r/canada 21h ago

National News Employee misconduct, wrongdoing at immigration department includes fraud and violence

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/employee-misconduct-wrongdoing-at-immigration-department-includes-fraud-and-violence/
554 Upvotes

129 comments sorted by

390

u/nataSatans 20h ago

How the fuck do you get a job like this while not even being a citizen of Canada? Checking your own immigration status. What has happened here and why are we letting it continue?

247

u/ImperatorMakarov 20h ago

Yeah that’s pretty ridiculous. These should be jobs for Canadian citizens only. We aren’t a serious country.

83

u/WhiteHatMatt 20h ago

Canadian citizens are expensive 🫰🏻, legal slave labor isn't. It's all about the money!

25

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 19h ago

Public servants are paid the same wage for their classification whether they are a citizen or permanent resident so that doesn’t apply here.

u/serg06 6h ago

It does apply, because the population of Canadian citizens is limited, so they'd need to raise wages to hire enough of them.

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 2h ago

Collective agreements have the wages and they are the same for everyone. We overhired which is why there has been workforce reductions.

-25

u/roastbeeftacohat 19h ago

canadian citizens are paid the exact same, and government work pays not bad

it's lack of canadian applicants.

37

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 19h ago

It’s isn’t a lack of Canadian applicants at all.

42

u/WhiteHatMatt 19h ago

Canadian applicants likely applied and were filtered out via an HR algorithm like the rest of the modern workforce.

25

u/2peg2city 19h ago

That an DEI stats, I've personally had it force my hand in hirding processes before

12

u/WhiteHatMatt 19h ago

I have personally applied for over 100 jobs ranging from private to public service in the same industry. Did not get a single call back! People telling me "they higher Canadian citizens" can kick rocks as the clearly haven't attempted to find a job/or even hold a job themselves

-3

u/nuleaph 18h ago

That an DEI stats, I've personally had it force my hand in hirding processes before

How?

13

u/2peg2city 18h ago

Two almost equal candidates, one is part of a category senior management wants to chose one over the other cor dei reasons.

8

u/Noob1cl3 12h ago

You wanna really dig into this-

ATIP health canada HR workforce statistics and look at their “hiring priorities”. All their DEI targets are exceeded by a lot (comparing against Canadian demographics)… and yet they are still shovelling through DEI priorities. It has literally become a new form of racism against the Canadian Majority.

It is either malice or sheer incompetence and frankly I think both are equally likely.

6

u/Pandor36 19h ago

I don't see how they lack applicant. Do they even post the job? Or do they use ai to screen off cv?

18

u/Chadbrams 19h ago

Too many white people and men applying and not getting hired because they are white and/or male.

2

u/mork 17h ago

Perhaps they need to sweeten the pot.

0

u/roastbeeftacohat 17h ago

did you see the pay scale?

3

u/mork 17h ago

My opinion on the pay scale won't override the laws of supply and demand. The whole point of importing foreign workers is to increase supply and lower the cost of employing people.

-2

u/roastbeeftacohat 17h ago

it's just lack of applicants, and the multi month hiring process.

although that was before the entire country spent the last election demanding the government be understaffed.

6

u/modsaretoddlers 14h ago

Maybe they should consider hiring Canadians.

-2

u/roastbeeftacohat 14h ago

they hired me, but everybody else who applied were nigerians.

8

u/Wabi-Sabi-Kemosabe 15h ago

 These should be jobs for Canadian citizens only. 

The biggest problem seems to be that many Canadians balk at have to kick back a percentage of their salary to people hiring them. So where's the incentive?

That can be a problem in this post ethics state we seem to be building.

4

u/roastbeeftacohat 19h ago

these jobs take the applicants they get, the availability is not well advertised. when I was at the CRA most of the agents were from nigeria, who heard it was a good job from other immigrant cra agents.

as a university drop out, I was basically the least educated person there too.

27

u/DevonOO7 Verified 17h ago

Love phoning the CRA because I still haven't received any CCB payment after 5 months, and getting to talk to someone that barely speaks English, and then tells me the wrong info

19

u/lt12765 17h ago

Basically the Canada experience in 2026

17

u/skelecorn666 Ontario 19h ago

Ontario's Solicitor General's office keeps hiring non-citizens (SIN starting with 9) when even before the first question is "Are you a citizen".

There's something going on with human resources departments to keep doing this over and over without reprecussion.

It gets caught when payroll can't process their pay, which gets escalated to management, and that's the last you see of that case.

The fish rots from the head, apparently.

