The Canadian law specifies who can provide you legal advice on immigration matters for a fee. Only authorized representatives can charge you a fee for legal advice and/or services. They are:
Lawyers from the Law Society of a Canadian province or territory
Paralegals from Ontario (they are also member of the Law Society of Ontario)
Notaries from the province of Quebec
Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants with the CICC
Anyone who is not from the above list cannot charge you fee for any immigration advise or services, and are often referred to as "Ghost Consultants." Those who do are conducting illegal and perhaps incompetent practice. While it may seem convenient to have a travel agent or someone from your home town because they speak your language, you feel like you could go after them if they do not perform their job, or because it is easier for you to make payment, the damage could be serious.
Ghost consultants are not regulated by any Canadian regulatory body. As such, whatever they do (e.g., withholding approval letter, passport request letter, GCKey login credentials, documents or anything) or not do (e.g., taking payment but did not submit application), the Canadian authorities have no jurisdiction to punish them. You, as the applicant, will suffer all the lost incurred.
There are many reason why you should hire an authorized representative for your Canadian immigration matters, including:
They carry at least $1,000,000 professional insurance liability. This means, in the event where your visa application was refused because of the representative's malpractice, carelessness or anything in between, and you suffer loss or damage, you could be compensated.
They have rules and By-laws to abide to. This includes, they cannot withhold your property or documentation for whatever reason. If they do so, you can complain to the respective regulatory body (for instance, the Law Society of their province or the CICC), who would then, in most case, orders the representative to release the documents to you or else they risk having their license suspended or revoked.
They are specialists or experts in immigration law. Authorized representatives completed required training and studies, and are required to pass licensing exams before they can be licensed and granted the authority to provide services. In addition, representatives are required to complete at least 16 hours of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) studies every year to keep their license. This is extremely important because the immigration law is constantly changing and, by completing CPD, this ensures the licensees are up to date with the law.
An authorized representative possesses the skills of legal interpretation. Most immigration policies and laws are written in a way that requires competent legal interpretation and analysis skills. If you cannot comprehend the law, what makes you think a ghost consultant is translating the law accurately?
So, how can you verify if your representative is indeed authorized? You can check with the Law Society of where the representative is licensed, or the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultant (CICC), to see if the representative is a licensee in good standing.
College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultant (CICC): https://college-ic.ca/
Law Society of Alberta: https://www.lawsociety.ab.ca/
Law Society of British Columbia: https://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/
Law Society of Saskatchewan: https://www.lawsociety.sk.ca/
Law Society of Manitoba: https://lawsociety.mb.ca/
Law Society of Ontario: https://lso.ca/
Law Society of New Brunswick: http://lawsociety-barreau.nb.ca/
Law Society of Prince Edward Island: http://lawsocietypei.ca/
Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador: http://www.lawsociety.nf.ca/
Nova Scotia Barrister's Society: http://www.nsbs.org/
Barraue de Quebec: https://www.barreau.qc.ca/en/
Chambre des notaires du Quebec: http://www.cnq.org/
Law Society of Yukon: http://www.lawsocietyyukon.com/
Law Society of North West Territories: http://www.lawsociety.nt.ca/
Law Society of Nunavet: http://lawsociety.nu.ca/
Unfortunately, immigration fraud still exists today (and seem to be growing). While the IRCC website provides information on program eligibilities, the public may find it challenging to comprehend as there are too much information to process. Some also reported that they do not know where to start, or how to navigate the website.
The lack of understanding of the immigration programs give "ghost consultants" a loophole to scam people who wants to apply for a Canadian visa or permit. Usually, it begins with false promise or false advertisement, with bold statements such as "no payment until visa approval." The public must understand that, the representative - be it lawyer, paralegal, notary or consultant - does not have the power to decide the application. It is the IRCC who decides whether the application should be approved or refused. Your authorized representative's role is to present your case to IRCC, convincing them your application should be approved. With this in mind, then, who is the authorized representative to guarantee a positive outcome of a visa application?
Many unauthorized representatives provide a fraudulent job offer letter to the applicant, who then believed that the job offer was genuine and paid thousands of dollars, only to later find out, the letter and offer are not real and of course, their work permit application was refused.
Many international students are victims of scam and fraud. This usually happens when an international student hire an agent or agency to help them get admission into a Canadian college or university. Scammers take advantage of the student's desire to come to Canada for further studies and produce fraudulent Letter of Acceptance from Canadian college or university. The student then proceeds to paying the scammer thousands of dollars for the admission, and couple more thousands for study permit application.
Some scammers have impersonated the High Commissioner of Canada, sending out approval letters to applicants. Because the letters bear the logo of the High Commissioner of Canada, the applicants then falsely believe that their visa application was actually approved. Scammers demand thousands of dollars in exchange for the release of passport request letter.
It has been brought to our attention that some scammers created IRCC-like website with application progress and tracking, payment and other advanced features available, making the public falsely believe that, that was indeed the official website.
Most applications are completed and submitted online. Below are list of common IRCC-related official websites:
The Canadian Government Official Website: https://www.canada.ca/en.html
Immigration and Citizenship Official Website: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/immigration-citizenship.html
IRCC GCKey Login: https://clegc-gckey.gc.ca/
IRCC GCKey Registration: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/register.html
IRCC Payment for Temporary Residence (visitor visa, study permit, work permit, biometrics, TRP): https://eservices.cic.gc.ca/epay/order.do?category=17
NEW IRCC TRV Portal: https://portal-portail.apps.cic.gc.ca/signin?lang=en
Note that, you do not need to make a payment online to be able to track or see the progress of your application. You simply log in to your GCKey account or portal and you will be able to see the status of your application.