were facing five to six years if they went through the regular stream. Could you just explain to us which stream you did go through and why that took you two and a half years, if they were facing five to six years?
[Page 29]
MR. RUSSELL: I came through the community identified scheme - there's not much known about it. What it is, the regional development agency in Digby-Annapolis identified me as someone who could give benefit to the community. When I came to Nova Scotia, I came with a very clear vision in my head; to come to New Scotland, to be an old Scot and get to be a new Scot was quite an honour, but it was about giving back to Nova Scotia and that's something, I think, that we all forget. For me, I'm privileged to be here, I'm privileged to come to this new country and by being community identified - and I think Junior Theriault would agree with this - we work very closely with the communities. I take trade missions to Scotland, we look at bringing in more investment to Nova Scotia, we just had a week of one of Scotland's top entrepreneurs here to bring in investment, so that's where the economic development side came in, community identified.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Just a comment really, Mr. Russell. Thank you very much for coming here today and certainly we'll echo what you have to say about Nova Scotia, but certainly what you have to say about the Office of Immigration. As the Immigration Critic for the Official Opposition, you should know that this is not about individual members of the Office of Immigration, certainly in our contact with them they have been very professional and very good. What we are concerned with here today is about the Nova Scotia Nominee Program and in particular, from the witnesses who have appeared, with the business mentorship side of that.
What we would like to do is give the nominees a chance to speak about their experience in the program and we want to know about the conceptualization of this program, we want to know about mechanisms that were put in place for oversight, for review, for accountability, for correcting things that went wrong in the process, and we want to know about fairness, whether or not given the experience of some of these nominees in the program, whether or not that they're being treated fairly. Certainly, for the long term, we'd like to know what we can learn from this about setting up an immigration program and what we need to do. Really this is not about individual members of the Office of Immigration, I know Carmelle d'Entremont is here and we've had a very good working relationship and certainly, it's a credit to her that many of these issues are being dealt with. We are more interested in the structures that were put in place and the processes. Thank you.
MR. RUSSELL: Can I just reply to that? I was actually offered the $130,000 by Cornwallis; I know both the principals of Cornwallis Financial Corporation very well. However, being the miserable Scotsman that I am, the thought of spending $130,000 of my money to get in here quickly really didn't appeal to me. I have to say that both Steven Lockyer and Michael Mailman explained it in great detail to me; still it didn't convince me because, as I say, morally I feel the program was wrong. However, as I said to you earlier, given the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had paid the $130,000, I truly do.
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MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Porter, then Ms Whalen, and Mr. Theriault on the speaking list and I'd like you to be as quick as you possibly can.
MR. PORTER: Thank you, Madam Chair and I will. Thank you, Mr. Russell, as well for your comments and sharing your experiences in coming into this country and being a proud Nova Scotian, it's great to have you. Just very quickly, having been someone who has gone through that process you seem to have a pretty clear understanding of how it works. The first question that came to my mind was, you have heard the people this morning so far that have spoken before this committee. Do you think they had a clear understanding from the outset of how this program worked and where they would end up?
MR. RUSSELL: Absolutely not.
MR. PORTER: Why would that be?
MR. RUSSELL: I think language barriers would perhaps be the first problem and I truly think that that is an issue. I don't think the program was clearly thought out. The idea in principle was good, let's get $130,000, what you're actually buying are skilled workers, we need to have wealthy people come to Nova Scotia, that's a great thing for Nova Scotia and I think that's really what they were targeting. Cornwallis was targeting to bring in people who had a bit of wealth as well as that management experience, but I certainly think the failure, if I can comment on the failure, would be the lack of explaining how the system worked. I think it was a hodgepodge of things, there was no clear defined route for any of the nominees.
My heart goes out to these people, but you have to be absolutely clear as well that there were people that chose and fully understood that by paying $130,500 they'd fast-track it in Nova Scotia and truly didn't care whether they lost the $130,000, as long as they were able to come to Canada and to Nova Scotia.
MADAM CHAIR: We're going to move on. Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: Yes, and thank you very much, Mr. Russell, for bringing your experience and perspective. I think one of the big differences right how is that you have a great facility with English, clearly, and you mentioned yourself the language barrier is a problem and perhaps may have influenced how people, other people, perceived the program or what they understood to be the obligation of the province or the business community when they entered into a contract with one of these individuals. So it is more difficult and there are also countries where there is more urgency to be leaving your country, perhaps the difference between five and six years, as was mentioned earlier, and a nine-month wait makes a big difference as well.
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I did want to just reiterate a bit about what Mr. Preyra has said and that is that we also are great supporters of immigration in this province and really welcomed the establishment of an Office of Immigration when that was announced. I think it is the right thing for our province. I think you have alluded to something very important and that is that those of you who have come, under whatever stream of the Nominee Program, have a lot to contribute in defining how we go forward and what kind of program we put in place. I hope you'll make yourself available to be an asset and help in that regard.
My main concern is that all the nominees who have come in and have made the commitment to stay in Nova Scotia - because we know others have paid the money and gone elsewhere, but those who have made the commitment - that we make them feel that Nova Scotia is a fair and just place and that they will continue to be great promoters, as you are, of our province.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Mr. Theriault, the last word is yours, quickly.
MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you Ian for coming. I just get the gist of what you're saying is that it's good that you would pay $130,000 to come to this country and probably what I heard this morning, people all over the world, that's their dream, to come to this country. Now I've talked to you a lot, Ian, and you do love it here and you think a lot of Nova Scotia. So the whole thing is that people bought into a bad program, for $130,000, it is kind of like paying $130,000 for a house and it falls down in six months, they bought a poor product.
So you're saying this program should continue and that it needs a lot of correcting.
MR. RUSSELL: No, I think the program should be abolished immediately, there should be no fees. Nova Scotia is crying for immigrants, we absolutely must get more immigrants to come here and we shouldn't have any fees. You should have administrative fees, perhaps, but certainly no one who has - I mean how many Nova Scotians could spend $130,000 to come into this program? If it was reversed, how many people in Nova Scotia could find $130,000? I don't think many, so the best way to do this program is to work with the Department of Immigration.
If I could make criticism, and I'm not here to make criticism, that the federal side is where we have to look, to make it easier, so that our Department of Immigration here in Halifax can actually do their job better. So I would abolish the $130,000 and never go down that route ever again, never.
MR. THERIAULT: Do you believe we should correct this problem, the mistakes that have been made?
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MR. RUSSELL: Oh, I believe we should correct the problem. Yes, I do.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Our next witness is Annemarie Schep-Stiger.
MS. ANNEMARIE SCHEP-STIGER: Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here and to give you an overview from our experience with the Nominee Program and the mentorship. My name is Annemarie Stiger. I immigrated two years ago with my husband and our five kids from the Netherlands. Actually he was the main applicant, my husband, so I am doing this case on his behalf.
The presentation will give you a clear overview of the situation before we immigrated, the situation as a landed immigrant and finding a mentorship place, the present situation and my personal opinions. By the way, I made copies for all of you so that may be handy for later.
MADAM CHAIR: Perhaps since there are copies, we'll have them distributed and rather than read through, in the interest of time, if you could sort of give us the highlights.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: In November 2004, we signed a contract with Buysse Immigration Consultancy from the Netherlands to provide us with seven visas on a permanent basis and actually, we were very looking forward to have permanent visas because we were immigrating with five kids and we find it so unsure to go on the work permit or on another basis.
Before we signed, Buysse let us know that it would be probably the only way to come into Canada because you have to gain points based on your education, experience, age, whatever, and in our case he explained that we were just short on points and the only way to get into Canada was through the Nominee Program.
The way he explained the Nominee Program sounded pretty safe, starting up in a new country, having a half-year job sounded like sort of a guaranteed safe start. The only struggle was the high fee and we really struggled with that but we agreed and let him know, okay, we will try to go for the interview. Within two months we travelled to Halifax for a one-week stay for the interview. During that period we had two meetings; one at the beginning of the week with Ms. Heather Selig, just to inform us about the final interview, the Nominee Program, the situation in Nova Scotia and all those kinds of things.
We were really interested to have Dutch names from families who were living here and businesses. It was hard for her to give that, she said it is actually privacy protected so we can't supply those names. She literally advised us to visit all the historical places in Nova Scotia, like Peggy's Cove, Lunenburg and so on, which was great, too, because it's beautiful here. Actually we were more looking for information from people who already lived here.
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Okay, after a couple of days we had our final test with Ms. Frances Wolfe from the Office of Economic Development. It was more sort of a formality rather than a real test if we were the right persons because to be honest with you, my husband doesn't speak the language and I don't think she had a clue about that during that interview. Okay, before we headed out to the Netherlands we already knew that we passed the test, so back in Holland we had six weeks to think it over. Every week during that period Buysse Immigration called us, if we already knew if we would continue with the Nominee Program. Finally we did and we signed the contracts and the whole process continued.
This brings me to the second point, status as landed immigrants and the Mentorship Program. We arrived here January 7, 2006, and we became landed immigrants and we settled in the beautiful Annapolis Valley in Kentville. We didn't go to any Dutch names but we tried to start networking over the Internet with the addresses from here and we found a very nice couple with some Dutch roots, too, and they helped us find a rented house, provided information about schools, possible jobs and so on.
By that time, and actually before we left Holland, we asked Cornwallis several times by e-mail and phone calls if they had any intention where the possible mentorship place would be because it was very important for renting a house. They let us know, be quiet, be quiet, as soon as you're in Nova Scotia it is early enough to look around and find a mentorship place. So, well, we had no choice but to accept that, but it continued by the time we arrived here and we tried to be in contact with them the whole time. The only thing they did was provide us with a list of possible jobs. I think all of the applicants got this list and it only provides you with titles of jobs like, you can be an administrative service manager or you can be a manager in engineering or in health or whatever - no names, no addresses, no phones of possible businesses that would participate in the program.
They convinced us, well, if you can find your own mentor that would be great. So off we went and through the networking actually we discovered a Dutch community through church, which is very handy, and we found a mentor. In the beginning he was very careful and he did a lot of investigation. Finally he agreed and he would participate in the Mentorship Program, so May 18, 2006, we signed the contracts at the Cornwallis office with his mentor and my husband.
I think right from the beginning the mentor got the $50,000 and by the end of the period the rest of the amount. We never had any clue where the $30,000 stayed. We thought it was just for the government and later we heard also that Buysse Immigration Consultancy earned $20,000 of that amount of money, which he never had told us or signed the contract for, we paid another fee which I will reflect on later.
