Darren Jamieson:
On this episode of The Engaging Marketeer, I’m speaking with Oleg Schindler who is an immigration practitioner in Canada. So, he helps people immigrate to Canada and work legally and become Canadian citizens. So, I’m going to be speaking to Oleg about how he does this and his thoughts on immigration, not just in Canada, but also in the UK, as it’s a bit of a contentious topic at the moment.
Oleg is also an immigrant in Canada himself, being from Ukraine. So, naturally, we’re going to talk about the Ukraine war with Russia.
I obviously don’t know anything about your industry and what you do. So, can you give me a brief overview about what you do to help people within immigration?
[01:47] Oleg Schindler:
Yeah. So, very briefly, it all started in approximately 2018. Somehow I landed to work as a business development manager in one big Toronto-based immigration law firm. And my goal was, okay, increase our sales, do whatever you want, but we want to grow.
So I started to dig deeper and I realised that regular marketing agencies, they simply have no idea how immigration to Canada works, about how clients can become actual clients. Comparing to any other industries, it’s a very different situation.
For example, let’s say you produce aluminium pipes. All you need is to advertise, guys, I sell aluminium pipes, if you want to buy, come to me. Someone who needs them comes to your shop, buys, that’s it, boom, deal.
In immigration to Canada, we have a huge filter called eligibility. You can pour hundreds of thousands into your marketing, getting trashy leads. If they are not eligible, they will not come to Canada. Even if they are very rich, even if they tell you, I can pay whatever you want. Well, okay, maybe in this case there are some options. But regular clients, even if they are rich and they want to pay, it still is not enough.
Slowly but surely, I started to realise that the niche is completely empty. There is no one in the field who understands the industry from the side of the immigration practitioner, how it works, the eligibility, the procedures, etcetera.
So at first, I literally asked my bosses to give me a raise. They refused. I told them thank you, and I opened my own company and started to promote my ideas to the general market of immigration consultants.
[03:34] Darren Jamieson:
It’s a good way to do it, obviously.
[03:36] Oleg Schindler:
Yeah. So, the point is that in our industry, content is everything. When people say that Canada has over 100 immigration programs, it’s not exaggeration. It’s exactly like that. We indeed have over 100 immigration programs. All those programs constantly change. There are new legislation in place at all levels of governance, from federal to municipal. There are regional programs. There are local small programs, tiny programs for a small village. Even things like that exist. And to be up to date with everything, it is really impossible.
So we started with a very simple idea. We started to monitor everything. Based on our monitoring, we started to collect information and convert it into a social media friendly post that we sell to our customers.
So imagine that you’re an immigration practitioner. You start your day with your coffee. You already have at least three or four social media ready posts in your mailbox. All you need is simply copy paste, start marketing. You can do videos based on this news. You can publish on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on whatsoever.
From there, we started to grow this slowly, offering to other companies. That’s basically how it all started.
At some point, I realised, okay, since I already know so much about this thing, why don’t I get my own licence and become an immigration consultant? So I did this switch in 2019. Again, it was just pre-COVID. Got licensed, started my own immigration practice and started testing everything on my own practice.
So today I can proudly say that, okay, I have a successful immigration practice, actually two, one Toronto based, one Ottawa based, where I test, you know, AB testing. I do AB testing with my own practices. One company has one website, the other company has two websites in different languages. The first website is in five languages. So I do this live testing and we literally check what is working, and then we sell to other companies what has already proven itself.
So we started with immigration news, the very service I mentioned. At some point it started to cover my mortgage. So I quit all my other jobs, I concentrated on that.
[05:55] Darren Jamieson:
That was the point you did though. As soon as your mortgage was covered, you thought, that’s it. Quit the full-time employment and go for this.
[06:01] Oleg Schindler:
Yep. Yep. So today I have, three days a week I work as an immigration consultant. One day I work as a marketer and one day is for paperwork in different projects.
What is different with us comparing to any other marketing company is that we literally understand the industry both from outside and from inside, because we know how it works, because we test it, and we practice immigration law ourselves.
[06:27] Darren Jamieson:
So immigration in the UK is a bit of a volatile topic right now.
[06:34] Oleg Schindler:
Same is Canada. Yeah.
[06:36] Darren Jamieson:
The media is trying to get people angry and believing that there’s millions of immigrants coming over here every day in one small boat, one dinghy, and they’re stealing everybody’s jobs, which is ludicrous, but that’s what they’re trying to get people to believe. What’s the situation in Canada?
