Citizenship and Immigration committee  Briefly, Mr. Chair, on the criteria, they've been modified in the new legislation, in 2002. So at the time they were really focused on occupations and now I think they're probably simpler to apply. They are really focusing on the general ability of immigrants to immigrate to Canada, but, as Mrs.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We raised the issue you mentioned earlier, the issue where the figures indicating numbers of people include dependants in all categories. In the 2003 report, we used skilled workers as an example. According to the figures, there were 137,000 skilled workers. But in fact, there were 58,000 applicants and 80,000 dependants.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, we covered that question quite extensively in our 2000 report. The reference we made was that in a number of countries it was not possible to obtain a police certificate, which was one of the requirements. I think we gave a list in that report. I think China was part of that at the time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In 2003 we talked about it more in general terms and mentioned that they have better tools, but the whole question of the difficulty of obtaining reliable information from police services, for example, in a number of countries was still there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, we never really looked at the actual process to set the levels. We haven't audited this. There are a good number of consultations with a whole bunch of stakeholders that take place in Canada, regarding the levels. A major question is how able the country is to absorb and integrate those people.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, I think the main issue we raised was the lack of documentation. I don't think we've seen any specific instances of this, but we don't know because the basic reason for issuing those in almost 50% of the cases was not adequately documented. We have asked the department to make really significant efforts to make sure that the file provides the reason the permit was issued.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I think we looked at just a sample of permits.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's very close. We found that overall the decisions were supported in 60% of the cases, but for cases involving serious crimes or security issues, it went down to 52%. For those security cases, in about one out of two cases we didn't find enough explanations in the files to explain what they were.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Just briefly, there is an information number for the department, which is made available by the department in their reports and in other ways. You mentioned a couple of figures, including the 58 months. Those are current figures from the department. It was not that long a period in 2000, so I guess the delays are extending.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. I believe we concluded that Immigration Canada was applying the established procedures. There again, we did not look at the way in which the investigations were conducted.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, as part of the 2000 audit, we looked at the relationship between Immigration Canada and CSIS. Some procedures need to be followed. For example, CSIS has developed security profiles. We ensure that Immigration Canada was following the rules established for requesting or not requesting advice from CSIS.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can briefly add, Mr. Chair, that the main issue was that the immigration department didn't know whether customs was doing a good job in referring people to them. They had a study in the nineties that showed they were referring a whole bunch of people who should not have been referred, and the other way around.

Canadian Heritage committee  The regime is described in the Financial Administration Act. The Financial Administration Act requires that only the summary plan be tabled in Parliament. There are probably a number of reasons. I'm thinking, for example about some of the commercial crowns, such as Export Development Canada.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I should point out that since the audit, links have been established with Alberta and British Columbia. The other provinces still aren't covered, but this is a significant improvement nevertheless. I think that it's crucial that links be established with Citizenship and Immigration Canada so that data can be verified.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, I believe that that would be a good question for the Passport Canada official.