Our case is complicated because of the fact that my husband wasn't a middle management guy and the mentor saw that actually right from the beginning, but he didn't report it to Cornwallis, he only mentioned it actually to me. One of the statements of the
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program was that the mentor and also the employee would gather information and bring knowledge and skills to each other to expand the mentorship place or business, but also the knowledge of the guy who was coming here.
[10:45 a.m.]
My husband couldn't give any knowledge or skills, although he was a hard worker and he really liked the work that he was doing. After three months he couldn't work any longer, he's struggling with a mental illness, probably because of the immigration. The mentor paid the rest of the three months' salary back in which I agreed because it gave us at least the $20,000 back from the high amount of money we had to pay. There was no feedback by that time or interaction with Cornwallis and we only knew that we got our visa by staying there and finishing the contract.
It brings me to the present situation. We are more than a year further now, but my husband isn't able to start up his own business because of his remaining disorder. He definitely cannot cope with the immigration, he has withdrawn himself from everything and everyone, so even from his family. That means that I have to take care of our income, our five growing kids, our settling in here in Canada, our social life and so on.
I wouldn't have done anything with the fee of the Nominee Program; however, this summer it showed up in the news that immigrants were complaining and blaming Cornwallis for what they were supposed to do, but didn't do. I followed this whole process and when it came to the point that immigration decided to pay refunds to all of those immigrants who didn't get a mentorship, I strongly felt to let the Minister of Immigration know that even immigrants who did sign a contract and tried to follow the program wouldn't receive the benefits either.
He responded to my letter, which was sent last November, by letting me know that there was nothing he could do before there was any final report from the Auditor General. He wished me all the best in continuing making Nova Scotia our new home which I try, of course, but when I look back at how we came here expectant, exciting, as a family, right now the main person who was responsible for our living is gone. We have to stay here because we already invested a lot of money, we bought a property, you have to buy a car, you have to buy a lot of electrical furniture because of the power difference with Europe and America, and as I see at all the effort especially I had to make because when we immigrated I was the only person of the family who spoke the language.
When I look at where Cornwallis missed the ball, I'm strongly convinced that I deserve a refund too. Do you think it is fair to people like us who try to arrange everything themselves to be excluded from compensation on the basis that we have received a service?
[Page 35]
I gave you a brief overview of the costs, it's on the yellow page in the copy. The fee that we had to pay Buysse for his consultancy services was nearly $9,400 Cdn. He never mentioned anything that he earned also extra money from the Nominee Program. Then we had to pay the fee for the interview, of course, the $1,700 and we had to stay in Halifax for this interview a week and that roughly cost around $3,500 Cdn. In March 2005, we paid the fee for the Nominee Program which was - we already paid the interview fee beforehand and there stays the $128,800 Cdn.
MADAM CHAIR: Excuse me, I'm going to interrupt you for a second. I think we have the fees in front of us so we see this. Perhaps we can get to your conclusion, because I know people are anxious to ask you questions and we'll be taking a break at 11:00 a.m. so that the Legislative TV people can change their tape. So we have a time constraint, I'm sorry.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No problem. My conclusion - I think the program isn't too bad. It provides a good start and partnership with established businesses here in Nova Scotia. I think the costs, however, are not stimulating. Maybe a bonus from the government from here to people who really want to spend time and money in this part of the country would be more stimulating than paying a bonus and even for a mentor, I guess.
In our case, the mentor's objectives and services were good, absolutely, but it was clear that the employee didn't meet the expectations and I'm wondering who was responsible to check that. The three months that were left after my husband couldn't work anymore, I think Cornwallis had to check this and find out if the bonus was really earned by the mentor, especially looking at the fact that the mentor's opinion was already that he wasn't from a middle management level.
This brings me to Point 4. This Cornwallis earned the fee of $10,000 Cdn. for what they were supposed to do and is it honest that Buysse earned another $20,000 Cdn. on top of the $9,400 which we already paid? If we had a clue that this was all going to happen, why would I work so hard to obtain for a mentorship place?
My opinion is that we deserve the refund and actually, we are not asking for money from the government, for Cornwallis, the mentor or Buysse - it was our savings money, the fee that we had to pay in 2005. I do hope the government will change their decision based upon our and others' experiences. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Steele, Mr. Glavine and Mr. Porter.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much for coming today. You've come to a new country with a large family, you found that your spouse has become very ill and I just wanted to say that I think your courage is astonishing.
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My question really is very simple. You acknowledged that your family situation is complicated, your husband did start a mentorship, it turned out for complicated reasons not to work out. When you get right down to it, in your opinion, what would be fair? How much of a refund would it be fair for your family to get back?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Well, that's hard to answer. We received already the $20,000 in salary form, so I think the rest of the $100,000 - the $80,000.
MR. STEELE: And my other question very simply, during the course of your presentation you held up two documents. One, I think, is a list of positions and the other was a letter from the minister. I was wondering if we could get a copy of those documents before you leave today.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Was this the first one?
MR. STEELE: That was the first document and I thought I saw you hold up the letter that you received from the minister.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No, I didn't.
MR. STEELE: Okay, that was my mistake. Perhaps we could get a copy of that other document before you leave today, thank you.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes, sure.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much for coming in this morning. Being from the Annapolis Valley, I hope you will stay in the beautiful Annapolis Valley.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: We like it.
MR. GLAVINE: You've had a very difficult start, obviously from your presentation. Did you have a sense from the early contact that Cornwallis could deliver and do a lot more for you than the reality that you experienced?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Oh, yes, for sure. Actually, he let us know about immigration, to see if we could start right from the beginning - maybe a couple of weeks just to get used to your new life - but then for sure the next months there would be a job. Actually I forgot to say, Cornwallis came to us with a job, but it was a cranberry farm that was for sale in Cape Breton. So we already had some networks and they said, don't start with a cranberry farm, it's too specific and especially who is going to Cape Breton with five young kids, but it was for sale, so I'm glad I didn't do that.
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MR. GLAVINE: I pick up on that because by this point, Cornwallis has been in the business now for about four years, helping people through the Nominee Program. It is disappointing to see how little they help you in actually making the transition because I know several Dutch families who have immigrated to the Valley and of course have done extremely well and paid no money. So here you are, paid big dollars and don't seem to have gained too much from the program. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter.
MR. PORTER: Just a very quick question. You talked about a variety of issues and I'm just wondering in all of that did you at any time contact the Office of Immigration to express your concerns, troubles you were having?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No, we didn't. By that time, I was the person who had to do that, of course, and in the contract there was nothing about illness or whatever. So I was just worried, you know, when I let him know I can forget about it - the $20,000 either - so then nothing of the money would come back. So that was actually the reason that I agreed with the mentor, leave it like it is, pay us the rest of the salary, he earned his bonus and that is it.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Just a quick question. I know you didn't get a chance to go through your overview of related costs and I have a question about your one week stay in Halifax during the interview - more specifically, you paid about $3,500 for that week. I want to know what your relationship was with the nominee welcoming centre at that time and whether the welcoming centre or the Office of Immigration offered you any support at that time during the week that you were here?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No, they let us know there could be a guide to tour us around, but we had to pay for that guide on a daily basis. They advised us well, when you do this on your own, maybe it's even better. The costs are for renting a car, the tickets, the hotel overnight, so that's it.
MR. PREYRA: Could you tell us how much you paid for the tour, you went to Peggy's Cove?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes, but we did it all ourselves, so not with a guide.
MR. PREYRA: So you didn't take the tour?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No.
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MR. PREYRA: Did you get any briefing from Cornwallis or the Office of Immigration about employment opportunities or business opportunities in Nova Scotia at the time?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No, only the list that I already showed with possible jobs, positions, but that was all.
MR. PREYRA: So what did your $3,500 buy you then during that week?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Sorry?
MR. PREYRA: What did you get for your $3,500? I know you talked about your other costs for the consultants and all of that, but what did you get for . . .
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: The $3,500 was just for the week's stay there, so the tickets for our flights, which would be a big part of that amount of money, I guess, renting the car and doing the hotel visit and just touring around.
MR. PREYRA: And you did that all on your own?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes, the two of us.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you again for being here and just a couple of quick questions to understand more fully. You were quite clear that your husband didn't have a middle management background and you said that he doesn't speak English, he probably does now but didn't speak English at the time of the interview, but you were interviewed during your one week stay, you did have an interview with the Office of Immigration?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Can you tell me how that went? Did you answer all of the questions?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: To be honest with you, it was rather a monologue than it was a dialogue, so we were just listening actually to the beauty of Nova Scotia, again, to some funny jokes and well, that was it.
MS. WHALEN: So you weren't really being tested to see if you were proficient in English?
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MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Not at all because that was my worry. My husband was the main applicant and I knew when she was starting questions, asking him, probably I would have to translate, right? But there was nothing that I had to translate.
MS. WHALEN: So you sailed through that interview and were told that everything was fine before you even left the country?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes, which gave us the feeling that only the fee mattered and not which kind of people came in by that time.
MS. WHALEN: My understanding was that that interview was to determine if you were ready to come to Nova Scotia in terms of language ability and understanding the situation and so on, so it doesn't seem to have done that. It didn't achieve its goal.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: No.
MS. WHALEN: The other question I had was with your contact about not complaining to the Office of Immigration. I just wanted to clarify and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but in stopping halfway through the contract because your husband was unable to, there was an element of fear that you would lose the other half of his salary - there was no chance of getting the $100,000 back but you were frightened to lose even the next $10,000.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: That's right.
MS. WHALEN: So there was a sort of urgency to come to an agreement with the mentor and just basically take what you could at that point.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: That's right. Actually we were a little bit worried about the importance for our permanent visa by that time so we wouldn't - I didn't know if it would reflect the visa cards, too.
MS. WHALEN: So a question of whether you'd be asked to leave the country and that insecurity that would come with that because I can only imagine that with five children you have a lot of things to provide stability for your family.
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Yes, and that's my important goal right now.
MS. WHALEN: I appreciate that, thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter, quickly.