[06:53] Oleg Schindler:
Pretty much similar to what you have in the UK. The same approach. Populists both from right and both from the left attack immigration for different reasons. But still, immigration is currently under attack.
I personally don’t blame immigrants in everything. I’m myself an immigrant to Canada. I’m originally from Ukraine. At the same time, I blame the government because their planning and their implementation of immigration policy is very poor, and it was very badly planned and implemented over the last decade under the leadership of the Liberal Party.
I can give just one example to illustrate that. Imagine the situation when many politicians nowadays blame international students for skyrocketing prices in the real estate. Like, a lot of students, approximately million and half students in Canada as of today, they all rent and that’s why the prices are high.
My question is to those guys who criticise those poor students is, who exactly was in charge for advertising in India, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, done a lot of ads saying, come to Canada, study in Canada, this will guarantee your permanent residence? Who brought all those guys? Who poured taxpayers money into advertising? It was the federal government. But now they prefer to kind of forget about it and not to mention it. It’s very easy for the government to come to the journalists and tell them, guys, we miscalculated, we are sorry.
Well, it’s a very tragic situation. We need immigration, let’s be clear. We need immigration, but we need to manage it well. We need controlled immigration, checked immigration, security first of all, economic reasons first of all.
I personally, I’m very thankful to Canadian government for helping Ukrainians who are fleeing the wars. Canada admitted approximately 300,000 Ukrainians, and being originally from Ukraine, it’s a very sensitive topic for me. But at the same time, we need to check very thoroughly who we are admitting into the country, what values they share, do they share our values or not. That is my personal position.
[09:11] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of Ukrainians here in the UK as well. But still, the media is saying that immigrants are coming over here and they’re stealing everything and it’s a bad thing and they want to stop it and deport everybody.
And the bit that scares me is that while there are illegal immigrants in this country, yes, there are people coming over here that are undocumented and potentially they may not be skilled workers that could help the country, and perhaps if they’re illegal, they should go back, there’s not going to be any distinction between people that have come over here illegally or Ukrainians who are refugees. It’s going to be a blanket, right, send everybody back the way it is. And that’s what worries me.
It’s just going to be a chuck everybody back over the water, send them all back to France or whatever it’s going to be. And there’s not going to be any distinction.
Your average, I’m going to use the word racist, your average racist on the street isn’t going to see the difference between somebody who’s legally here from Ukraine or somebody who’s come over from Somalia. They’re not going to know. They’re just going to see, they’re not British. Get rid of them.
That’s the bit that scares me. Is it as bad as that in Canada?
[10:16] Oleg Schindler:
Sadly, but it still is not right there. But again, because of populism, especially on the right side, it is slowly growing to that point. I hope the government will do something to stop that and to at least enlighten and educate people to distinguish between bad apples and good apples.
But as of today, we can call it crisis already. But again, I want to emphasise something. Canada will not stop accepting immigrants because they are essential for our economy. The fertility rate is very low. We don’t get enough labour force.
[10:58] Darren Jamieson:
I didn’t know that.
[11:00] Oleg Schindler:
Well, generally, yes. On average, the Canadian family has one child and we are very far from the fertility rates that allows at least stable population. So we need more people in the country because the population is aging very rapidly. Baby boomers generation, they are retiring, and there’s not enough people to replace them.
But yes, it’s a global crisis. The additional problem is that usually the Canadian government was always accepting immigrants based on quotas. We have three classes of immigrants. We have economic class, which traditionally is usually approximately 60% of the total annual admissions. We have family class immigration, where Canadians get married with foreigners, or adopt children from abroad, or sponsor their parents from their home countries. Usually this was something like 30 to 35% of the total. And the rest was for refugees. Canada is always famous for its humanitarian nature. We try to help everyone. Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Middle East, whenever there is something bad happening, we try to get a portion of people to the country.
But what happened in the last 10 years was uncontrolled temporary immigration. By temporary, we are talking about international students.
So when I came to Canada in 2015, there were approximately 250,000 students total, from school age to those who did masters or PhD. I did my masters in Canada in 2015. Only in 2023 alone we accepted 730,000 students. One year.
So if you have such a big influx of students, obviously they will stick. And as of today, we have a temporary population between 3 to 5 million people. Canada in general has 40 million population. That what caused the issue to become hotter. That caused these discussions between politicians.
Historically, immigration was always, there was a consensus between politicians. So the immigration is good. The only question was how many immigrants exactly will we accept and what will be the distribution between quotas, etcetera.
But again, this is what happens when you don’t plan properly, when you simply accept, accept, accept without any control of how many you accept.
