Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say increase the minimum, not the maximum.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say also that the program was designed to be responsive to mass numbers. Over the years it has changed. The system hasn't changed, but it's become far less resourced. There are fewer of these posts around the world. I really do believe that our visa officers, the staff,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is because of priority access.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  May I just jump in quickly? We had two cases in the last year in a source country. Because of the death threats they were facing, it was an imminent risk and we tried to sponsor them to Canada. We were told by the post that it couldn't move fast enough so they had better leave, a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  On paper, yes, but in reality, no.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Colombia.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They're pretty much the same.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would say just the applications; there have been many applications put in. I do believe that the visa posts all along have been underresourced, humanly and financially, and that has to be addressed. There is this feeling across the country of people wanting to help, to respon

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's the question?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think we could consider doing that, but I would say again that visa posts, visa officers, like refugees, are human beings. There are personal idiosyncrasies. Some of it has to do with the rotation of staff. Some of the staff are wonderful, and the post seems wonderful while the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was a model. It was small-scale. We committed in the 25th anniversary year of sponsorship to taking 25 cases that were referred by this office as a way of honouring the beginnings of the program. We were able to do that. We were receiving numbers of cases from both Kenya and

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It is serious.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. In my annual report to CIC, I said that we would take a minimum of 20 visa-office-referred cases a year. We are working to our ultimate goal, which is that 50% of those in our program would be named by sponsors, that they would be sponsor-referred in Canada. The other 50% wo

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. What I have heard is that they can't give the United Church special treatment, and I'm saying that I'm not asking for special treatment. Make it available to every SAH in the country. That's all I've heard.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well—