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MR. PORTER: Thank you, very quickly, in that interview and throughout the process I know some language barriers obviously existed. Did you express any concern at the time to anyone or were you concerned yourself about that issue of not being able to speak - you speak good English but you said your husband, maybe your children, couldn't do that. Did you have any fears about that, coming to a new country, as well as the language being an issue for you?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: Well, I don't know, maybe people are too positive always, they are always giving you compliments, which is nice to hear. But we know a couple of people who have immigrated and they said as soon as you start working it will be no problem at all, especially for your kids, as soon as they start attending school - which is true. I mean, the first two months were hard for them but now they are correcting me for my English.
MR. PORTER: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: How old are your children?
MS. SCHEP-STIGER: The oldest is 16 and the youngest is nearly 5, and then 15, 12 and 9. All boys, by the way. (Laughter)
MADAM CHAIR: That's what makes you so tough. (Laughter) Thank you very much for being here today.
We're going to take a five-minute recess to allow the Legislative TV people to change their tapes and what have you and we'll resume at 11:05 a.m.
[11:05 a.m. The committee recessed.]
[11:10 a.m. The committee resumed. ]
MADAM CHAIR: Order, I'd like to call the committee back to order, please.
I'd like to call our next witness, Mr. Leo Karunanayake. Good morning.
MR. LEO KARUNANAYAKE: Thank you very much to all of you for giving me an opportunity. Good morning, honourable chairlady and honourable members of the legislative committee. First of all, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain my situation in the Nova Scotia Nominee Program. From the very beginning, I have decided not disclose the particulars of the mentor company for the reputation and the smooth going of his business. After having two-way communication with me and my mentor company, authorities of Nova Scotia discontinued the mentorship realizing it was not a bona fide relationship. The authorities forfeited the mentor in his entitlement to have the second $50,000 from my funds
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and my entitlement to participate in this program. This explains that the second $50,000 of my funds is still sitting in the trust fund. Please note that it is not disbursed.
Honourable chairlady and honourable members of the legislative committee, the mentor did not lose anything out of his own wallet. He even received $50,000 for nothing and the person who lost everything - I lost my family's life savings. This can be happening in a Third World country but we cannot accept such things to happen in a developed country where transparency exists. I didn't get any experience in a middle management position nor the experience in making a Canadian style soup. Every time I visited the restaurant, there was no place for me to sit and work. They did not assign me any work. They refused my services or my presence at the restaurant. The position of Research and Development Officer was only a position stated on the contract document. The actual position for me never existed. I have a feeling he refused my presence at the restaurant because I am an Asian; the colour.
He was given an opportunity, paying my funds to him, to give me a service that should have a real value in it. He discontinued the employment contract without just cause and even without having a discussion with me in the presence of an immigration officer. He has not even paid me the promised amount of money from my own funds of $50,000 that was released to him.
It is his obligation to return money back because he had not given any value for what he has received. Further, I want you honourable members to realize please consider the second $50,000 is still in the trust fund. It is not taxpayers' money, it is a portion of my funds, of the $130,500. Please note I think all of the 803 nominees would have been happy if they had thought enough at the inception of this program to use the interest of the trust fund for everyone's benefit.
After nearly a week of landing in Nova Scotia, I was asking from the authorities the list of mentors that they promised to provide us in this program. None of the officers were ready to provide to us that list. There was also a deadline of 12 months in finding a mentor company. Months were passing; it was very hard to get an appointment even to meet an immigration officer. I was so stressed out thinking of this situation. Once when we visited the Immigration Office my wife informed them about my health condition over this situation. One of the immigration lady officer's answer was; don't use sickness to get an appointment regarding this Mentorship Program. After explaining my health situation, even she didn't explain that I would be given an extension to find a mentor company. I was a bank manager in Sri Lanka with 25 years' experience in banking. I am also a Lion member of Sri Lanka.
[11:15 a.m.]
Since I failed to get the list of mentors from the authorities, I had to visit and canvass at the flea market in Halifax in finding a mentor. One company contacted the authorities but was frustrated for not even getting an appointment. Later he has given up his idea.
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It was the eighth month I signed this null and void contract. Is it fair and humane to tell the successful nominee that he can't get an extension entered into an employment contract? Is it fair the authorities welcoming our funds and giving promises for a better future, to just ignore their obligations.
I am faced with an ineffective employment contract because the mentor did not comply with his obligations. The authorities also say I am not eligible to participate in this program. This is an exceptional place in this Nominee Program.
So what is the position I am standing in now? What is happening with my funds I paid to participate in this program? I should be eligible for the refund as I did not get real value for my money, which was promised by this program. In any program or in any production line all the products do not come out in good condition. There would always be a small percentage of products with defects but if these defective products were sold by mistake even, the owner always pays back to keep the reputation of the company and to treat the consumer fairly.
If you pay someone to get a service and the service provided did not comply his obligation, the service provider is always obliged to pay back the money that he refused to comply the service. Everybody experienced this method in Canada. I hope the competent authorities of this program would consider sympathetically the abundant rights of the nominee and treat the nominee fairly. Six hundred nominees out of 803 who came under the same program, who were under the same rules and obligations are entitled to have their refund because this program was not much of a benefit for the nominees.
I am very happy for that because ultimately the authorities have realized the unethical happenings connected to this program. I hope the authorities will also treat me fairly, who came under the same program and ended up in a contract that has not given real value for my money. I can't understand why the program makers of the Nova Scotia Nominee Program oversighted if the mentor did not comply with the policies how will they safeguard the rights of the nominee. Is it ethical for an authority to ignore the rights of the nominee who has been misled by the mentor?
The authorities seem to have considered only about the benefits of the mentor. Why did the authorities at that time not request the program as to implement clearly the rights of the nominee, if he or she has to undergo ethnic, religious or sexual orientation, does this really come across all these facts in the mass media.
It is natural to make mistakes as humans, but there should always be a remedy to minimize the unfairness. If the program makers oversighted the fact of the rights of the nominee and the protection of this fund, I hope now the authorities will make a decision to treat me fairly because I did not get the value for my funds.
[Page 43]
I still believe in Nova Scotians. I have so many Nova Scotian friends who respect every race and religion, they respect the humanity. I expect the same with the Nominee Program makers and hope they will resolve the injustice that has happened to me and treat me fairly.
It will be a good example for the immigrants who are hoping to come to Nova Scotia in the future and raise their families. Canada is considered as the top five countries of the world, that the authorities are transparent, without corruption, the best place to raise their families, our families, that is why we selected it as our home. I appreciate the kindness of Nova Scotians. The only thing I ask from the authorities is to consider my situation sympathetically and treat me fairly. Thank you very much everybody for listening.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you, Mr. Karunanayake. I have four very quick questions because we don't have a lot of time. When did your contract with the mentor company start?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: It was August 1st of last year.
MR. PREYRA: So you felt pressured within weeks of the refund program being introduced to enter into a contract in this mentorship arrangement? In other words, you got into this contract within weeks of the refund program being announced?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Yes.
MR. PREYRA: And you felt pressure to get into it because your time was running out, it was only 12 months?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Because they told us there was only about one year, a 12 month deadline and we were not told about this extension. We had been consulting the offices concerned. Actually (Inaudible) was not aware like a developed country that was very advanced and not like other countries.
MR. PREYRA: Mr. Karunanayake, you were under the impression that you had to finish it by then?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Yes.
MR. PREYRA: You didn't have a list of mentorship companies and you went looking and you found a broker. How much did the company pay the broker to find this mentorship?
[Page 44]
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Because actually since the list was not available, even I went as I said, I wanted to create a mentor through my experience in the banking sector, went to flea market and they promoted that there were a lot of opportunities and I could be an accountant and so on . . .
MR. PREYRA: But you went through a broker, did you?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: No, I was undergoing a workshop at MISA, there one of my friends told me that we were discussing it because I think the immigrants, especially nominees under this category were always concentrated at MISA. So from there one friend said, it was best to get someone that's a friend of mine and he can match me with a mentor person.
MR. PREYRA: The mentor company essentially didn't assign you any work and you got paid for not coming in to work. When you went to the Office of Immigration and complained about that what were you told?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: I have gone several times, unfortunately, that lady said, now once you have signed the contract there is not any possibility of doing anything. Contact this, contact this and I said, now how can we contact, because I had arguments with them. I can't understand because any contract cannot be a contract unless we know all about the person; When we were in the bank we were always entering into contracts because if we released all of our facilities through some customer without the consent, he wondered if this was an in-place contract, whether he did his duty. At the beginning he signed that consent that any obligation will be complied and so on.
MR. PREYRA: Let me ask you a more specific question, then. So you see this as a breach of contract? You went to the Office of Immigration and they then write you a letter saying that they agree with you that the contract did not comply with the policies, that there was no bona fide mentorship relationship and then tells you that you're not entitled to get any money back from it, but they're withdrawing the $50,000, they're not going pay the second installment of $50,000 and your argument is that at least that $50,000 should be given back to you, given that there was no mentorship contract and the Office of Immigration agreed to that?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: I think not only myself actually, we are very hard of money because of our life savings. In this world any impartial person, even what do you think about it yourself now you have come to a contract with me and if you have not complied with my obligations, do you think that I'm correct?
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter and then Ms. Whalen.
[Page 45]
MR. PORTER: Thank you for appearing today and just a couple of quick questions. You signed a contract, did you go to work?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: After signing the contract I went several times.
MR. PORTER: Where did you go to work? Who was your mentor?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: As I said, I have not mentioned the name because of the business. I have decided from the very beginning because I don't want to let them down because of this unnecessary, complicated, unethical contracts because this business is more important than - because he's not the fault of this one. The organizers should do it the proper way so I should have gotten the proper advice, proper mentorship and the business also should go on. They are small skilled businesses. If I said his name and disclosed all these particulars what will happen to his business?
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter has withdrawn the question. Mr. Porter.
MR. PORTER: Thank you very much. You said that you went to this place of work, did you have a regular schedule? Were you working 30 hours a week or 40 hours a week? Was that the intent initially?
MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Perera.
MS. MAUREEN PERERA: Shall I answer? It's not work. He went there asking for work and every time he was refused to come there and refused his presence there and that's what happened.
MR. PORTER: So he would go to his assigned duty at this place of work and then they would send him home sort of thing?
MS. PERERA: He said, your presence is not needed you can stay at home.
MR. PORTER: Okay.
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: In a bank unless assigned the work by the employer to the co-worker . . .
MR. PORTER: And even though that happened did you receive any money?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: As soon as he received the first $50,000, I received a $10,000 advance payment, that's the only thing.
MR. PORTER: So he just paid you the $10,000 and said don't bother coming back.