[13:43] Darren Jamieson:
See, it sounds very similar to the UK because the UK is basically, it’s an immigration country. It is an immigrant country. We are made up of people from all over the world. There’s a lot of Irish, there’s a lot of Italian, there’s a lot of French, there’s a lot of Spanish. The whole lot comes together in the UK.
We’re effectively, we’re a mongrel race. That’s what I think makes the country so good. We’ve got that variety, we’ve got that mix of cultures living together. Our national dish is Indian. It’s curry. So that’s the kind of way it is.
So for us to then start blaming immigrants for everything that’s wrong in the UK seems completely counterproductive. And it’s essentially government is saying, look, these are the problems over here. This is what’s causing you the issues. When in reality, it’s not. It’s nothing to do with that. But it’s very easy to rally people and say, look, that’s the problem. Let’s all shout at that. Let’s all complain at that and that’ll all go away again.
I mean, you mentioned loads of students in Canada. Now surely if people are coming over and they’re being educated, they’re getting degrees, they’re getting masters, they’re going to benefit the country. They’re going to have skills and qualifications that are going to help Canada improve. Isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t you guys looking at that saying this is a positive? And is there also a worry that you look to what the United States is doing and think we don’t want to do what they’re doing because they’re just completely imploding right now?
[15:03] Oleg Schindler:
Yes. Yes. Comparison with the United States, it’s always a hot topic for us. It’s funny how to what extent we try to define ourselves as not Americans.
But going back to students, yes, you’re completely right. International students are a blessing. It’s a good thing when we have talented young people coming to Canada. They already speak our language. They are prepared to integrate to the labour market and to fill out positions where we have shortages.
But when this system can be broken, when you have the influx of too many students, you don’t need, if you have 50 positions for software developers and you have 500 candidates for that, it’s too much. Then locals don’t have enough places to apply, and it is something that is really happening.
But the main point here is different. When Canada unleashed this income of students, what happened next is a free market. Many colleges, many universities started to open additional facilities. And to be honest, they didn’t really care about the quality of education.
So we accepted a lot of students whose education is below the average. The whole point was simply getting paid because it’s a huge industry. I may be wrong with the numbers, but I think it’s something like $22 billion annually in 2023 or 2024, something like that. So a lot of jobs were created inside the education industry. There’s a lot of things rolling around.
But again, in theory, when you have specialists, talented, who are ready for your labour market, it’s a good thing. But when you have too many people in specific areas, in specific industries, who end up working in Starbucks or Tim Hortons, it’s our Canadian Starbucks, I don’t know if you are aware.
[17:12] Darren Jamieson:
Yeah, it’s quite big in UK, Hortons. Yeah.
[17:15] Oleg Schindler:
Oh, really? Nice. I’m very happy to hear that.
So if you see that international students end up in Tim Hortons and start taking jobs that in theory are intended for our youth, then we have additional problem.
I can illustrate this with my case. I came here to study my master’s degree. Obviously, I was already with some professional background. I was prepared for the labour market. And when I graduated, I started working immediately. That is the example of good absorption of immigrants. We fill the labour market with specialists where they are needed.
But when we have this kind of approach, when nothing is under control and everything is flowing as it goes, then the problem emerges.
[18:02] Darren Jamieson:
So for somebody looking to go to Canada and to work, what requirements would they have? What skills would they need? So say for example I wanted to relocate to Canada, set up a business or get employment. What do I need to do?
[18:20] Oleg Schindler:
So I would position this in the following way. There are like four regular approaches how a foreigner can become a Canadian.
So the first approach is simply checking plenty of permanent resident programs that allow you to apply directly for permanent residence.
We have a federal system, it’s a point-based, merit-based system called Express Entry, where everyone can register, declare their human capital factors such as age, education, work experience, knowledge of languages, especially French.
Nowadays, French is probably a trump card to get to Canada, not to Quebec, but to English-speaking provinces. The federal government is promoting bilingualism. So he wants people to be able to speak French in every part of Canada, not just in French speaking Quebec.
Let’s put it clear, you don’t need it in everyday life, but it guarantees you being promoted for immigration and winning this competition based on your bilingualism.
[20:04] Oleg Schindler:
It’s pure politics. It’s not because of actual needs of the economy. It’s more about implementing the policy of second official language.
We cannot force Quebecers to speak English. So to keep them within the country and to cut their separatism movements, we do the following. We promote French language and French culture. We tell them, guys, it’s better together, let’s stay together.
You are defending the French language, we promote it here in English Canada. You want to preserve French culture, we do the same. We literally promote influx of French speakers to French speaking minority communities in English speaking parts of Canada and we value that.
