I paid a person in Canada for immigration advice and later discovered that person was not licensed to give paid immigration advice. I understand that ?

The situation

I paid a person in Canada for immigration advice and later discovered that person was not licensed to give paid immigration advice. I understand that from 28 October 2026, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada can impose financial penalties of between 5,000 and 1.5 million dollars on representatives who give paid advice without a licence or who knowingly help applicants provide false or misleading information, and that the names of penalised representatives will be published. What should I do if I have already paid an unlicensed adviser, how can I check whether an adviser is licensed, and does a penalty against the adviser affect my own immigration application?

Detailed Analysis

Under Canadian law, it is an offence for someone to provide immigration advice or representation for a fee unless they are authorized to do so. Specifically, the law states that "no person shall knowingly, directly or indirectly, represent or advise a person for consideration — or offer to do so — in connection with the submission of an expression of interest... or a proceeding or application under this Act"^[1]. This means that if the person you paid is not a licensed professional, they have broken the law.

Authorized persons include lawyers who are members in good standing of a provincial law society, notaries in Quebec, or members of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants^[1].

Regarding your specific concerns:

1. **Checking an adviser:** You can verify if someone is authorized by checking with the relevant provincial law society or the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants.

2. **Your application:** The law focuses on punishing the person providing the unauthorized advice. The penalties for contravening these rules include fines or imprisonment for the adviser^[1]. The provided statutes do not state that a client's application is automatically rejected or penalized simply because they used an unlicensed adviser, but the impact on your application is not explicitly settled by these specific sections. If the unlicensed adviser provided false or misleading information, your application could be at risk for reasons unrelated to the adviser's license status.

3. **What to do about the money:** The provided statutes do not outline a specific process for recovering money paid to an unlicensed adviser. This is a matter that may involve civil law or consumer protection rules.

State, provincial, or local laws may add further rules regarding consumer protection or fraud; you should check with your local authorities.

Statutory Citations

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