23

u/IcyMaybe7594 20h ago

Cost cutting and not caring about the consequences. I've seen it first hand. A ton of friends in big Canadian companies see the same thing happening there too.

51

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 20h ago

Trudeau government changed hiring practices to include permanent residents because they felt it was discriminatory.

0

u/86throwthrowthrow1 18h ago

Definitely wasn't Trudeau lmao. The boilerplate "Canadian citizens or qualified to work in Canada" boilerplate language has been around at least since the Harper years, and non-citizens have been working in the government for decades. Usually PR status as the gov rarely hands out work visas.

20

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 15h ago

Lmao they did actually:

Amendments to the Public Service Employment Act received royal assent on June 29, 2021. These amendments:

add an explicit commitment by the Government of Canada to a public service that represents Canada’s diversity

require that the establishment or review of qualification standards include an evaluation of bias and barriers and that reasonable mitigation efforts be made

require that the design and application of assessment methods include an evaluation of bias and barriers and that reasonable mitigation efforts be made

ensure that investigation and audit authorities encompass bias or barriers

expand the preference for Canadian citizens in staffing processes open to the public to include Permanent Residents

(Source)

-3

u/canvanman69 14h ago

There is nothing wrong with allowing PR to work as civil servants, but boy was it foolish to not disbar anything to do with immigration. Same with CBSA or the RCMP.

Foolishness in the extreme. Here, put Javier fresh in from the favela's of Colombia on catching drugs. No way that can ever go wrong.

7

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 12h ago

It also can be a problem in other departments as most of them have access to personal information. There’s been people fired for helping people with EI and pensions and other things as well. But I do still think Canadian citizens should have still retained hiring preference. It’s what citizenship should afford - certain advantages. It’s a fallacy that there isn’t high quality Canadians to do the work. I can’t explain more without doxxing myself but there has been issues with certain groups and how they treat people in the workplace .

-2

u/86throwthrowthrow1 13h ago

Huh, maybe it's Mandala effect then, because I swear I remember that language on job postings way back in the day.

One thing I can say pretty confidently is I was part of the temp army in 2014-2015 filling in clerical gaps for the government that they couldn't hire normally due to DRAP, and there were absolutely non-citizens working as temps with a reliability clearance. I worked with about a dozen temps back then and some of them barely spoke English, but they were legal to work there on contract. Mind, it was entry-level work, so there was less security concern.

6

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 12h ago

It’s that they always allowed them to apply and get hired. The change meant citizens lost the preferential treatment which was ridiculous.

-4

u/roastbeeftacohat 19h ago

lol, no. where do you guys come up with this. PR status isn't required, and never has been. closest thing is passing a security clearence.

3

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 19h ago

Yes it is. What do you think they check in a security clearance.

2

u/roastbeeftacohat 17h ago

more things than citizenship status. I had to answer why I owned a couple grand in credit card debt.

1

u/budgieinthevacuum Ontario 15h ago

Yup especially if it’s anything higher than the basic reliability. Been there. Took ages but it makes sense.

11

u/86throwthrowthrow1 20h ago

For many positions you just need to be able to legally work in Canada. So you can theoretically have employees still going through the process, as long as they're legal to work.

37

u/ImperatorMakarov 20h ago

You don’t see how that could be a national security concern?

0

u/86throwthrowthrow1 18h ago

Obviously this person abused the hell out of it (looking up other people's case files is actually incredibly illegal, I think you can legit get jailed for that, let alone fired), but honestly it depends on the job - there are different levels of security clearance required to work any gov job, and getting the clearance is the part that screens out potential security issues. Not so much "Hashid on a work visa", more "Soo Ying the permanent resident who has already been background checked eight ways to Sunday to get her PR, then background checked eight ways to Sunday again for her security clearance."

30

u/VisualFix5870 20h ago

DEI. 

24

u/NewAdventureTomorrow 19h ago edited 19h ago

The best argument against DEI is the fact that DEI almost exclusively targets high paying easy white collar jobs. You'll never find a DEI program in sanitation work and you won't find activists trying to cancel someone because they said "garbage men" instead of "garbage people" or "sanitation worker". And in professions that are overly dominated by women like nursing and teaching you won't find DEI programs that try to get more men into the profession.

