Talk:Conflict of Laws & Parliamentary Supremacy

Immigration Applications & the Paralegal Scope

As I discussed in my previous article Immigration applications are clearly outside the current scope of the paralegal license. There has been a great deal of misinformation with respect to the role of Parliamentary Supremacy and conflict of laws with respect to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C. 2001, c. 27) ("IRPA"), so my goal here is to clear up the confusion.

In 2001 in a case called Law Society of British Columbia v. Mangat, 2001 SCC 67 (CanLII), [2001] 3 SCR 113 the Supreme Court of Canada took a position on the ability of Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C. 2001, c. 27) to authorize the practice of legal service. At paragraph 14 the court states:

14 Since she found that a number of the respondents’ activities constituted the unlawful practice of law within the meaning of the Legal Profession Act and were therefore outside the ambit of the Immigration Act, Koenigsberg J. issued the injunction on the grounds that the Immigration Act did not authorize the practice of law. Alternatively, she would have granted the injunction on the basis that the provisions were ultra vires Parliament.