Citizenship and Immigration committee Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. My name is Sidney Frank, and I'm the immigration program manager in Beijing and area director for north Asia. I'd like to provide a short overview of the program in Beijing, emphasizing topics t
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee It was 1,150.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee No, we do not study that aspect.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee We have no statistics that tell us if the spouse in Canada is of Chinese ancestry or not. However, I would say that the majority of individuals who sponsor someone in China are of Chinese descent.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee In the case of applications to sponsor a spouse, these individuals undergo a medical before applying, but I do not believe that this is compulsory. Furthermore, it is rare that the results are no longer valid when the person is invited to an interview. In the case of China...
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee I can say that in the time that I've been in Beijing, which has been since 2006, we've always come in right on target for the target we were allocated.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee Yes, definitely.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee Definitely, yes; our inventory is at —
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee Yes. If we're doing a target of 2,500, in most instances that'll be two people, so it's going to make a difference.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee Always right on target, yes.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee I wouldn't want to do that.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee In some instances, cases can take time; parents have medical conditions, or there's a need for further medical examinations. One of the things that actually slows down processing is the parents are in Canada because we issue visitor visas to them. They travel to Canada, we write
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee There is a Quebec office in Hong Kong. We work together; we talk to each other often. I believe we have very good relations and that things are running very well.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee As we explained several times, we have targets and we receive a certain number of applications. The targets were increased in Beijing and we were therefore able to process a greater number of applications.
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank
Citizenship and Immigration committee There are two reasons. First of all, a good many of the business visitors who come to Canada are people who work for Chinese government-owned companies. The visa application system is different. It is the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese government that submits the ap
February 15th, 2011Committee meeting
Sidney Frank