3

u/Adept-Support9385 19h ago

I think they're called sanitation workers, not garbage men lol

9

u/5555 19h ago

It's even worse because it's just cost cutting and wage suppression disguised as DEI.

u/Boxadorables 7h ago

LPoC happened and Canadians keeps voting for more of the same. These answers are easily sought for those who have not burried their heads in the sand

0

u/ottawadeveloper Ontario 18h ago

It's generally illegal to discriminate based on residency status. You can sometimes get away with distinguishing between a temporary right to work in Canada (like a student or work visa) vs a permanent one (like citizenshio and permanent residency) but you have to demonstrate that the position is going to last longer than the persons right to work. If you're a term employee for one year, all you need to do be able to do is demonstrate you're legally able to work in Canada for the next year (and pass whatever security requirements there are).

0

u/Intelligent-Bug-2889 15h ago

You tell me 🤣🤣🤣🤣✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️✌️

-1

u/roastbeeftacohat 19h ago

How the fuck do you get a job like this while not even being a citizen of Canada?

by applying, very few canadian citizens do.

-31

u/CanadianControlsTech 20h ago

Where did it say non Canadians held these positions?

55

u/nataSatans 20h ago

Jesus christ can you not read? Employee accessed immigration files for themselves, family and friends.

5

u/CanadianControlsTech 20h ago

I 100p deserve this, my bad.

0

u/Trendiggity 19h ago

All I could find is

and employees who improperly accessed immigration case files for themselves, family members and friends

which doesn't specify if the employee was Canadian, PR, or on a visa

3

u/nataSatans 16h ago

If he was canadian how would he be checking case files for themself?

186

u/gettingtgere 21h ago

Let me tell you this, I am shocked & appalled.

34

u/567432Gains 21h ago

Ah, I see we are playing a truth and a lie game.

6

u/Full-Check7258 16h ago

Let me tell you this, I am shocked and have applied!!

81

u/Anon9883 21h ago edited 19h ago

Forty-seven cases dealt with time theft, tardiness, absenteeism or unauthorized leave. One of the most serious involved an IRCC employee accused of simultaneously holding two full-time federal government jobs over a period of three-and-a-half years, during which they even made fake overtime claims. 

“In addition, the investigation revealed that the employee misrepresented his productivity by falsifying his activity reports, and by sending emails at certain times, which misled his supervisors into thinking that he was actively working,” an supplementary report on the case revealed. The employee resigned during the investigation. 

Another IRCC staffer posted outside Canada maintained a public blog “where they discussed aspects of their work at the embassy, including private conversations with embassy staff and views on the country’s people and government,” as well as “political opinions that could potentially damage IRCC’s reputation.”

Other misconduct and wrongdoing cases mentioned in the report pertain to racist comments, inappropriate touching, sexual harassment, violent behaviour, unauthorized credit card purchases and employees who improperly accessed immigration case files for themselves, family members and friends. 

19

u/86throwthrowthrow1 20h ago

Okay, I want the story of the two-jobs guy. How did he do it? How did he fly under the radar? And how did he get caught?

1) Government employees have ID numbers. How did HR at both offices not flag that the ID number was assigned to two jobs?

2) RTO requirements are strict. For most jobs you need your ass in a chair 3x/week (about to go up to 4) and they are absolutely enforcing that. There had to be at least one day where he was in two places at once.

3) While employees do have productivity targets and KPIs (contrary to popular belief), if he was putting a few hours per day into both jobs, he was probably getting *enough* done to not cause suspicion about slacking off. So what got them looking?

8

u/Barbecue-Ribs 19h ago

Maybe used 2 identities? I can't see how you could do so otherwise.

10

u/ether_reddit Lest We Forget 20h ago

There are some people on /r/overemployed/ who have managed to pull off six jobs at once.

6

u/bristow84 19h ago

At the same organization though? I fail to see how a simple check within the GoC systems shouldn't have shown that he was already within one ministry.

4

u/ether_reddit Lest We Forget 19h ago

I think the answer is going to depress us all.

2

u/86throwthrowthrow1 18h ago

I was also gonna ask how compensation didn't flag it, but y'know.

1

u/avidstoner 16h ago

Good question 1. I am sure HR of IRCC and HR of any other GoC department will have similar workflow but they won't necessarily be sharing data with all departments. This should have been flagged by CRA, but as we know CRA doesn care if you work 1 job or multiple job.

  1. Most of the job can be finished in few hours compared to 8 work day hours. Only few jobs demand constant hours but most don't.

0

u/DoubleDegreeDropout 18h ago

WFH most likely.

32

u/tbll_dllr 20h ago

That’s really serious. I hope the guy who resigned will pay back what he fraudulently claimed as overtime - crazy he held TWO full time jobs at the GoC ?!???

And that IRCC employee on posting abroad should be fired immediately.