[Page 46]
MS. PERERA: That was the only thing we received from him.
MR. PORTER: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: You said you received $10,000, was your contract for $20,000 over a six-month period?
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: It was $36,000.
MS. WHALEN: So his agreement to you had been to pay you more than the minimum $20,000?
MS. PERERA: Yes.
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: It was $36,000.
MS. WHALEN: So his agreement to you had been to pay you more than the minimum $20,000.
MS. PERERA: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Okay. I wanted to ask you when you were making a connection with this program in Sri Lanka, if you paid any brokers in Sri Lanka to help you?
MS. PERERA: Yes, $500.
MS. WHALEN: How much?
MS. PERERA: It was $500 U.S.
MS. WHALEN: And that was in addition to all the costs?
MS. PERERA: Yes, actually we paid for our tickets, the hotel reservation and everything on our own when we came for the interview.
MS. WHALEN: Yes, those were your costs as well, but we're looking for whether there were extra brokers which there were not supposed to be in the program?
MS. PERERA: Actually, Cornwallis handed over a list that clearly it says funds, not anything else, $130,500 - funds, that they received from us.
[Page 47]
MS. WHALEN: They don't include the rest, no. Can I ask you again about the difficulty of transferring your funds from Sri Lanka to Canada? I know you were a banker and know a lot about finance.
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Yes, actually, besides the exchange rates and so on, in a lot of Asian countries we have a lot of barriers in transferring our money - exchange regulations. Very, very difficult. Even from my records, you can see in several attempts we transmitted this money.
[11:30 a.m.]
MS. PERERA: And we gave Sri Lankan rupees in there and got Canadian dollars in here.
MS. WHALEN: So you would have lost quite a bit more beyond the exchange rates, but even just in fees or the ability to transfer the money?
MS. PERERA: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Because I think that's significant too that that makes it difficult to bring whatever wealth you have, big or small, it's hard to bring it here. Just a final question or really more of a comment. I understand that you are caught in this web of the immigration program and the uncertainty around what's going to happen. I think we just want to be clear that we do understand that you're one of the few exceptional circumstances who have actually had your contract voided, with agreement from the Office of Immigration that it's not a true contract, and yet your funds are being withheld until there's some sort of resolution. That's something our committee may look at again, hopefully soon. We certainly hear you, I want you to know we do hear the web that you're caught in.
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: I'm afraid that I'm speaking loud and so on because actually I'm very frustrated because now we can expect these things in your country like this . . .
MS. PERERA: Actually we experienced the hospitality of Nova Scotians, we are very happy with Nova Scotians.
MR. KARUNANAYAKE: Some oversights are there just as we can't collect this one - we want to be assets to this country.
MS. PERERA: Everyone makes mistakes but there should be a remedy for that.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much for being here. I'm going to exercise a little more discipline in terms of the amount of time that questions and comments are taking, if
[Page 48]
members aren't going to exercise that discipline themselves. We have another witness waiting, Jaime Guerrero. The next person on our list is not here so remove that person. Thank you.
MR. JAIME GUERRERO: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jaime Guerrero, I'm originally from the Philippines and like so many of the other nominees my wife and I moved to Canada for the future of our children. We felt that this country would offer them a much more promising future than the socially unstable country that we lived in.
We followed our plan and I'm happy to say that all three of our children are now here in Halifax. Our children had an advantage in coming to Canada because they were educated in the Philippines where, since World War II, English has been a medium of primary instruction. My daughter, who is 22 years old and my youngest son, who is 20 are both enrolled in Dalhousie in the computer informatics program. My eldest son, who was excluded from the program when we came in because he aged out - according to the federal rules he was not allowed - finally was able to join us after two years thanks to Elizabeth Mills at the Office of Immigration who helped us bring him in under another nomination program. So he's now here and hopefully he will also succeed in his chosen profession.
For the past 17 years before immigrating to Canada, I served as the CEO and managing director of a 200 bed tertiary hospital in the Philippines, which was recognized as one of the most progressive health care facilities in the country.
We decided to come to Nova Scotia because of the fast-track nature of the Nova Scotia Nominee Program. After coming here for the required exploratory visit - which really impressed upon us that this is a lovely place, and I think this is the place where I would like to live and have my children pursue their future.
The program was sold to us in the Phillippines by an immigration agent who was connected with Cornwallis. The agent told us that we would be able to choose from a list of mentor companies in the field of my choice and that the mentor could provide long-term employment after the end of my six-month mentorship. However, this was not the case. In fact, when I arrived I had to search for my own mentor since the limited list presented by Cornwallis at the time did not include companies in my preferred profession.
Fortunately, everything worked out because I was able to network with the filipino community that we have here and I met the owner of GEM Health Care Group, which is one of the bigger, I think, retirement and nursing facilities here, who offered me a position as Human Resource Manager for their Melville Heights facility, which is a high-end retirement home; although it was not exactly what I was really looking for, it was good. While not all my original expectations of the program were met, I gained some valuable experience during my mentorship. My mentor was extremely helpful and allowed me to use the company's
[Page 49]
resources in order for me to gain my Canadian experience, as well as allowed me to do courses during the time of my mentorship.
I enrolled in MISA, searching for a job. I took several courses there, including the New Beginnings Course which focused on job search, resumé writing, interview skills that were appropriate to Canada. I think this is the right direction before the program was aborted. I understand from my counsellor in MISA that the Office of Immigration is already considering new nominees to come in and have MISA just arrange the mentorship somehow or provide the necessary counselling for a new immigrant to try to find himself also and understand the ins and outs of the new environment.
My experience in MISA was very good. I succeeded - I learned how to apply for jobs, I got interviewed in a couple of companies. I was targeting health care facilities. Almost immediately after my mentorship, I was accepted for a permanent, full-time position in Kentville as Utilization Manager for the Valley Regional Hospital. It was an entry- management position, but it provided me some experience from being an insider and had a great glimpse of the health care system and the challenges that it faces. I was involved in the operating room scheduling, the lineup of patients - the wait list - and I stayed in the Valley for some time but I was living alone. My wife, unfortunately, preferred to stay here in the city with our children. So living alone in the Valley and commuting on weekends had its toll on me and I left the Valley last year and joined a group from Toronto that was starting a new - well, there are offices here in Atlantic Canada, it is called the World Financial Group. I am an independent financial consultant but based in Halifax, which is just perfect for me.
So all in all, things worked out well. My mentorship was fine, even though it was not exactly similar to my previous experience and I can say that I am quite happy in my new
business. We stuck it out and Nova Scotia has grown on us. We plan to make this our permanent home. My wife now works as an associate account manager for Royal Bank across the street, on George Street. Our children are in school in Dalhousie. We're renting a house now on Atlantic Street, here in the South End, close to downtown, close to everything, schools and offices. I volunteer as a member of the building committee for the St. Thomas Aquinas-Canadian Martyrs Parish.
We are proud to say that in a couple of years, we will be eligible to become full and good Canadian citizens. However, like my co-nominees, I was surprised to hear about the new Residency Refund option and was completely dismayed to learn that nominees like myself who complied with all the requirements are being excluded from the benefits associated with that program. In fact, it seems as if I'm being excluded precisely because I complied with the program. As you can imagine, this is disheartening. If I had not gone out and found a mentor company for myself - instead just took the courses with MISA - or simply stayed at home like some of the nominees I heard and not gone for mentorship, then I would have my refund of a $100,000 cheque today.
[Page 50]
For the first time since coming here, I am really feeling frustrated and let down just like my fellow nominees in this room today. It was hard to leave my parents, siblings, relatives, friends, the comforts of home, security of a good job, but I did it because we wanted to live in a just and fair society. We believed that our children will have a better life in Canada.
I realized earlier on that as an immigrant, I would have to reinvent myself and my career in this new environment. This is indeed a humbling experience. I am still willing to do this, but I feel that we have not been treated fairly in the matter of the refund. We signed up under the same program just like the other nominees who are receiving the refund. It seems as though we are being discriminated against because we complied; hopefully this is not so. This hardly seems right and I hope and trust that the ministry will reconsider. We really like Nova Scotia and I sincerely hope the province will be fair to us.
I'd like to thank Elizabeth Mills and her staff in the NSOI, because they have also been helpful. They listened to our problems and they related to us in a kind and compassionate manner, like part of her family. On behalf of all the nominees, I'd like to thank Elizabeth sincerely for this. I just hope that we can continue to share also our experiences.
I spoke with the minister a couple of weeks ago and he informed me that there would be an advisory body formed to probably also solicit suggestions from other nominees and share our experiences so that for the succeeding nominees or immigrants things will not be as bad, but maybe errors and omissions will be left out. Being a work in progress, I believe the Office of Immigration can make full use of the nominees here who have already gone through certain experiences here. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Are there any questions? Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: Just one very quick question. Thank you very much for coming here. You said when you came here that you conducted your own search for a mentor company. How did you eventually get in touch with the GEM Health Care group? How did that ever . . .
MR. GUERRERO: The owner is now the president of the Canadian Filipino Heritage Society which, of course, was a natural support group for us being Filipino. I guess it was just good for me that we had a good group here, a good community which offered in the critical initial months a great amount of comfort and support. I mentioned to her my need for a mentor, and I thought her business was interesting and she welcomed the idea.
MR. PREYRA: But there was no brokerage fee that was exchanged in that relationship with the business?
[Page 51]
MR. GUERRERO: No.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much for sharing your story today, mostly a positive experience overall, but really you were the author perhaps of your own good faith and adjustment to Canada. Did you go back to Cornwallis expecting more from the organization that you had put a lot of faith in and obviously a significant sum of money?
MR. GUERRERO: Yes, when I arrived the welcoming centre was just starting and their list of mentor companies was still very limited. It was evident to me that it was like a work in progress because I was more or less coming with the first strands and they were still waiting for the critical mass, so to speak, of nominees to land before they could get more mentors to fill. I think that they should have done more work at the time, but again, all of this is hindsight. The program was great in concept, but it really needs a lot of fine tuning, to say the least. Also I think most important, listening to also the other nominees who spoke this morning, is a preparation of probably counselling that is necessary to be done even before the immigrant or candidate is coming, especially during the exploratory visit which would have been the most critical.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Steele.
[11:45 a.m.]
