Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've done a variety of things to make use of the funds that have been made available to us. We've significantly increased the number of temporary duty officers. We often hire people who are retired, and we send them to the various posts that need to hav

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There was a mention in Mr. Flaherty's budget of additional funding for e-applications. In particular, we plan to allocate them to the education sector and to start using that as a building block to expand services more broadly, as you're saying.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chairman, we expect it will cost some $32 million a year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to take a slightly different tack from my predecessor, because I think any institution that has 5,000 people and takes 2.5 million decisions a year will occasionally get people who act improperly. I don't think there are very many, but I acknow

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, Mr. Chairman, she is not. Under the general construction of IRPA there are three categories of decision-makers. There are a couple of very restricted areas where the minister must decide personally; there are a number of areas where officials make decisions on behalf of the m

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It changes a number of things, but it gives her the power to tell the department which categories to give precedence to.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, Mr. Chairman, there are two things. One is, every other immigrant-receiving country has given its government this or a similar kind of power; that is to say, some capacity to select the kinds of categories of people they want to admit into the country. That's what this bill

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the minister, Mr. Chairman, partially answered the question when she said it wasn't quite as simple as merely increasing the numbers. All of the provinces and two of the territories have indicated to us that they need more people. A lot of these people are required on the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, Mr. Chairman, I don't know about the honourable member's riding, but we've had discussions, for example, with the hospitality industry. They desperately need people. I've talked to people in that province. But when we ask them where these people are going to stay, it's not

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Last year we admitted to Canada 429,649 permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, and foreign students. That number is about 60,000 higher than it was four years ago.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I believe it is the most we've ever admitted in one year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would, Mr. Chairman.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure it will be quicker, but it certainly will not be less fast. The intention would be to take the numbers that are tabled in Parliament in the three categories—federal skilled workers, the family class, and the humanitarian class—and process the last two on a priority b

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. In particular, with respect to spouses, partners, and children, I think there has been an improvement of 40% over the course of the last couple of years.