Let’s stay together. The reason behind that is economy because we trade through Atlantic Ocean and two main ports are in Halifax and Montreal and if Quebec splits then we are cut. In the south we have Mr. Trump with his tariffs. In the north we have ice. So we need to go through Quebec to reach our Atlantic provinces and to trade with the world through the Atlantic Ocean. So we need Quebec inside Canada.
So nowadays the easiest thing to immigrate to Canada is, you don’t need to become fluent in French but you need to have a good level, it’s like European scale B2. B2 French, almost. If you have a higher education, if you have English at level between B2 to C1 plus French and some work experience in skilled occupations, you’re welcome. It will be a good option for you.
[21:19] Oleg Schindler:
That’s fine. Because I promote French to my clients, I started to study French myself just to give them an example.
So in addition to federal programs, we have plenty of provincial programs. If you find a local employer who needs you, let’s say there is a construction company that needs three carpenters, they can bring you to work in this province for this specific employer.
They will, let’s use the word sponsor. I don’t like, because it’s not exact word, but let’s say your employer can sponsor your relocation.
Or through education, the way that I did. If you come to Canada, study in a good program, graduate, you get the post-graduate work permit, you gain Canadian experience, which eventually also leads to qualifying through one of those programs that I mentioned.
If you have a business, there is a start-up visa program. If there is an innovative business idea that can benefit Canadian market, there are a couple of dozen business incubators, venture capital funds, or angel investors. If they support your idea, you can apply for permanent residence, you can launch your business here in Canada.
So there are plenty of ways, but it is very individual in every single case. There could not be two identical cases because some minor distinction between the cases can change the strategy.
[22:41] Darren Jamieson:
And what are the costs involved with living in Canada? Because I know in the UK we have free health and if you go to America it costs you an absolute bloody fortune. How does Canada relate in terms of living costs, buying properties, healthcare, insurance, taxes with the rest of the world?
[23:07] Oleg Schindler:
So let’s put it this way. In terms of healthcare, officially yes, we also have the universal free healthcare system, which is indeed free, but not really.
To be honest, many Canadian fellows love to proudly tell that, okay, so we are better than Americans because they need to pay thousands of dollars for their healthcare and we get it free. It is true but not exactly because we have way higher taxes that Americans have and we pay for this healthcare from our taxes. So it’s not completely free.
Another problem is, and I believe it’s a similar problem that you experience in the UK, not enough doctors, not enough specialists, long lines to wait. When you come to an emergency, if you are not literally dying, you may spend maybe 10 hours, maybe 15, depending on the volume of their workload. Same problems that you have in the UK, we have the same problems here with the healthcare system.
The only problem in Canadian healthcare is that the government is really against having simultaneously two systems. One free for everyone and one paid if someone can afford to pay for their medicine. It is almost impossible in Canada. There’s no such thing.
My position is, if you can offer this option, some people will not wait for the free healthcare, they will pay as you go, and this will reduce the workload of the healthcare for public system. But not in Canada.
In terms of housing, good thing about Canada is that our houses are way bigger than in the UK. We have more land, so more places. Typical Canadian house will be probably bigger than the average house in the UK.
I’m not a specialist in these areas. It’s just my sense of what we have in terms of cost of life. I would say approximately the same. I think the salaries in the UK are still slightly bigger. In terms of prices, I think Canada is slightly cheaper. But in general, I would say that it’s pretty much the same.
[25:32] Darren Jamieson:
So there is no private healthcare in Canada. There is no option if you want to go private.
[25:38] Oleg Schindler:
Almost no. Almost no. Except for dentist and I think everything related to eyes. But at least systematically, you don’t have too much options in terms of private healthcare.
[26:05] Darren Jamieson:
See, I’m surprised at that because we obviously have our NHS which is free. As you said, you can be waiting a long time for it, 10, 12 hours if it’s non-urgent. I was waiting for a non-urgent procedure and I waited over a year to actually have that done.
I could have gone private and had it done within a few days because I do have private healthcare as well.
Everywhere in the UK has the option, go to NHS or if you have health insurance, if you want to pay for it, or if the employer that you have, the business that you run pays for it, you can do that. The option is there. And if you’ve got something that is very important that you need doing and you’ve got healthcare then go and get it done privately.
But Canada, there is no option. I can’t get my head around that, that you don’t have an option to do it.
