Considérations Humanitaires et Équité Procédurale

IMEDA Immigration Education Alliance offers a comprehensive and diverse range of educational events, producing 30-35 seminars annually, totaling over 100 CPD hours. Catering to both junior and senior professionals, these seminars cover all areas of immigration law, practice management, ethics, and professionalism, ensuring valuable insights for every attendee. IMEDA is committed to continuous improvement and is one of the few providers that consistently offers CPD education in the area of immigration law in both English and French. Feedback from participants is highly valued, as IMEDA strives to enhance the educational experience and meet the needs of its audience.

Annie was born and raised in Quebec City and is bilingual in English and French. She attended Bishop’s University in Quebec and received a Bachelor Degree in Political Science after completing a year as an international student at San Diego State University in California, which allowed her to specialize in American Government. Annie worked in the tourism industry for several years before pursuing a career within the public sector. She first worked with the Quebec Provincial Government abroad at the Quebec Delegation in Boston where she helped promote Quebec business and culture in the US. Following this, she went on to work for the Canadian Government in the Visa Office at the Canadian Consulate General in Los Angeles. Within less than 2 years at the Consulate, she was promoted to the highest Officer level as a Canadian Designated Immigration Officer. Before retiring, she had gained 15 years of experience implementing Canadian Immigration Laws and Regulations as the sole bilingual Designated Immigration Officer in Los Angeles. As an IRCC decision maker, her expertise extends over the wide range of temporary and permanent immigration including in-Canada applications. During the last few years, because of the creation of Case Processing Centers (CPC) in Canada and new processing regulations, she was asked to develop a highly specialized knowledge of vastly complex Permanent Residence immigration cases. This specialization brought her to work mainly on multi-faceted investigation(s) involving other Canadian Agencies (CBSA, Hearing Officers, RCMP, etc.) and/or US (FBI) authorities. She was the sole officer in the US who was performing lengthy and intricate permanent residence interviews in both official languages. The assessment included but were not limited to: complex marriage of convenience, polygamy, assessment of skills and work experience, compound misrepresentation, exhaustive criminal inadmissibility, important or uncommon humanitarian and compassionate considerations, kidnapping, human trafficking, lengthy illegal presence in the US or Canada, etc. As a result, she became the Resource Officer for inland processing Officers. Annie was also involved in assessing high profile cases and a wide range of security concerns and various enforcement measures in the US and Canada. These included deportation & removal proceedings, refugee claims and durable solution issues intertwined with the highly pertinent Canada US Safe Third Country Agreement. Her decisions as an IRCC Officer have help set judicial precedents and can be found in all levels of the Canadian appeal and court system. This also allowed her to develop comprehensive knowledge of the Appeal and judicial review process in Canada. Furthermore, she was solely responsible for uncovering an undetected and substantial fraud and misrepresentation trends and has been the author of multiple investigative reports on trends in US and Canadian immigration with impact/implications on government policies and consequences of migration movements presented to high level government officials. As part of the permanent staff in the US she has also gained a high-level expertise of criminal inadmissibility from the 50 United States of America, and the concrete equivalencies to the Canadian Criminal Code and provincial statutes. She is also an expert on the various US immigration status or lack of (undocumented) and most importantly how they affect intent in Canada. This knowledge is highly relevant especially in current times of unprecedented migration trends from the US and current political and immigration changes in the United States. On a personal level, Annie is now based mainly in the US and has been an immigrant in the US. Thus, exposing her to the real-life experiences of applying for immigration which has made her aware of the stressful yet rewarding journey associated with immigrating to another country. Having gone through the immigration process herself gives her a unique perspective, enabling her to truly connect with her clients, their challenges and triumphs. Annie is truly passionate about Canadian Immigration and is dedicated to applying her expertise to continue to make a significant contribution to this field.