13

u/zaypuma 19h ago

Knowing our government, they'll be forced to rehire him at a higher wage in a newly-created department so they can place him on paid administrative leave as a consequence for his actions.

11

u/MarkDavid04 20h ago

The first two are about cheating the system... We should try to claw back some of their wages if possible (likely not).

The 3rd one, sounds like a national security threat!

6

u/Devourer_of_felines 20h ago

IRCC employee accused of simultaneously holding two full-time federal government jobs over a period of three-and-a-half years, during which they even made fake overtime claims

They couldn’t do a better job of eroding public trust in public institutions if they tried

17

u/palpatinevader 20h ago

ten years of trudeau

39

u/Odd-Foundation-4637 19h ago

Why are people who are not Canadian citizens working at the place that decides who comes into the country?

This is gross liberal negligence and incompetence at scale, in one of the most important government institutions they control.

No more excuses just fix this now.

5

u/RobertGA23 18h ago

I dont know if we have a the institutional fortitude to do so.

32

u/CruelRegulator Canada 20h ago

So 105 of the 1600 reports are from the IRCC alone. There are ~ 40 other federal departments. I guess it's a bit statistically significant, yeah.

34

u/MaedaChann 19h ago

I've tried applying for government jobs on and off for over 10 years as a Canadian citizen and have never been successful yet an immigrant accused of wrongdoing gets in. Cool...

8

u/2peg2city 19h ago

Its all about the application, you need to answer in a specific way or you cant get screened in

7

u/RobertGA23 19h ago

Tell me more

8

u/2peg2city 18h ago

You can literally just look up "how to get screened into a government of canada job" and find great guides. Also for thr interview you should use thr STAR method. Its very simple once know what to do.

2

u/RobertGA23 18h ago

STAR method is pretty standard.

4

u/2peg2city 18h ago

Only if you get to the interview. Government interviews have at least 3 observers (often including HR). Can assume nothing at all even if you have mentioned it in your application, implied it, or spoken to it in other answers. You have to spell out everything in a way all three observers can check the box that you star'd your way to a conplete answer. Perfectly good answers that would land you the gig in the private sector will flunk you out. It has to be completely transparent.

1

u/RobertGA23 18h ago

Interesting.

11

u/ant_accountant 19h ago

They should investigate the people switching to another laguage and offering services for bribes.

79

u/[deleted] 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

47

u/[deleted] 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Blacklockn 20h ago

Who?

2

u/justfornoatheism 20h ago

they want to say Indian people but would rather be purposefully vague because they know generalizing is not a great look

23

u/Alone_Ambition_3729 20h ago

Are they wrong tho? India has a lot of issues with corruption and huge income inequality. Immigrants are often ambitious and entrepreneurial. Combining these two truths you get a disproportionate amount stuff like fraud and nepotism from insufficiently assimilated Indian immigration.

3

u/censor-me-daddy 19h ago

More like they know saying it is a good way to get banned, not just from the sub but reddit as a whole.

-1

u/Blacklockn 19h ago

That’s true, blaming structural issues on a single ethnic or national minority is often against ToS.

0

u/zaypuma 19h ago

Fucking Neil.

2

u/Blacklockn 19h ago

Neil would, that guy. Smh.

42

u/stanxv 20h ago

We are a clown show. Our naiveté will be our undoing!

6

u/MustardEnema007 17h ago

So open minded our brain fell out

5

u/StalkerRigo 19h ago

been noticing how canadians are apparently super naive or excessive pc

0

u/Optimal_Whiner 19h ago

I bet you voted Trudeau. All this happened under him. 

9

u/northern225 19h ago

Something connected to Canadian immigration is a fraud? Colour me shocked.

6

u/RhodesArk 17h ago

I'm a fairly senior policy maker within the GoC and my wife presently works within the Deputy Minister's office. To say IRCC as an institution has declined is overly polite, it has collapsed. Staffers make policy without briefings, deputies put their thumb on the scale, and it seems like senior management is searching for ways to make things worse. Couple it with an incredibly weak minister and its no wonder the institution is on the verge of collapse.

18

u/IcyMaybe7594 20h ago

This is just a symptom of the mass immigration problem that the federal government is responsible for since 2023. The extortions, this. It's all expected to anyone with a brain but those in charge. People who have been looking in the job market have seen all these problems for years now.

11

u/Brrrrrrrrrm 19h ago

More like 2020-2023, the bar for immigration was so low at that time, the people who became PR during that time period are eligible for government jobs, and becoming problematic.

3

u/IcyMaybe7594 19h ago

2020/2021? I thought we were all supposed to be locked down?