MR. STEELE: The city I grew up in, Winnipeg, has a very large Filippino community and of course once the community gets to a certain size then more people want to come here, so I certainly think there's a lot of opportunity here in Nova Scotia to develop a community, so we're very glad you're here. My question very quickly was this - some people who came into Canada through the Nominee Program themselves became brokers for other immigrants that followed them. Did you ever do that?
MR. GUERRERO: Yes, in a sense.
MR. STEELE: And how much did you charge for that?
MR. GUERRERO: It depends on the client, but it is more for helping.
MR. STEELE: How much would you charge them?
MR. GUERRERO: The fees would range like $5,000.
[Page 52]
MR. STEELE: A range from $5,000 to what?
MR. GUERRERO: I think it could range from $5,000 to maybe $20,000 or $30,000, it depends.
MR. STEELE: Okay, thanks.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Okay, our next witness is John Huang. We do have a written presentation in the package that is here. I would ask rather than read it to us, because it's quite lengthy, if you could just speak to us and tell us your story without reading the presentation.
MR. JOHN HUANG: Okay. I'll try to be quick. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Huang. About one and a half years ago on July 1, 2006, Canada Day, I landed in Canada as a member of the Nova Scotia Nominee Program together with my family. I came from Shenzhen, China, a city with 17 million people. I worked for an agricultural products import-export company in China for many years doing import and export of agricultural commodities with many other countries.
MADAM CHAIR: Can you just tell us your story and not read us your presentation?
MR. HUANG: Okay. Like many other business immigrants, I decided to come to Canada for the beauty of the country, the good quality of life and a good educational system for the kids and one main reason is no family planning policy here, so we can have a second child and new business opportunities. Another reason I chose Nova Scotia is that relatively speaking there is less business competition here compared with other big cities like Toronto or Vancouver where there's thousands of Chinese business immigrants already settled there for many years of business.
According to this Nominee Program, I had to choose from a name list of many companies in order to get some of my economic contributions back. At that time I was presented with a name list, but I did not see any company which is exactly matching what I did in China. By chance from the airplane I came to Canada on the first time, I read a newspaper, The Globe and Mail. An interesting article suggested the transportation from East China all the way to the Suez Canal, to Halifax and he thinks it's a good option for the City of Halifax as the gateway to develop itself.
I tried to call this gentleman, he is the founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS). I talked with him and exchanged some ideas with him and finally I thought that it might be a good idea - it seems on the name list there is no company suited for me - if I could work for AIMS it might utilize my experience in China. So I talked with him and discussed about this possibility and he also agreed with me, so quickly they applied for being
[Page 53]
on the list. I finally signed a contract with him and starting from July 1, 2006, I started to work for AIMS on a one-year contract.
During this one-year contract period I have written many papers for AIMS, basically research about the Sino-Canadian trade relationship and the immigrants from China to Canada, in particular from China to Atlantic Canada, so I published some papers on it.
On the other hand in order to do a good job at AIMS I had to invest a lot of time and energy during the one-year contract and realistically this slowed down my original plan to set up a business here because I originally wanted to set up a business here. However, while I was working at AIMS I studied the local market in Atlantic Canada and explored some business opportunities. Eventually I started my own business, I created the trading company here called Sino-Atlantic Inc. which is aimed at building up a bridge between China and Canada and doing international trading. I tried to import some whiskey bottles and oil paintings from China to Atlantic Canada and I succeeded in this business.
In general, my first one and half years in Nova Scotia have turned out very well. My family and I now live in Halifax and we bought a new house. My wife gave birth to a second baby here, so everything looks fairly well.
Then one day I heard about the new residency refund policy and this really made me disappointed because it says if you as a nominee are staying here doing nothing and after one year you'll get $100,000 back, so my feelings were deeply hurt by this news. I don't think this is fair to me and my family because the reason is simple, even though I had a good experience with AIMS I could have done better if I could have this amount of money and time by allowing me to do my own business. Writing a research paper was not what I originally wanted to do; as an international businessman, of course I wanted to do business which can make reasonable profits so, relatively speaking, it's a kind of waste of my precious time and time is precious to me. By utilizing this $100,000, if available, I could rent a local office, I could recruit local staff members to help me to expand the business on a larger scale, so I don't think this is fair to us.
I think it is only fair that those of us who came here under the Nominee Program and went through our mentorships and then stayed in Nova Scotia should be included in the Residency Refund program because after all, we are the ones who have proven that we actually want to reside in Nova Scotia and so many nominees just came here, paid the dollars and then went to Vancouver, to Alberta, to other provinces, so they should not be included in this refund program.
Why couldn't the money that they forfeited be used to give us a portion of our money back? It doesn't seem right that the nominees who did not bother to participate in the program should be the only ones to get some money back.
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Anyway, I still love my new homeland, Nova Scotia, and I plan to live here for the rest of my life. Since I was 42 years in China, I know a lot of potential investors who might be willing to come here, too. I am told that Nova Scotia needs these talented people, the professionals and financials in different fields that have multinational backgrounds. So I think it's the right of all immigrants like myself, who are already here, have the confidence in our people and our government so that we can broadcast to the world that Nova Scotia is a worthy place, a place that is worthy to live and work in without any regrets. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. We're not going to take questions at this moment, but please remain there. We're going to bring forward our next two witnesses and we'll do the questioning all at the one time. If you wouldn't mind remaining.
Our next witness is Elvin Reyes.
MR. ELVIN REYES: Good morning, your honours. Thank you for this opportunity given to me to share with you my experiences. My name is Elvin Reyes, I am from the Philippines, I am 48 years of age. My wife and I have five children. We are currently residing in a house that we purchased in Royal Hemlocks here in Halifax.
I'm a lawyer by profession and I've been a member of the Philippine Integrated Bar since 1986. Before coming to Nova Scotia I was a senior partner and head of the litigation department of a 40-lawyer firm in Manila, Philippines, and I was also the deputy managing partner of that firm.
My wife and I, in our quest for a better life and a better future for our children, we visited Halifax, Nova Scotia in October 2005, in relation to the Nominee Program. At that time it was a whirlwind romance, if I may put it that way, with Halifax. We immediately fell in love with the place, and my wife and I decided that this is going to be our new home. So in July 2006, my wife and I, with our youngest kid, landed in Halifax formally, under the Nominee Program. We stayed here for two weeks, basically just to purchase the house that we are living in right now, and then went back to New York City where we left our children, picked them up and got back in August 2006 and never left. We stayed here until the present day.
Since I wanted to comply with my conditions of entry under the Nominee Program and to kind of hit the ground running, I signed a mentorship contract with a printing press in Dartmouth, as a production manager. I would have to say that I did my own searching for a mentor company because when I landed in July 2006, the welcoming centre of Cornwallis was already closed and there was lots of movement in the Immigration Department, but I think they are still trying to set the procedures right.
[Page 55]
At any rate, since I was faced with certain financial obligations, considering that I have a mortgage and I have five kids to support, I was left with no recourse but to get that mentorship with the printing press. It was not really what I was looking for but it had to do. In the meantime was the fact that I was confronted with the reality that I had only a year within which to get this mentorship. Otherwise, I lose the $20,000 - $20,000 is $20,000.
So I did finish my mentorship in March 2007. I would say it was an eye-opener for me, because my mentor was such a great guy. In fact, most of my exposure in relationship was with the owner basically teaching me how local businesses thrive in Halifax. His is a local, small business but I guess that's what business mentorship should be, unlike some of the nominee friends that I know, kind of worthless - messenger clerks, labourer. I was lucky enough to be able to negotiate this kind of mentorship.
At any rate, I finished in March 2005 and then, unfortunately, in October of the same year I heard this news about the refund option which, however, much to my surprise and consternation, was not made available to me or to those people situated in the same place that I was, who finished their mentorship program.
I have to admit and I have to be quite honest about it, for the very first time I felt betrayed by my host province. I felt really bad and I felt cheated, just to put it bluntly. Then this nagging question came to my mind, would it have been better if I just sat at home and did nothing regarding my mentorship? Why was I penalized for complying with the mentorship program? Would I have been better off if I ignored the rules on mentorship? Why are those people who refused to work and did nothing but take up residency in Halifax, in Nova Scotia in particular, being given a refund?
[12:00 noon]
We all signed up under the same immigration rules, signed the same documents, complied with the same rules and conditions but why are we, in my case, being discriminated against? I could not see any rhyme or reason at that time why there was this distinction between myself and those who did not do their mentorship when, in fact, I complied with the program.
Nevertheless, my wife and I stayed in Halifax. It did cross my mind at one point or another to probably consider other provinces but we stayed and persevered. Since then my wife and I have put up a small business of our own in Bedford. We put up a small pastry shop, but this small pastry shop cost us another $70,000 to put up. It is now up and running and I invite you all to have a taste of Phillipine pastries. So just like any other business, we're trying to survive. Income comes in trickles but, nevertheless, we are positive and optimistic that we will thrive and we will survive.
[Page 56]
I would like to say one thing at this point, although the NSMP was by no means a perfect program, I would say it did pave the way for my family's migration to Canada and for that I am very grateful. This is an opportunity that doesn't come often, especially in a Third World country like my country, the Phillippines. This program has really opened the door for my family to come here and for that, again I would express my deepest gratitude to Nova Scotia, to Canada in general.
After all is said and done, my wife and I can now probably say that we are proud to be Nova Scotians. We have established our new roots here, my kids are in good schools, we have good medical, we bought a house. All I'm asking for now is some consideration probably from the provincial government regarding the refund because an amount of money that I can probably get, if entitled to a refund, would help my small business and probably will be able to send me back to law school, write my Bar here and then life goes on for me. I've been in law practice for the past 19 years and I kind of miss my practice, too, but it is expensive to go to Dalhousie, it is very expensive. Thank you, your honour.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. We will have an opportunity to ask you questions. We're going to bring you back as a group.
We'll have our next presenter, Astareh Kiani.
MS. ASTAREH KIANI: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity given to me to present my viewpoints about this program. My name is Astareh Kiani and I am from Iran. I landed in Halifax in late May 2007, through the Nova Scotia Nominee Program. I will not take a lot of your time. I just want to present my own viewpoints about this program and why the Immigration Office had to think of some remedial action or program. I believe this has been ignored or overlooked somehow. If there had been some co-operation with the Immigration Office to absorb those who had some qualifications in the jobs or positions that they have deserved, I don't think the Immigration Office then had to introduce this Residency Refund program.
