Citizenship and Immigration committee  It acts in that regard, while supporting the objective of family reunification, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  With all due respect, sir, I think there's a specific case that you have in mind.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you could send the case to our department, we will look into the specifics of the case. We're clearly not in a position to sit here today and talk about the specifics of that case.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If an application under this class of spousal reunification had not already been submitted at the point at which they were notified of removal, they're not subject to the delay in removal. An application needs to be in before the enforcement action begins.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would concur with that. Yes, that's a fair statement.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Indeed. When we put that public policy in place two years ago, it was with that objective in mind: to be as fair as possible in a way that still protected the integrity of the system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Let me just comment on the question of the automaticity, because it has come up a couple of times now. The reason, in these cases in which we have put a time window on cases where people are out of status as opposed to just providing an automatic stay in Canada until a decision is made, gets at the heart of the question Mr.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As you may recall, the government announced in budget 2007 the intent to introduce the Canadian experience class, which is an avenue through which individuals who are here working in status or studying in status, subject to certain conditions or criteria that are being finalized and will be published in regulations, will have the opportunity to be able to apply from within Canada to remain here on a permanent basis.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm with Immigration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, in most cases where somebody has an application in process, we will endeavour to complete a determination of approval in principle of the application before removal. I think what you're asking about is that very small minority of cases where we may decide to act on a removal before we have reached a final approval in principle.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the circumstance you're describing is at the heart of why we put in the effort we do in trying to make a determination on the validity, the bona fides, of a relationship. There's no magic formula to determine, as an immigration officer, whether a relationship is truly genuine and going to last for the long term.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The 10% remainder includes individuals whose applications were refused or failed or denied--for reasons of a lack of a bona fide relationship, or security, or medical--or were withdrawn. That's a residual category.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That was 90%, nine zero.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Of all those who applied, 90%--nine zero percent--were approved in the last couple of years. So 10% had their applications refused or rejected.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In circumstances where that did happen, they would be counted as part of that withdrawn category. That gives you a 100% counting.