[26:50] Oleg Schindler:
So you have a walk-in clinic. Let’s say you don’t have a family doctor and you have a fever or you don’t feel good, you can go to walk-in clinic. It is still covered under your health insurance plan in your province, but it’s still not like the completely private thing. So it’s still public thing.
[27:15] Darren Jamieson:
Surely there must be people in Canada, wealthy people, that don’t want to be waiting. What do they do?
[27:22] Oleg Schindler:
Travel abroad.
[27:24] Darren Jamieson:
Oh, I see.
[27:26] Oleg Schindler:
Literally. They go to the US. They go to Europe.
It sounds funny, but I know many Canadians travelling to Cuba for their dentist because it’s cheap and still pretty good quality. To Mexico. By the way, there are a lot of private medical facilities in Central America, Mexico, Costa Rica. Many people go there simply.
[27:54] Darren Jamieson:
That seems strange to me that somebody from Canada, a really rich country, would go to Mexico for healthcare. Why not? Something’s wrong there.
[28:06] Oleg Schindler:
Yes. But it is what it is as of today.
[28:12] Darren Jamieson:
In the UK we’ve got a phrase, there’s an insulting phrase called turkey teeth. So if somebody has really bright shiny teeth, they’re known to have turkey teeth because they’ve gone to Turkey to have their teeth done because it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to go to Turkey to get it done than it is to use dentists in the UK, which are very, very expensive. So I guess Turkey’s our equivalent of where you would go to Mexico or to Cuba.
[28:30] Oleg Schindler:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Our Turkey is Cuba.
[28:37] Darren Jamieson:
So what sort of skills is Canada looking for, for people to come in for recruitment? What things are you guys lacking or really seeking?
[28:48] Oleg Schindler:
Officially, recently Canada has introduced targeted immigration rounds in this federal system called Express Entry. So we implemented six categories that are federal priorities. The first is French, which I already mentioned, and the five other are professional. We have healthcare, we have trades, we have STEM, agriculture, and education.
But now will be the funny thing. Planning is good, implementation is a nightmare.
To qualify under one of those categories, a candidate must demonstrate at least six months of work experience in the last three years, or equivalent of part-time work experience in the last three years.
In other words, you need to collect 780 hours of carpentry to qualify as carpenter. Carpenter is one of the 25 occupations under the trades category.
Again, the idea is brilliant. We need to target specific industries, specific people that were missing in our labour market.
The implementation and control. If someone comes to Canada as carpenter, you cannot force this person to continue working as carpenter, right? It’s illegal. It’s against the constitution.
What happens in reality, and I have to admit, I do it for my clients as well. If I have a client who doesn’t qualify, I tell him, okay, why don’t you work as early childhood educator or why don’t you work as a pharmacy assistant. These are occupations that are missing in the labour market right now and they are being targeted. So those people go, get this experience, qualify, come to Canada, and return to their initial occupations.
[31:30] Darren Jamieson:
So it’s almost like a bait and switch then, isn’t it? Get someone to come over as a carpenter, then they can do whatever they want. Or get them to come over as an educator and then they can do whatever they want. Surely that’s a loophole that the authorities are going to close at some point.
[31:46] Oleg Schindler:
Yes. But they will close it when it is too late.
The same thing was, again, let’s go back with the students and with the planning. Let’s go back 15 to 20 years ago. A typical Canadian immigrant family was a nuclear family of father, mother, children. One is working, one is caring of children, and it was enough.
At some point our government started to investigate and do some research and they told, okay, it is more beneficial for us to bring two singles so they can get Canadian education. They will pay higher tuition fees for international students. At some point, they will most likely form a family. But before they’re forming family, they will work together. They will pay taxes. So instead of having one additional worker to the labour force, we will have two. And it’s a good idea. Let’s bring more students.
Again, idea was brilliant. A few years when they started to increase the quota for international students and admit more students, it was indeed working and benefiting Canadian economy. But when it became too much, again, they had to stop. But it was a machine for several billion dollars a year, so it was impossible for them to stop. So that’s how we get there.
Same thing now. Their idea is brilliant. We are missing carpenters, electricians, welders. We are missing nurses. We are missing pharmacy assistants, dentists. Let’s bring them. Good.
How can you control that they are genuine carpenters, genuine healthcare workers, or genuine engineers? You cannot. You cannot obligate a person to work in a specific occupation once they become Canadians because we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have the constitution. So it is impossible.
Again, idea brilliant, implementation nightmare.
[33:40] Darren Jamieson:
So how long is it? If someone comes over as a carpenter, in inverted commas, how long have they got in Canada before they become a Canadian citizen and then they can do whatever they want?