This is my viewpoint and I believe there have definitely been some requirements, some need for Nova Scotia or Halifax to bring people at the middle-management level. Now that they are here, why are they not being given suitable jobs? If they can work in some positions, why are they not there? They are not given the position, they are not being appointed to work for the province. I am telling this based on my own experience.
The Immigration Office has not received the co-operation from other companies, either departments or the private companies, to appoint the nominees in a suitable or relevant position. Now we have problems here. I don't want to talk about the mentorship, whether against it or pro it, no. I want to know why we are not being given suitable positions, we are not being given jobs. We came here to work, to settle our lives here for ourselves, for our families, for our children, for a better future, and we want to stay here in Nova Scotia if they
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need us. They said they need us and we came here to work and this was the main objective of the Immigration Office, but now it is not being considered. Why? It's a question for all of the nominees.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you.
MS. KIANI: You're welcome. I'm sorry, those who had to go through these mentorships, they were hopeful to gain some experience to work, to stay here. Now that this happened, that the Immigration Office noticed that, I think it was good that they thought of some remedial action for some other programs so that all of the nominees would not suffer. We have to look at this from this angle also, to be a little bit fair and to know why the Immigration Office had to do that, to introduce this program. Thank you very much, everybody.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. I invite our previous two witnesses to come forward now and I would ask members of the committee if you have any questions, please indicate. Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: Mr. Huang, you gave us a written presentation which is very good and thorough, thank you for that. That answered really any questions that I had. Mr. Reyes, I wish you well in your quest to re-establish your legal career. A spot in the profession opened up when I got into politics. (Laughter) I wish you well in your quest to do that. My question is for Ms. Kiani. After your presentation I still don't know, what kind of work were you doing in Iran and what kind of mentorship did you get here in Nova Scotia, or were you offered?
MS. KIANI: I have not gotten any mentorship. I landed in late May 2007 and at that time I heard that Cornwallis was not involved any longer - even before coming I heard from the agent who was doing the process for me that Cornwallis was not involved. When I landed here I had just gone through the Immigration Office.
MR. STEELE: What kind of work did you do in Iran?
MS. KIANI: I was the general manager of a company.
MR. STEELE: So if I understand things correctly, you are eligible for the refund, is that correct?
MS. KIANI: Yes.
MR. STEELE: So your complaint here today is not about the refund, it is the fact that you don't have appropriate work?
MS. KIANI: I said I am not pro it or against it, I have no comment about that.
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MR. STEELE: You're looking for an appropriate mentorship?
MS. KIANI: No, what I am saying is that we look at this Residency Refund or this program from another angle - why it should have been introduced, I am saying that. If we were appointed to our job maybe through mentorship even, maybe the Immigration Office then wouldn't have to think of some other decisions or other remedial action.
MR. STEELE: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Porter.
MR. PORTER: I, too, want to wish all of you well in your stay in Nova Scotia and we're very glad to have you here. My question is for Mr. Huang. You have done very well also in establishing a business when you came. Was there a business program that you could have come under to immigrate to Nova Scotia versus the Nominee Program? Just given the type of business you do, I was just curious.
MR. HUANG: It's just the Nominee Program; there were no other programs.
MR. PORTER: There were no other programs - the Nominee Program that you came through was the only one?
MR. HUANG: That's the only one, because the immigration category is the investment in immigrants and technical immigrants, so I should belong to the investment in immigrants.
MR. PORTER: Thanks very much. That's all the time I'm going to take, but again, thank you all for appearing today, appreciate that.
MADAM CHAIR: Mr. Preyra and then Ms. Whalen.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you. I have a quick question for Mr. Huang. I've read your paper that was prepared for AIMS on Chinese investors in Atlantic Canada. It was a very good study and I take your point that really what you were offering was more than what you were getting from this arrangement and that you would have been better off having that money and doing other things. I have a question for you about AIMS. Earlier today we heard that Dalhousie University was rejected because it was not eligible, it didn't fit the criteria for business mentors. You went out and sought out AIMS and got AIMS to give you a mentorship arrangement. Were you told at any point that AIMS was not eligible because it was a not-for-profit group and not a business?
MR. HUANG: I did not know that because I was given a list and from the list, I did not find any company suitable for me, so I decided to search by myself. On the plane coming
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here I read that paper and decided to call them. I think it's their work to be in the list, I don't know if they are non-profit or not at that time.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: If I could, a question for Astareh. I'm wondering, you are still in this Nominee Program and the offer is there from the Office of Immigration that you could take a mentorship if you chose to. Have they spoken to you about that because they said people are still being offered the option of getting a mentor?
MS. KIANI: Yes, but I don't want to take the mentorship now, it's almost one year finished, nine months of it has just finished. Now I don't want to take it any longer because I tried very hard and now I work at the Justice Department.
MS. WHALEN: So you have a job now.
MS. KIANI: I have a job, it's a temporary one, but I tried very hard and got the job. What I mean, the objective of this program was something very good for Nova Scotia, but at the end of the day it seems there was not co-operation with the Immigration Office to appoint people to the position they deserved.
MS. WHALEN: Yes, I see your point. It's more in the ultimate job that you could get and many people have found that after the mentorship they're not getting the jobs that they are qualified for, so I do understand that. I'm just wondering whether you could see anybody accepting the mentorship at this point in time with all that we know about the program, because I think it shouldn't be offered really at this point. I think if they've stopped, it should stop. Can you tell me if you paid any fees to a broker before you came to Canada, separate from the $130,000 - separate brokerage money?
MS. KIANI: Yes - well, no, not brokerage - I don't know, whatever you call it, brokerage or . . .
MS. WHALEN: Or whether it was somebody who assisted you that you had to pay?
MS. KIANI: Yes, there was an agent there and unfortunately that agent was not doing it well and I had to follow it up with the Immigration Office, because the medical forms were lost in his office for three and a half months . . .
MS. WHALEN: Can you tell us how much you paid for the assistance . . . .
MS. KIANI: I paid $5,000.
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MS. WHALEN: . . . . because that shouldn't have been as well. The nominees should have been told no other fees were required. Anyway, I appreciate that.
MS. KIANI: Unfortunately, the agents didn't disclose that they will receive money from the Immigration Office, they did not disclose that, but I had heard it from the Immigration Office that they will receive that. In the contract that I signed with the agent, no, there was no mention of this.
MS. WHALEN: I understand.
MS. KIANI: I claimed against them with CSIC, but they didn't follow it. They followed it to a point and then they stopped it, because I had all the necessary documents that my agent didn't do the job and I did it.
MS. WHALEN: So you made an official complaint though, I think that is relevant.
MS. KIANI: I made an official complaint, yes, but I have no result.
[12:15 p.m.]
MS. WHALEN: I wonder if Elvin and John could just say whether you paid fees in your home country before coming here, to other brokers.
MR. REYES: Yes, your honour, I did pay for a consultancy fee - a consultancy fee, they call it.
MS. WHALEN: Yes, and how much would you have paid?
MR. REYES: If I remember correctly it was about $5,000, your honour.
MR. HUANG: We paid about $12,000 to a broker company in China.
MS. WHALEN: I think it's relevant for us to just see how much you were required to spend in addition to the Nova Scotia side.
MR. REYES: Your honour, just to make it clear, this is what I paid in Manila, because I didn't pay anything . . .
MS. WHALEN: In your home country, yes.
MR. REYES: Yes.
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MS. WHALEN: I appreciate that, it helps for us to understand how widespread this was, thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much and all the best to you in your future.
We have one final presenter on our list, Ken Friedman, who is presenting on behalf of a group and many of the members of this group or some of the members of this group, as I understand it, have been waiting patiently next door - some persons are there, I believe. We will have this presentation and I want to tell the committee that I was approached on the break by one more person who would like to present, who's not on our list, Dr. Michael Chang. I've told him that our time is very limited and it will be at the discretion of the members of the committee whether or not we add him to the list. Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: You've mentioned that people have been waiting patiently in the other room. Are we going to invite them in to actually hear it in this room?
MADAM CHAIR: I don't know that we have enough space.
MR. STEELE: Okay, there may be too many.
MADAM CHAIR: There is a feed, we've made as much arrangement as we can. Thank you. Mr. Friedman.
MR. KEN FRIEDMAN: Madam Chair, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to thank you for having us here. My name is Ken Friedman. I worked as a business consultant and am actually an immigrant myself from the United States. I came here about 20 years ago and love it - wouldn't live anywhere else in the world.
Mostly what I've done since I've been here is serve as a marketing consultant, all the marketing studies and marketing for Purdy's Wharf for many years and write business plans. For the last several years, since I'm now semi-retired - I'm 67 years old - I've been doing quite a lot with basketball, actually, which I used to be involved with in the United States. I've served as the associate head coach for the Dalhousie men's and then the women's team for a few years. Last summer, I'm happy to say, I worked with the Nova Scotia Provincial Women's Under 17 team and we were quite thrilled because we won the bronze medal by defeating British Columbia in a very exciting game.
I'm here today on behalf of an organization called NAABEX, which stands for Nominees Adversely Affected by Exclusion from the Residency Refund Program. So it's important to understand a lot of people who have testified today are registered with that organization. What's important to understand is we have about 72 people registered at this point; those are 72 different people, and each and every one of them have a different story.
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So what I'll be trying to address today are the common themes, the concerns that are shared by this diverse group of people with a diverse set of experiences.
Very briefly, how I got involved in this was that I met one of the nominees, they were interested in starting a new business, and they asked me if I could open some doors for them. I basically just walked them into ACOA and IRAP and made some introductions. A few weeks later that person called me - Mr. Duenas, who's sitting over there - and asked me if I could come to a meeting at Bayers Lake. About 40 people were there, all of whom were nominees who had been excluded from the refund. It was somewhat chaotic, actually, with people from several different countries speaking several different languages, sometimes all at the same time. Some of them were in favour of political action, they wanted to protest, maybe march up and down in front of buildings. Some wanted to take legal action, whether it be individual or class-action suits.
Most, however, the vast majority of them said no to those alternatives, at least at that time. Instead they voted to initiate a dialogue and to try to persuade the government to change its policy. One phrase that I heard several times through the meeting was, it's easier to do business with a friend than to do business with an enemy. That's the approach they wanted to take and I was impressed with that.
