Citizenship and Immigration committee  The ETA is a tool that will make things easier, especially in terms of security. We expect that visitors will be screened somewhat more rigorously at ports of entry than they are today, given that they will have undergone risk assessments before leaving, while on the plane and up

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, because we anticipate that the ETA will be available online and that the decision will be made in minutes, in the vast majority of cases. It is really well suited. Perhaps my colleague can add to that and comment on the tourism aspect.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have the exact figures with me, but I can check with my colleagues and provide the information to the committee through the clerk.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I mentioned, we are in the midst of seeking approval for that list. I expect we'll have the approved list by the end of the calendar year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not yet.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said, it's not yet done.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Under our implementation plan, the biometrics program is designed to provide a dedicated channel for the information exchanged between applicants and our case management system. The computers in our application centres around the world will not be hooked up to the Internet in any

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Right. Subject, as I said, to approvals, I would suggest that that information will be available by the end of the calendar year.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I would say first that the agreement between Canada and the United States remains a bilateral agreement. But I would add that Mexico and the United States also have a bilateral agreement around management of the U.S. southern border. At this point, there has been no

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Each country brings specific challenges to us. I would say that where the refusal rates for visas are really quite low, there are some countries, the Czech Republic, for example, where the refusal rate is less than 5%. That may be an area where we want to focus our efforts. But a

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As we discussed earlier in previous appearances, we are now working on the list that will be established through regulations, we think in the next number of weeks. At that point we'll be able to move forward with our implementation plan, with a view to start collecting biometrics

Citizenship and Immigration committee  At this point, Mr. Chair, subject to approval of the list of countries that will come out through the regulatory process for prepublication, I can't indicate at which point in time certain countries would be subject to the biometrics requirement.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Essentially what we've done, in terms of working with our partners, and, again, subject to approval, is we've looked at countries that require a visa to enter Canada in the first instance. Within that population we've looked at the number of immigration infractions that we see re

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I said, Mr. Chair, the list of countries has still not been approved for release through regulations, so it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In terms of service delivery, Canada is not present in all countries where we actually have a visa requirement, so we have been working to expand the network of visa application centres that are essentially service providers. That will be the focal point for the client to visit t