[33:54] Oleg Schindler:
So basically, the period between permanent residence and citizenship in Canada is probably the shortest in the whole West. It is three years of life in Canada as a permanent resident and you can apply for Canadian citizenship.
If you spend some time in Canada as a foreign worker, as an international student, you can take part of this period towards your qualifying period for the citizenship.
For example, two years as a student equals one year already for the period for the citizenship. So if someone comes here temporarily, they can claim two years as one year and then only two years to the citizenship. So it’s very fast. If you come from scratch, three full years inside Canada, you can apply for a citizenship.
[34:38] Darren Jamieson:
Wow. Okay. And it would be a miss of me to ask, as you are obviously from Ukraine, what is your views on what’s happening there and where do you see it going?
[34:51] Oleg Schindler:
Very tragic things. My position is that we as a West, we are doing not enough.
My original training, my background is history and political science. So I know history too well. I remember what was happening in Europe in 1936, in 1938, Czechoslovakia, then Anschluss. In a way, yes, I know that Russia is not the Third Reich, but in a way we are doing the same thing with them. We’re trying to appease them. We continue believing that if we will give them a little bit of here, a little bit of there, they will stop. They will not stop.
They understand only force. If the West will be split and they will not be united in support of Ukraine, this will continue.
To be honest with you, I don’t believe in the Article 5. I don’t believe in it. If tomorrow Mr. Putin invades Baltic countries, will UK start the war? I have doubts. Will Canada start the war? I have doubts.
So what we can do now is, Ukraine has already proven itself as skilled fighters. What they need is more weapon, good weapon, to literally stop. Russia is not counting their losses. They don’t care about losses. They continue fighting just as they did 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and they will continue fighting this way.
We cannot prevail with number of soldiers. We can prevail only with technology and weapons. So we literally need to fund and provide supplies to Ukrainian army if we don’t want to fight ourselves. That is my position.
[36:55] Darren Jamieson:
So which countries do you think need to do more? Europe?
[37:01] Oleg Schindler:
It’s more popular to think, okay, evil Trump, he’s bad orange man, he’s a friend with a dictator, blah blah blah. With all due respect, is there any European army ready to fight right now?
I think maybe few, a little bit, specifically Finland, specifically Sweden because they just recently joined NATO. So maybe they are more prepared.
But in my view, since it is happening in the European continent, European armies must do more in terms of military development. If they don’t want to develop their own armies, at least they need to supply more to Ukrainian army to fight for them instead of them.
I know that it’s probably unpopular. Maybe many of your viewers think, okay, it’s not our war yet. Again, what will happen if, God forbid, Ukraine falls? Will they stop? Maybe for a few years, yes. Maybe Europe can win few additional years at the cost of Ukraine. I don’t want to call it peace because it will not be a peace, a pause, but later on it will continue again.
Maybe not with Putin, maybe with someone else after him. But as long as this, I call it last empire, as long as this last empire exists, it will continue.
[38:24] Darren Jamieson:
Do you think it could continue after Putin? It’s not just going to end with him.
[38:35] Oleg Schindler:
It’s a misconception thinking that it’s only he personally who is against the West, against our civilisation and our way of life. It’s not him. It’s a whole system.
There is some, let’s call it collective Putin. If you stop the average person on the Russian street and you ask them who is guilty of their poor quality of life, it is the West. They cause it.
The propaganda machine is continuing working and regular people, they really believe that if we hadn’t invaded Crimea, NATO would take Crimea over. We just were ahead of them for a few hours. That’s what they literally say and literally believe.
[39:25] Darren Jamieson:
See, that’s what’s happening in the UK. You ask the average person on the street what’s the cause of all the problems in the UK, they’ll say immigration. It’s immigrants coming over here stealing our jobs, raping women, abusing kids, taking houses.
The national press tell them that immigrants come over here, they get put up in plush hotels, they get given cars, given jobs, given a salary, given a massive TV, and that’s what they all get. Whereas our veterans, our veterans are on the streets homeless. That’s what happens.
And it gets everybody very angry. It’s absolute.
[40:03] Oleg Schindler:
But that’s the propaganda machine. So we’re doing it just the same as Russia is. We’re making our people stupid and blame someone else.
We tend to look for easy solutions and easy explanation. It’s a bad approach because life is complex. A lot of things are very complex. There is no black and white. No simple things. A lot of nuances, a lot of elements in every question. Take any hot topic, there will be hundreds of nuances. You cannot do it in a simple way like, okay, let’s just do this and this and it will solve all our problems. No, it won’t.
