Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can give you a fairly high-level overview again, but we didn't come prepared to answer questions on that aspect of the program. You are aware that Minister Finley leads an initiative on foreign credentials recognition, with the support of Minister Solberg. That work is progressing.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  What I would propose is that perhaps CIC officials could organize a technical briefing for the opposition parties on what we're doing on temporary foreign worker initiatives.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I've certainly seen reporting from our missions abroad—and I'm thinking of Nairobi, for example—stating that in their government-sponsoreds, most of the applications are coming from the camps and they're referred by the UNHCR. In the privately sponsored ones, no, they're living outside the camps.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I'll do an overview, and if there's more detail perhaps Micheline can jump in. Yes, because we've been focusing on refugees who are in most need of protection, we certainly have found that their needs are higher than in the past, and that's both on health and integration needs.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think one of the most successful new initiatives we've undertaken in recent years is working with UNHCR on group processing. So they identify vulnerable groups that have fairly similar characteristics and instead of having to do an in-depth, case-by-case review, we're able to look at them as a group.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's my reference to how we can assist with our resettlement from abroad program to help address, as part of the international community, protracted refugee situations.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The information comes from our missions abroad, which are processing these applications. They report on their acceptance and refusal rates, the characteristics of the cases they're able to accept, and the cases that do not qualify. It also comes from our discussions with the sponsorship agreement holders, who freely admit that they are responding to people in their community who are asking them to help them bring their family members from abroad.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We certainly don't have that level of analysis here. In looking at the costs, it's very difficult to parse out the costs when they're shared across a system, but we'll certainly go back and take a look at the work that has been done. As you mentioned, you've submitted a request for information.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's really another policy question that we're not able to answer. Sorry, but it's a question you could certainly put to the minister.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Again, this is not really a refugee issue, but I believe this was discussed with the minister when he was before you. A very general high-level response is that most of the increase in the budgets of the department has been for settlement programs to improve the services to those immigrants who are already coming to Canada, to help them succeed better, because we're concerned about their outcome.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think I'd go back to the earlier answer. We do consult with the provinces. We have ongoing consultations at the officials level and at the ministerial level, and the overall program is discussed. The concern the provinces have raised is the social services cost to them of the refugee determination program because of the length of time it takes, because they pick up some of those costs until such time as someone is granted permanent residence status or is removed from the country.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think, again, that's a policy question. When the minister appeared before this committee last month, I believe he said deliberations on the implementation of the RAD should be taken within the context of the overall review of the immigration asylum system. We're not able to respond to that question; I'm sorry.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That would make sense to me. I wasn't around at the time; I'd have to go back and actually take a look--but yes, of course we prepare for the implementation of new legislation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not aware of anything like a report that we could share, but we do have the comprehensive report. Our missions abroad do report on their selection interviews and the types of cases they are seeing. There could be some punctual, if you will, reporting that comes in from time to time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's an interesting question, which I'm not able to answer. It's a policy question.