Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, you mentioned this earlier: how do we get knowledge of particular cultures? If we're dealing with a particular country where there is fraud, where we know there's fraud, and where we've identified fraud, it's important to have that local knowledge of the culture to mak

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I should preface my comments by saying these consultants aren't necessarily committing fraud when they're advising someone to apply under a category. It might not be the type of people we are envisaging with our new regulations for investors, but it is possible if you have proper

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I didn't do that consecutively. I've had a career of close to 20 years, so I've been there on and off, and in different capacities. You were talking earlier on about having knowledge of the culture and so on. I believe I have that knowledge--

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you include a previous posting and time in Hong Kong, I've actually dealt with a Chinese caseload for close to 10 years.

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

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Indeed.

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.

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.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Definitely, yes; our inventory is at —

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.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Always right on target, yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I wouldn't want to do that.

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

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...

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.