Citizenship and Immigration committee  That is the purpose of the changes to the website. The information is already on the site, but it may not be as easy to find as we had hoped. When children are adopted through agencies, the agency officials are well aware of these options, but that is not necessarily the case when children are adopted within a family.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, that's okay.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  My answer has two parts. First, it is a matter of resources. So, this year, in 2010, we provided additional resources to the mission in Nairobi. We sent seven additional people to help with the mission on site, mostly because of the large area to be covered, but that's not the only reason.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  To be honest, I am not really in a position to answer that question. I agree with you, but we are not the ones who actually chose the committee.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  You make a very good point. You are pointing out that the committee that addresses immigration issues also deals with all the other questions, of course. When a particular group is targeted, we have to look at the impact on the other groups. When we talk about priority, we always mean priority in relation to other groups.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  First of all, I should clarify that currently the officers who interview refugees in Nairobi--there are three of them--are all Canadian-based. We do have locally engaged staff who do a lot of the administrative work. That's true. They are trained and know they are working for the Government of Canada, as I am.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The UN has a strong presence in Kenya and in all the neighbouring countries. We accept over 2,000 refugees in the office in Nairobi, and the majority of them have--

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, we see them on a daily basis.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The government-sponsored refugees form a separate category, sponsored by the Government of Canada. Each year there are over 7,000, and the vast majority are referred by the UNHCR.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That model could be adopted, because someone can actually apply and be accepted as a refugee if they meet the criteria for refugees. That would be a situation like that. The difference between the two has to do with where the person is physically located. In the case of an Iranian, there is a sponsoring group that has approached us.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, I don't have a presentation per se. I'm mostly here to answer questions that relate to the operation on the ground. If there are some, I'll be pleased to do so.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  First of all, we'd have to see whether they qualify to submit an application. As mentioned earlier by my colleagues, we don't have any application from that group currently. We're essentially waiting to see how they could submit an application. In order to qualify as refugees, they have to be outside of Uganda, and we don't have a system to help people move outside of the country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, exactly. Once we found a certain number of cases that had the same pattern, each time we saw another case that fitted exactly the same thing, we were more cautious, of course.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, but I can add that it's probably more the exception than the rule. In terms of marriages of convenience, what we see are more one-off. There's an agreement between families or between individuals. Organized crime cases for a spousal sponsorship may not be good business, because of the length of time to a certain extent, but what we found out from our office in Hong Kong is that, especially in the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, there were groups that were organized to do exactly that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Good day. My name is Rénald Gilbert. I am the Regional Director for the International Region. There is no age-based profiling as such. However, when we know that someone is coming for a long-term visit, more than six months, for example, we often ask for a medical exam. For example, we can think of a mother coming to visit her pregnant daughter—as you mentioned earlier—or to care for a young child.