A Panel Discussion of the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, released in June of 2008, on the regulation of immigration consultants. The report's recommendations will be assessed from a variety of perspectives, and next steps to ensure implementation will be considered.
Panellist Bios
Michael Battista - Moderator:
Michael Battista has been practicing immigration and refugee law for more than 17 years. He is certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in Immigration and Refugee Law, and sits on the executive committee of the Ontario Bar Association's Immigration Section.
Mr. Battista appears regularly before Canadian tribunals and courts dealing with immigration/refugee matters, and represented Amnesty International before the Supreme Court of Canada in a case involving the international standards prohibiting torture. He has also appeared as a witness before the House of Commons and Senate on immigration issues. In 2005 he made submissions before the United Nations Committee against Torture on Canada’s compliance with international human rights obligations.
Mr. Battista teaches at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law.
Olivia Chow:
Olivia Chow has been involved in immigration issues at the federal level since the early 1980’s, when she served as constituent assistant for former NDP immigration critic MP Dan Heap.
As a member of Parliament and the New Democratic Party’s current immigration critic, she has successfully sponsored significant immigration motions to permit an Iraq war resister stay in Canada, to stop the deportation of long-term undocumented workers, and to allow all sponsored spouses to live with their families in Canada.
Ms. Chow sat on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that produced the report on regulating immigration consultants which forms the basis for this panel discussion.
Before being elected to Parliament twice, she served as a School Board Trustee and Toronto City Councillor for many years.
Elizabeth Long:
Ms. Long is the co-founder of Long Mangalji Immigration Law Group. She has worked in the area of immigration advocacy since 1997 first as a caseworker with non-profit organizations and later as a lawyer. While at one of the top corporate law firms in Canada, Elizabeth managed the corporate immigration files of Fortune 500 companies, and represented many high-profile clients.
Ms. Long is an active advocate of migrant rights in Canada and speaks regularly before unions and community organizations on immigration and migrant worker issues. She is currently involved in the establishment of the Canadian Council for Migrants, an advocacy group joining community organizations, unions, and lawyers in a collaborative effort to advocate on behalf of economic migrant issues.
Audrey Macklin:
Audrey Macklin is an associate professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. While teaching at Dalhousie in the mid-1990’s, she also served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board, making refugee determinations in Ottawa, Atlantic Canada, Montreal and the prairies.
Professor Macklin’s teaching areas include criminal law, administrative law, and immigration and refugee law. Her research and writing interests include transnational migration, citizenship, forced migration, feminist and cultural analysis, and human rights.
Professor Macklin has been active in the Omar Khadr case.
Katarina Onuschak:
Katarina Onuschak is an immigration consultant, and a member of both the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) and the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants (CAPIC). She is the Co-Chair of the Education Committee of the Ontario branch of CAPIC and Director-at-Large of CAPIC's National Executive.
Ms. Onuschak has worked with immigrants seeking to come to Canada in a broad cross-section of categories, from skilled workers, provincial nomination programs, and the family class category, through temporary resident visas (work permit, visitor visa, and student permit including their extensions), to the placement of qualified live-in caregivers.
For more information, contact Joel Hechter at
joel.hechter@utoronto.ca