The next day the country representatives contacted me - I had said a few words at the end of the meeting - and they asked me to serve as what they called their communications consultant. I asked them why they thought they needed me and they said, well, we speak a different language. A number of them, as you have probably even seen today, struggle with English, and there are many of them who wouldn't feel comfortable coming here at all because of their problems with the language - we come from a different culture and we think we need some help. So here I am, that's my role.
First, just to mention briefly, when the refund was first announced and this group of mentored nominees found out they were excluded, the reasoning and the logic that they heard, that they were presented with, was that, you did the mentorship, you got what you paid for. However, the nominees have told me that they have searched and searched, but they can't find anything in their contracts that says they were paying specifically for the mentorship. Instead, what the documents say is that they were making an economic contribution to the Province of Nova Scotia which means, in effect, that they were paying to get landed, which was fine with them.
The distinction is important, the distinction between paying for a mentorship and making an economic contribution in order to get landed is important. Why? Because since they were not paying for the mentorship in their eyes, it doesn't really matter whether their mentorship programs were fantastic, whether they were average, or they were not so good. What really matters to them is that the nominees who did not go through a mentorship are eligible at this point for a refund of $100,000 of their economic contribution, as long as they
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meet certain criteria: they lived in Nova Scotia for 12 of their first 18 months after they were landed and they still have to be living here when they applied for the refund. All that the members of NAABEX were asking for is that the members that meet those same criteria should also be eligible for the refund.
Of course, there's more that could be said along these lines. For example, how could a few hours of mentoring a week over a period of six months possibly be worth $80,000? But I want to move on because as far as NAABEX is concerned, those particular kinds of logics are not the main point. They do matter, of course, but there are underlying issues, as you've heard today, that are even more important and those are issues like fairness, equal treatment, loyalty and respect.
As you've heard, the members of NAABEX left their parents, their relatives, their successful careers and their home countries. Why did they do that? As you've heard them say almost without exception, for the benefit of their children so that their children could grow up, get a good education, live and eventually work in a good and just society.
When they arrived here, they faced further obstacles, disappointments, surprises, roadblocks. All of the expected ones, the obvious ones - difficulty with the English language, with culture shock and disorientation - but also some unexpected ones, problems that in some cases were caused by the program itself. I had a whole list of those, but you've heard so much about them today, I don't think we have to go through them. They came here and were told they'd get help settling and phone calls weren't returned. They thought their mentorship would be in a program that had to do with their chosen profession - that didn't happen. They were told to expect a long-term contract after they completed their mentorship - that was very difficult.
Just in the last few weeks, I've met, for example, a banker who's purchased a laundromat, an attorney who's invested in a pastry shop, an engineer who now drives his own taxi, so there were all of these problems. But these members - the members of NAABEX, the people who went through these mentorships - didn't give up. They didn't leave, they stuck it out, they stayed in Nova Scotia. Why? When I've asked them they say because they fell in love with Halifax, with Nova Scotia, and they believed in the recruiting literature which said, come to Nova Scotia and build your dream. Then in October 2007, the refund option was announced and the members of NAABEX discovered that they were not going to be eligible for the refund. One of them said to me, it was like a knife in my heart.
Imagine what it was like for them. It's just before Christmas and your friend tells you, you should have done nothing, you should have been smart like me. I didn't do anything and I just got a cheque for $100,000 in the mail. Even worse, perhaps you talked to a nominee from your home country who landed in Vancouver and never even came to Nova Scotia, didn't even contact the Department of Immigration. He just stayed on the West Coast and intended to forfeit his money. He was landed, he wanted to live on the West Coast, so he just
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stayed there. Now after five months in the country, he has heard about the refund. He hops on a plane, he flies to Halifax and rents an apartment. He tells you that he plans to stay in Nova Scotia for one year and when he's finally eligible for the refund, he will collect his $100,000 and head back west again. How would you feel? I think we all know the answer to that.
Most of the people that completed their mentorship and stayed here are feeling a lot of anger, sadness, frustration and pain. They feel that they came here under the same program and signed the same agreements as the nominees who are now eligible for the refund. As one of them said, if I hadn't played by the rules I, too, would be getting $100,000.
So what do they want? They want to be included in the refund program under the same terms and conditions as the other nominees. Therefore, they are asking for a $100,000 refund, except that they are willing to have whatever salary they received from their mentor company deducted from that $100,000. So, for example, if their salary for six months was $20,000, they're requesting only $80,000 back - and let's not forget, they paid taxes on that $20,000. They're not asking for that, of course.
They feel that this is quite reasonable. After all, one could make a convincing argument that given the fact that they stayed in the province - they're still here, which was the intent of the NSNP in the first place - they should have been the first group to be considered for a refund. But one might ask, where could this money come from to repay them? After all, that money has been spoken for, it was distributed for better or for worse to the mentor companies. However there were so many nominees who landed, for example, in Toronto or Vancouver, and never even came to Nova Scotia - they got their papers when they landed, stayed where they were and forfeited their $130,000 gladly. Others came to Nova Scotia, but left after awhile without participating in the Nominee Program and the mentorship - they decided to go elsewhere in Canada and pursue other opportunities.
So the members of NAABEX propose that one solution to this dilemma would be to use these forfeited funds, as well as the interest that has accumulated on those funds, in order to finance the inclusion of the mentored nominees in the refund program.
One personal note, one last thing - my most difficult moment since this project began was a conversation that I had with a Japanese nominee after a meeting in December. Yoshi's English was not very good and so he stayed after the meeting to review what had been said and he told me his story, very similar to the stories that you have heard today: how he used his entire life savings to come to Nova Scotia, how he had completed his mentorship, how much he liked living here, but now he said he was very disturbed, very upset about the refund. He was so upset, in fact, that he actually broke into tears while he was speaking with me. He said that he wanted to get on with his life, he wanted to feel good like he used to feel about being here, but he said that now every morning when he woke up he felt paralyzed by his depression and his anger. I told him that we would try to help, but the very next week he
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moved to Alberta. I don't want that to happen with any more nominees. I don't want them to leave, but I'm concerned that could happen.
[12:30 p.m.]
If they leave, they take with them their skills, their energy, their initiative, their financial resources. But most of all, Nova Scotia loses their goodwill. These members of NAABEX are our best ambassadors. They have made a commitment, despite all of the problems that they ran into, despite all of the obstacles that they faced, they made a commitment to our province. Their presence in Nova Scotia speaks volumes, especially to other good people in Turkey, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka, the Phillippines, India and Iran. If these nominees stay, they will help to recruit more people from these countries; in fact, they have already been responsible for recruiting a lot of the other people that have come since they came here. We need more people like these people that I've met, so please let's not forget that's why the Nominee Program was created. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Steele.
MR. STEELE: Thank you very much, Mr. Friedman. You are a very good spokesperson indeed, so your group has chosen well. The question I have for you is going to be a little bit different than for the other people, because I think you've put your finger on what I consider to be the heart of the issue here and that is, where is the money going to come from? As you said, the money, which I calculate to be roughly $20 million, for better or for worse, is already in the hands of Nova Scotia mentor companies. So if the government is going to refund the money it has to come out of general tax revenue, or at least that's the most obvious option.
Our government currently is running with a surplus of less than $20 million, so if they just pay out $20 million they're going to go into deficit, which creates a huge political problem for them. So although, in my view, that's the real reason the refund isn't being offered, it's not something the government can admit is the real reason. But that's precisely the reason why the refund hasn't been offered to people who have been through the mentorship.
Now you have suggested an alternative - and I thank you for that, because it hadn't occurred to me - and that is if we took the money from the nominees who did not have any good faith, intention of moving to or staying in Nova Scotia, that would go some way toward funding the refund. Do you have any sense from all of the work that you've done with your group, about how much money that would be? How many people who came to Canada through the Nominee Program, in your view, never made a serious attempt to settle in Nova Scotia?
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MR. FRIEDMAN: No, I don't, but I can give you a different number. I can tell you that we have 72 people registered in our group. If all of those people were eligible for the refund and for whatever reasons some of them may not be, and if we even take an average of $70,000 per person that would need to be refunded - which I think probably is pretty close - that would only take about $5 million to satisfy that requirement.
The members of NAABEX are not asking for money to be taken from the general taxpayers to repay them. It is their proposal, not mine, that this money could come from the forfeitures that have taken place and they have a pretty good sense of how many forfeitures have taken place, because they know a lot of people who are coming here from their countries. They know, for example, that they stayed in Vancouver or they stayed in Toronto or they went to Alberta or they did whatever.
So their feeling is, and I think it will be supported as the facts are collected, that there should be enough money between the forfeitures and the interest that accumulated on those forfeiture funds to reimburse our people in our group.
MR. STEELE: A very interesting suggestion and I want to thank you very much for that. That was my only question.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Mr. Preyra.
MR. PREYRA: I have two questions and one of them will probably be inappropriate, but you'll tell me if it is. We've heard a lot about agents' fees and brokerage fees being paid and they are quite exorbitant. What are your fees in this case?
MR. FRIEDMAN: I don't mind you asking me that at all. To date I've received a total of $3,000 and our agreement calls for, for all the work that I might do over the next months, a total of $12,000.
If the group is successful in obtaining the refund, I've asked them to give me a bonus, shall we say, of 0.75 per cent of the money that they collect. For example, for a nominee if they were to receive $70,000, that would be maybe $400 or $500, $450 for that nominee. Of course, there's no guarantee that we'll collect that money from all those people.
MR. PREYRA: Thank you very much for answering that question.
Now are you currently in negotiations with the Office of Immigration? Where are you now in your representations and what have you heard?
MR. FRIEDMAN: I don't know if you could call it negotiations, but it took a bit of time and I went through some people who I knew actually from basketball, believe it or not, and have met at this point with the Executive Director, Elizabeth Mills. I talked to her a few
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times. I had a very good meeting with her at the Fireside one day for a couple of hours. Then, out of that, eventually I went to a meeting with the minister and Elizabeth and one member of the minister's staff.
Personally, I felt very good about those meetings. There were no promises made. Of course, officially the policy remains as it is - that was made very clear. But I felt that the minister was open, he was listening, he was receptive, and at that point we were quite happy with that.
MR. PREYRA: Is it your impression then that the 72 people registered will be given, in your scenario, a separate arrangement from the 203 others who have been in the program?
MR. FRIEDMAN: The others who went through the mentorship program?
