Gordon Maynard is a Vancouver based lawyer who practices exclusively in Canadian immigration law.  He is a past Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Immigration Section.

In this episode we discuss the biggest immigration scam in Vancouver’s history, which is still unfolding. Xun (Sunny) Wang was a ghost consultant who is estimated to have made $10 million by filing fraudulent immigration applications for clients of his two firms, New Can Consulting and Well Long Enterprises.  Mr. Wang, who is currently serving an eight year jail sentence, and his staff, apparently put fake passport stamps in peoples’ passports in order to lie about having spent sufficient time in Canada to qualify for various immigration programs.  The Canada Border Services Agency is now endeavouring through what the Department is calling Project New Can to remove over 1,500 former clients of his for having committed misrepresentation to obtain Canadian permanent residency and/or maintain it.  All of the lawyers involved in this podcast have and are representing some of his clients in these removal proceedings.

Topics

1:39 – Gordon provides an overview of the timeline involved in Sunny Wang’s alleged fraud.

7:50 – What constitutes misrepresentation in Canadian immigration applications?

10:30 – We discuss some of the mechanics of what Sunny Wang is alleged to have done.

12:00 – Many New Can clients are saying that they signed blank forms and did not know that the applications were fake. Is this a defence to misrepresentation in Canadian immigration law?  Plus Steven reads a summary of what a typical Project New Can procedural fairness letter or allegation looks like.

19:30 – What is the process for having a permanent resident or a foreign national removed from Canada for misrepresentation?

23:00 – What sorts of misrepresentations can actually lead to removal from Canada?

28:30 – What sort of flexibility is there amongst enforcement officers once they have found a misrepresentation to still not have someone removed?

34:45 – As a lawyer, if a client comes to you and says “I submitted an immigration application with fake stamps in my passport and I knew they were fake,” what would you recommend? Do they have a chance of staying in Canada?  And other issues representatives need to be aware of.