Canada immigration marriage fraud still persists

Canada, 10th November: Canada immigration is still facing incidents of marriages of convenience although the Canada immigration minister had been attending town hall events in a bid to know the experiences faced by Canadians in this regard.

It was in year 2007 when the Canada immigration department first came to know of the marriages of convenience in Canada through the complainants who had paid for migrants to help them come to Canada and married them. However, once such foreign nationals were in Canada, they immediately left the marriages.
The Canada immigration department had recently initiated an online survey about marriages of convenience in Canada and Jason Kenney, the Canada immigration minister had been attending town halls in Montreal and Vancouver for knowing experiences of Canadians.
It was then that the CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) called for a probe into the increasing number of such fraud cases related to marriages of convenience in Punjab (India), as per the documents found under the Access to Information Act.
As per the findings of the investigation, several cases of marriages of convenience were related to sex trade, human smuggling, embezzlement and narcotics trafficking.
The problems identified during the investigations made it more difficult to probe primarily due to lack of consistency between offices and regions and also due to varied interpretation of regulations from one region to another and from one official to other.
In December 2007, few solutions to such problems were provided in a memo dated December 2007 which are stated below—
•    Need for more training for investigators of the Canada immigration department;
•    Creation of dedicated positions for analytical and proactive activities to curb fraud;
•    Providing authority to employees of CIC for conducting field investigations;
•    Finding the communities practicing arranged marriages.
The memo states that it’s high time that suitable efforts are initiated by Canada immigration department.
But, it’s almost three years since such steps were advised but it still remains unclear as to which steps were exercised by the CIC to curb marriages of convenience in Canada despite reiterations by the Canada immigration minister Jason Kenney to weed out this problem from Canada.