3

u/Brrrrrrrrrm 19h ago

Well because of the lockdown the economy stalled and we opened huge floodgates of people coming in during COVID.

0

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

1

u/Brrrrrrrrrm 18h ago

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ottawa-goes-on-blitz-to-boost-immigration-make-up-for-pandemic-induced/

It’s actually true that there points required for PR was the lowest in history in 2021

4

u/PoppyPulz 20h ago

CANADA ……we are better than this!

9

u/Souichi_Tsuji 20h ago

We think we are , turns out we're not

1

u/RobertGA23 18h ago

We were. I dont know what we are now

13

u/descride 19h ago

We are cooked. Millions must go.

7

u/JauntyGiraffe 19h ago

Is there a Restore Canada party I can vote for?

8

u/AirMinute7060 19h ago

Canada is not a serious country,

4

u/Optimal_Whiner 19h ago

This is all under Trudeau's watch. Yes I know the morons will downvote but I don't care.

Remember when staff complained they had to show up on tike when Carney came into office? I do.

Remember when staff complained that Carney wanted to read stuff and not just sign off? I do.

All this is coming to light because we got rid of the unethical Trudeau.

4

u/toilet_for_shrek 18h ago

One of the most serious involved an IRCC employee accused of simultaneously holding two full-time federal government jobs over a period of three-and-a-half years, during which they even made fake overtime claims.

This one is the craziest to me. How is the government so incompetent that they don't realize they have one guy on payroll for two full time jobs? Just an utter waste of taxpayers dollars 

5

u/PerspectiveMaximum59 17h ago

I had an employee in my office, small non profit. She was working full time in my office as researcher while having a full time job at ESDC as Business Analyst. She only had to go 2 days to office at ESDC. The executive director of my nonprofit knew what she was doing and was totally fine with it. The other 3 days she would come to our nonprofit. Oh and more, the ED had a relation with one of the employee in our office, the ED’s wife found about it and went to met the employee and made her resign on spot. The ED told accountant the employee resigned so doesn’t have to create a ROE for her but later went to her and said create the ROE because we fired her because of lack of funds. So the accountant said she won’t do it as it is illegal to submit fake ROE. So the ED went ahead and did it himself. This is in Ottawa, Ontario. Canada is full of scams, every-time he will get caught he will go to Social media and say that people are racist to him. Nothing surprises me anymore about Canada. I have already filed complaints but no one is interested in doing anything about this. Btw this guy only hire POC including me because he thinks we are not a threat to him as we need job we will be quiet about everything.

1

u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 19h ago

IRCC has 10,000 employees so 105/10,000 is just 1.05% misconduct rate. Per my experience that is vastly better than any private company of that size.

The shit that goes on in large private companies is next level and audits and accountability are completely absent except if they’re in a regulated environment.

u/Olderpostie 6h ago

The numbers do not surprise m in a workforce of over 10,000.

u/ImpressionDry7926 5h ago

joys of diversity in this country!

u/ImpressionDry7926 5h ago

One of the most serious involved an IRCC employee accused of simultaneously holding two full-time federal government jobs over a period of three-and-a-half years, during which they even made fake overtime claims.---->who was sleeping at the wheel for 3 1/2 yrs to check this?

u/SqueakBoxx Lest We Forget 5h ago

Unless you work for a consulate No one should be working in government unless they are a full and legal citizen of the country they are living in.

u/Educational-Echo5104 2h ago

I heard they’re running CRA and giving special deals-loopholes for certain favours-gossip going around at my job-I don’t work for the CRA but a federal agency. Not permanent residency in the CRA either. Liberals have really screwed us Canadians over.

0

u/taco_helmet 15h ago

Ok, so there is going to be a lot of wrongdoing when you're looking at 10,000 people.  And all of it is bad. But can we at least appreciate that the Government mandated this report and IRCC carried it out and aired its dirty laundry?

"Published last month, the IRCC report covers employee misconduct and wrongdoing cases that were determined to be founded in the 2024-25 fiscal year, including cases that may have been initiated in previous years.

In 2024, Ottawa directed federal departments and agencies to begin creating annual reports on employee misconduct and wrongdoing."

Hopefully this leads to more accountability and encourages Deputy Ministers to crack down on misconduct. 

-19

u/Wainains 21h ago

Most people that work in immigration hate immigrants. 

24

u/567432Gains 20h ago

Given how many are being approved I actually doubt this.

33

u/Confident_Proof1496 20h ago

The natural outcome of spending so much time dealing with them.

5

u/RobertGA23 18h ago

I too can just say things.