Are you familiar with the horseshoe theory, about the right wing and left wing, that in reality radical left and radical right have more in common than moderate left and moderate right? Because they are all looking for simple explanations, aiming someone to blame for all the problems.
Take the left, it’s all capitalist, Jews, Israel, whatsoever. Take the right, it will be woke, globalist. Average guy from the street will not dig deeper to understand better what is going on, what are the actual reasons, what actually is causing the problem.
So we are living in the era of populism, in immigration, in economy, in politics, in everything.
[41:44] Darren Jamieson:
And can it all be sorted out?
[41:52] Oleg Schindler:
I want to say yes, but I’m not sure. Again, yes, it is possible, but it requires political will from the leaders.
The main problem that we are experiencing now is lack of leadership. We don’t have people like Sir Winston Churchill, those who can do the dirty job and tell the truth.
From history books we know when Churchill was in charge and in the darkest hour of the world he told, I don’t promise you sweet dreams, I promise you sweat and hard work. That’s what he told. If any politician nowadays will come and tell this to people, he will not be elected.
[42:35] Darren Jamieson:
No, no. Instead, they come and they lie and they say, oh, it’s all going to be brilliant. We’re all going to have pots of gold in our house and everyone’s going to have jobs. It’s going to be amazing. Yes. Yay, we’ll vote for that.
[42:52] Oleg Schindler:
That’s what we have now in Canada.
My personal belief, it is very good for any political system to have change of power. It is good for the country if after every few years there will be a different party in charge. Rotation is good for the country.
But it was funny. We had three terms of the Liberal Party. Then Justin Trudeau had such bad reputation that he finally stepped out. He was replaced by, you know Mr. Carney very well, so Mr. Carney replaced Mr. Trudeau.
How he won this election, he simply told orange man would take us. And again, the first time in a row we again elected Liberals.
[43:37] Darren Jamieson:
Well the orange man did want to take Canada. That bit is true. He did want it and probably still does. But the orange man also told everybody that if he got elected he would stop the Russia Ukraine war in 24 hours. Surprise, surprise.
[43:55] Darren Jamieson:
He didn’t tell us what specific day will it be.
[44:02] Darren Jamieson:
Probably by giving Ukraine to Russia. That’s how he plans to stop it. But, you know.
[44:08] Darren Jamieson:
We’ll get off that subject. So in terms of your marketing for other immigration companies, how do you do that? What kind of businesses are you looking for?
[44:19] Oleg Schindler:
Basically it is very simple because my niche is a tiny niche. We have approximately 2,500 immigration law firms in Canada and we have approximately 13,000 regulated Canadian immigration consultants who are licensed to practise immigration law. So my whole niche in Canada is approximately 15,000 clients.
So we directly approach them, showing them what we can do, what kind of services we offer, and we demonstrate them examples why it works.
In terms of marketing, unlike any other industry there are only two measurable ways to know if you are a successful practitioner or not.
The first one is number of paid booked consultations. The initial contact with the client is the consultation where you assess the case and tell them what strategy can work in their case.
The second measurable thing is the number of signed retainers.
So it’s very simple. It’s not like how many likes you get, how many visitors to your website you get. The conversion is either a booked consultation or a signed agreement.
If you track that, you can be sure that you do good things or you do bad things or you need to improve. As I said, I measure this in my practice.
On average I have approximately 20 paid consultations a week. And I know if this works in my practice it will work in someone else’s practice. We teach companies how to use our content, how to use our approaches to implement in their business and to benefit from there.
Funny thing is that many of my clients, they are confused. They ask me why do you help other immigration consultants, you’re also an immigration consultant, isn’t there any conflict of interest?
I love this moment because it always allows me to demonstrate them with numbers that we are talking about.
Our niche is 15,000 professionals. On average we have approximately half a million permanent residents who are coming to Canada and we have approximately a million and a half temporary clients who are coming to Canada as visitors, as workers, as students.
Let’s imagine that half of all people who are coming to Canada are doing everything on their own without approaching professional help. Even if we take half of them and divide by all immigration practitioners in Canada, it will still be something like between 50 to 150 clients annually to everyone.
So the market is so big that there are enough space for everyone. There is no need to consider everyone as a competitor. I love to tell that all immigration practitioners can be divided into two categories. The one I call Hobbesians, those who follow the principles of Thomas Hobbes, the war of everyone with everyone. They consider everyone as a competitor, period.
The other group is collaborators. Those who are not afraid to collaborate with others because they know that their share of pie is still big and it’s okay to collaborate on different topics and there is enough room for everyone.
