Corruption in the Canadian Immigration System

Never cleaned up, what's the odds it's only gotten worse?

Corruption and cover up (published 2004 referring to actions in the 1990s)

"I said, 'It can't be - she's got a criminal record. I know she's known to Canadian authorities.'"

But apparently, Lee Chau Ping - who posed as a businesswoman ready to invest $170,000 in a Chicken Delight franchise in a tiny town in northern Saskatchewan - had slipped under the radar. And Brian McAdam, the immigration control officer at the High Commission in Hong Kong, soon learned that other criminals had too.

McAdam was puzzled as to how known criminals were able to get into Canada, but a little bit of digging turned up connections between the Triad members and officials working inside the Canadian embassy. In fact, according to McAdam, High Commission staff was on the receiving end of expensive gifts, cocktail parties, yacht trips and visits to the casinos in Macau.

McAdam and Clement set out for the answers. Immediately, they found obvious signs of corruption: complaints from a Chinese couple that someone at the embassy had offered to expedite their visa application in exchange for $10,000; fake immigration stamps and a fake visa receipt. In one incident, McAdam actually saw the criminal records of Triad members literally drop off their files after he pulled them up on the computer.

But regardless of who was responsible, for retired RCMP superintendent Garry Clement, it all comes down to one thing.

"Did we drop the ball? I have to take as much credit - I was a senior officer in the RCMP. ... I don't think we should try to defend it. The bottom line is, we dropped the ball in this investigation."

And now, this week we have this:
PEI rushed to approve thousands of immigrants

The PEI government’s rush approval of nearly 2,000 immigrant investors before Ottawa shut down the island’s nomination program three years ago is at the heart of allegations that rules went out the window in the province’s scramble to secure foreign cash.

But people in PEI’s immigrant communities say that many of those arriving under the program promptly decamped for elsewhere in Canada.

The rush of approvals flooded the island with about $400-million – yet the island government has never released a full accounting of where the money went.

This week, the island is buzzing over the decision of three former provincial public servants to raise allegations that they witnessed wrongdoing while working for the Provincial Nominee Program.

The three women sent their allegations to Citizenship and Immigration, which forwarded them to the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency. They allege that some officials received cash bribes, and question how officials decided which businesses would get investor money.

The province’s Auditor-General reviewed the program in a 2009 report, expressing concern that companies owned by MLAs and deputy ministers or their families benefited from the program, but the auditor didn’t name names.

Local corruption or the tip of the same larger, unaddressed, problem?

Is the RCMP going to "drop the ball" yet again?


Hat tip: Fixie Guy and VMD at vancouvercondo.info