Canadian Association Of Professional Immigration Consultants: Administrative Costs

Immigration Backlog Dept: When Ottawa announced in March that it would return files and processing fees to applicants waiting in the backlog, its estimate did not include administrative costs such as courier services to send the files back to 280,000 people, said the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants , according to The Star. The industry s own estimate of the processing fees amounts to $145 million. That s because some applicants also paid landing fees between $490 and $975 each upfront and ottawa s plan to wipe out its immigration backlog will cost taxpayers at least $6.2 million more than the $130 million estimated by the federal government, says the immigration consulting industry. The budgeted costs of a backlog wipeout are much higher than calculated and also do not include ... liabilities of lawsuits affecting the administration for years to come, warned Gerd Damitz, the association s co-founding and past president. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.