We simply offer them what has already proven with other clients. We have successful stories of clients who started from scratch and now they have 40k followers Instagram. They close 200 contracts a year. We are talking about businesses with over $1 million revenue.
My own practice I’m pretty close to that figure. But again, I combine two practices. I don’t do full-time immigration consulting. I do it only three times a week and I have 20 consultations on average a week. We know it works.
[48:40] Darren Jamieson:
It’s an interesting way of scaling a business rather than trying to work five days a week and work all the hours that you possibly can. You’re helping other people with their business.
There’s a phrase we use in the UK called coopetition. So it’s not competition. It’s not cooperation. It’s coopetition. You’re working with people who most people would see as your competitors, but you’re helping each other out because there’s a wider goal, a wider gain for that.
Do you limit in different cities where you work or the number of companies you work with or in different areas?
[49:16] Oleg Schindler:
No, no limitations.
In terms of marketing services, we serve all companies across Canada. We have clients from all provinces.
In terms of immigration practice, there is no limitation except for specific provinces that have specific licences, local licences. But other than that, it’s a global service and global industry.
There are plenty of immigration companies who are not sitting in Canada, who have their offices overseas in India, in Dubai, in Europe, but they constantly work only in Canada, sending students, sending clients, etcetera.
So there is no geographic limitations or boundaries.
[49:59] Darren Jamieson:
So you’re not just working with people based in Canada, you’re working with people all over the world as well.
[50:05] Oleg Schindler:
Yeah. The only filter I do have is like, in my marketing business, we try to work ethically. That’s why we work only with those who are allowed to represent clients and to provide immigration services.
We don’t work with companies who are, we call them ghost consultants, or unauthorised practitioners, using the official terminology, those who are not licensed, because they mislead people.
How to distinguish whether your consultant can provide a service or not. A licensed person is in the public register. You can verify their licence. You can see that they indeed are present there. You sign a contract. You sign a form authorising a representative to act on your behalf and your applications are filed through the official portal for representatives.
What all those ghost consultants do, a person believes they are working with a genuine specialist but in reality those guys literally file application as if it was the person themselves alone filed application.
If something goes wrong, the person then complains, oh it’s not me, it’s my consultant. At this point the government of Canada intervenes and tells, okay, hold on, hold on, you said consultant but in your application there is nothing about consultant. In your application, you signed that you submitted the application yourself.
Did you lie to us? Did you provide false information? Did you misrepresent yourself? And then the problem starts.
People do not realise that working with someone without a licence, they already commit an act of misrepresentation, which can in best case scenario cause refusal. In worst case scenario, it can cause ban for five years for coming to Canada.
[51:44] Darren Jamieson:
You can be banned for five years from coming to Canada if you do that.
[51:50] Oleg Schindler:
Yes. Yes. Article 40. If you commit an act of misrepresentation, regardless whether it was intentional or unintentional, based on Article 40 of Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, you can be punished with ban of five years for coming to Canada.
[52:10] Darren Jamieson:
Wow. It’s a very serious thing. So be truthful and work only with licensed people.
That’s quite an important thing to end on then, to make sure that you use somebody authorised like yourself.
So, Oleg, anyone listening to this thinking I’d love to find out more about how I can immigrate to Canada and work in Canada, or do as a student, for example, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?
[52:35] Oleg Schindler:
So the best way to reach out will be through either my social media or my website. So visit my website, book a consultation. During this consultation, I personally analyse your case. We do our research of your background. We identify what strategies can we apply or what specific things you need to do in order to qualify for one of the programs. We present before you options and you select which option you like the most.
Then if you decide to retain us, we sign the agreement and we act as your representative. So, first consultation, then action plan and the contract.
If you are an immigration specialist and you’re looking for marketing services, go to our other website, book a consultation with us. In this case, it will be a free consultation and I am sure that our team will be able to help you to grow your immigration practice based on the best practices that we already implemented in my own immigration practices.
[53:29] Darren Jamieson:
And I will put links to both those websites below the podcast. So, if you’re watching on YouTube, it’s in the description. If you’re listening on iTunes, Spotify, or whichever platform you use, it’ll be below in the show notes for that. So anyone can just click straight on that and get in touch with you.
Oleg, thank you very much for being on the podcast. I’ve loved finding out more about immigration to Canada. It’s been absolutely fascinating.
[53:53] Oleg Schindler:
Thank you for having me today and I wish good luck to all fellow people from the UK. We in Canada love you and we value our friendship a lot.
[54:03] Darren Jamieson:
Thank you. Oh, hey.