MR. PREYRA: Yes.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, those people have left and, as I understand it - and I could stand to be corrected - someone who is applying for the refund has to be a resident of Nova Scotia at the time that they applied for the refund and they have to show that through meeting various criteria, whether their children are in school - it's not enough for somebody to just come and rent an apartment here and be living in Vancouver and say, well, we're still living in Nova Scotia. They have to show, through various means, that they are actually living here, because that was the intention of the program. It wasn't to train people here and go through mentorships here and then go somewhere else. The intention was for them to stay here and contribute to the welfare of our province.
MR. PREYRA: Just a clarification, I'm talking about the 203 who went through the Mentorship Program . . .
MR. FRIEDMAN: I am, too.
MR. PREYRA: . . . presumably are still here in Nova Scotia. I'm not talking about the 600 others who may or may not be.
MR. FRIEDMAN: I understand, but our figures seem to indicate that of the 200 and some people who went through the Mentorship Program - possibly some of those people had very good experiences in their mentorship, probably some of them were bad - but it seems to be that there are certainly less than 100 people out of those 203 who are still living here in Nova Scotia. Under the terms of the refund, as I understand it, if they're not living in Nova Scotia when they apply for the refund, they are not eligible for the program.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. Ms. Whalen.
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MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to have heard your words and how you've represented very well the people who I've had the opportunity to speak to that I think are members of your group. The concern that we've had from the start has been the tarnished image for Nova Scotia because we believe, as many of the nominees said today, that Nova Scotia is a great place to live and offers a lot of opportunity, particularly for raising a family and building a good future. We want others, who have not yet come, to have that same view.
So I think that along with the people you represented, that is a huge opportunity for us to work with them to continue to spread the word. The best network we have are the immigrants who have come first.
MR. FRIEDMAN: You know, the people stayed here because they love it here. They wouldn't go through all the problems that they went through and all the difficulties and stay. They've stayed here because they want to be here.
MS. WHALEN: And they still have a commitment to that. I wondered if you had heard anything about an advisory board. One of the people who spoke today said that the minister had indicated he would be setting up an advisory board.
MR. FRIEDMAN: I did not hear anything . . .
MS. WHALEN: That was news to me today, I wondered if . . .
MR. FRIEDMAN: I had not heard anything about that.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, I mean I think that should such an advisory board be created, we certainly should be calling on people who have done a mentorship, have come early in this program and shown a commitment to be part of that, but you haven't yet in your discussions heard that.
The second thing I wanted to mention was that the Liberal Party as been on record as saying that we believe there should be a refund made, subject to the funds that are in the account, the trust account, that those funds are all monies that were put in by immigrants, not by taxpayers of Nova Scotia. That's why we're all waiting as well for the Auditor General to have a fuller picture of that fund, and that work is underway.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Our group feels confident, from what they know, that there'll be enough funds to satisfy their request. However, we've even said that if for some reason it turned out not to be enough, they would be willing to have that prorated among all the people who are eligible for the refund program. They do not want any of the money to come from new taxpayer money.
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MS. WHALEN: I think that's very important that we're on the same page about that. Again, our motion from the Liberal Party had been that the amount refunded would be less the amount that was paid as salary, even though, as you say, those nominees did have to pay taxes. So they didn't receive the full amount of the $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 that they were paid, but we still think that would be seen as a fair way to proceed.
What I think is important is that some gesture be made and some attempt be made to show the people who have made a commitment to our province and come early and tested this program with our Office of Immigration, that we are dealing with them in good faith.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Yes, as I said at the very end when I talked about my personal feelings about this from the experience that I had with the gentleman from Japan, I mean that was devastating to me personally, when I found out a week later that he had left. I think it would be important, if possible, to make some kind of gesture sooner rather than later, so that this sense of discouragement doesn't go any further.
MS. WHALEN: Could I ask you one question and that is, do you see that this will be a trend, that people are feeling so discouraged and demoralized, that they will simply want to put this chapter behind them and move to another province or place?
MR. FRIEDMAN: I think that's a possibility. I don't want to say that everybody would do that, I don't think that's the case, but I think that some people would, some people might, and that the people who stayed here would stay here with quite a different feeling about this place.
MS. WHALEN: Just one final comment on the numbers because my feeling is - as you said, you're representing about 72 families, and I think we should be clear, it's not individuals, these are families who put their lives on the line - probably the amount would be 50 per cent of the 200 who have left the province, having finished the mentorship and not finding appropriate work and may have gone to other places, perhaps out of necessity.
MR. FRIEDMAN: That's our guess. It's kind of hard to get specific numbers.
MS. WHALEN: So if you had 100 families and they were entitled to $80,000 each, if they only got the minimum pay . . .
MR. FRIEDMAN: Oh that wouldn't happen, because - we even heard of one case where the nominee received a $70,000 salary from . . .
MS. WHALEN: So that would be an absolute . . .
MR. FRIEDMAN: We're thinking it would probably come in somewhere around $70,000 apiece.
[Page 70]
MS. WHALEN: Yes, which is about $7 million.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Yes.
MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. And it's their own money - let's be sure that we stress that.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Yes, it is.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. That concludes the witnesses we have and, as I said, we have one gentleman who is a nominee, Dr. Chang, who has waited very patiently to find out if we would be prepared to extend to him a brief opportunity to appear. So I'm certainly happy to do that. We'll make it very short and sweet and then we're out of here. We've already gone over so I would ask, is that agreeable to people?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed. (Interruptions)
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. This witness is Dr. Michael Chang. Hello, the floor is yours.
DR. MICHAEL CHANG: First, I am very appreciative to give me this special chance to present myself.
I'm a happy Nominee Program nominee, I'm happy, but right now I'm very sad and I don't want to spend much time to tell my story so I just tell some outline, okay?
[12:45 p.m.]
In May 19, 2006, I visited Halifax the first time and made an interview with an immigration officer. They told me if you want to immigrate to Canada, you have to do two things: (1) you have to stay here at least six months; and (2) you have to match one job. Because my brother-in-law lived in Vancouver and he is a citizen and my sister-in-law lives in Toronto and she's a citizen too, the immigration officer asked me, I don't think that you want to live in Halifax, in Nova Scotia, because your relationships all live in other provinces. I told her, if you permit to stay here, I give you a promise, I will stay here and I will live here at least six months.
Why the six months? Because the Nominee Program asked me, you have to stay here at least six months. So when I got approval on February 1, 2007, I landed in Halifax. Between this period I looked for a job from my immigration company. I used the international phone and asked my company to help me to find a job.
[Page 71]
I am very, very active and aggressive to look for a job. For what? I want to mention these two factors. In March 2000, I passed an NSAA test and got a licence. I'm a doctor from Taiwan and China. I'm an orthopaedic and neurological specialist in Taiwan and China. I have over 19 years experience for this specialist. Before nine years, I went to China to study TCM - traditional Chinese medicine, and I got a licence from China, too.
So in March 2007 I passed a test from the NSAA, Nova Scotia Acupuncture Association, and I got a licence.
In the morning I study English, you know I think my English is not very well but I ask myself to learn it. So in the morning I have to go to MISA to study English. My classmate told me, don't sign any contract with the mentor. I asked him why? He told me, oh, some guy told him that maybe this program will be changed. So I went to the Immigration Office to ask the immigration officer. I asked him, I have a licence, I got a licence from the NSAA and so I could practise, so may I have to sign this contact with a mentor? They told me, sorry, no way, you have to do that. I asked them at least two or three times, but they always told me you have to do it because this is the Nominee Program, you have to - otherwise you cannot match your own job, maybe it will affect your citizenship, maybe after years.
So on May 2nd I signed this contract. Before I signed this mentorship contract I asked them again and again, but the lady just gave me the one answer, sign it, sign it. I'm fortunate, because my boss is a wonderful boss. I could practice, I could have devoted my skill for my patients. I'm learned in orthopaedic and neurological, so I could use the Western medicine technology to diagnose my patients and I could treat them combined with the Oriental technology and Western technology to treat my patients.
I wish I could have devoted myself to the Canadian and so in July 2007, I went back to Taiwan, for what? I sold my clinic, my clinic in Taiwan for over 12 years, there were five doctors in my clinic. I hired five doctors: two family doctors, two orthopaedic doctors and one eye doctor. It was a good property, but I had to sell it. Why? Just for I want to decide to settle down here.
Then in September I came back to Halifax and on October 16th, due to my boss' help, I set up my clinic, Eastern-Western Chronic Pain Centre. On October 22nd , I bought a new house in Bedford, so I don't want to argue anything. I'm not a greedy man. I appreciate the Nominee Program, to me it is a positive response. I could have devoted, including my property, including my knowledge, including my experience, anything I could have devoted it to Canada, to Canadians, but I think everybody knows some guys just stayed at home to do something or - I think I don't want to mention that. I just say, it is a good policy, but to me, when I listen to the message, because you tried to look for a job and you signed this contract, you shouldn't be punished.
[Page 72]
I work every afternoon from 1:00 p.m. until my patients are finished every day and leave my clinic around 7:30 p.m. or around 8:00 p.m. I receive my salary and my patients will pay me the fee, all are healthy, and the company will pay me a fee. So my salary, where is my salary? My salary came from my patient's cash or the company, not with the Nominee Program money. So I very appreciate this program, I could devote anything to Canadians, so I very appreciate everything. Thank you, everyone.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much for being here. Mr. Preyra, really quick.
MR. PREYRA: Yes, a very quick question. If I can just summarize what you're saying, you're saying that after your years of clinical experience and after coming here, you had the credentials and it would have been in your best interest to just start a business which you were qualified to do at the time in your chosen field, but you were told to take a mentorship because those were the rules of the game.
I had a question for you about the refund program. Are you saying that there were people who did not do the mentorship program, because they were told that the refund program was coming?
DR. CHANG: Yes. I arrived February 1, 2000 and I went to MISA to study English in March. I received a message from a MISA classmate, so I confirmed with the immigration officer again and again, may I don't sign this contract? I have a licence, maybe I could set up my clinic or maybe I could be employed from another clinic, anything. But they told me, no way, just one way, sign it. That's all.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. That concludes witnesses today. We will have to adjourn now. Before we do that I want to thank the clerk and the staff of this office in particular, they've done an outstanding job under very difficult constraints in terms of not having adequate rooms to do this kind of a forum. They did a phenomenal job organizing this and keeping things flowing. Legislative TV, as well, we're very appreciative of the efforts you've put in to making this work smoothly for all of us today, so thank you very much on behalf of all of us.
We now stand adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 12:56 p.m.]
