Citizenship and Immigration committee  The conditional provision was put into place to help deal with issues of marriage of convenience. There are provisions to deal with situations where a spouse, often a woman, is in a situation of abuse or neglect, but it is the case that it is a conditional status. If the marriage

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. There are clear exemptions written into the legislation, supplemented by guidelines, such that when the cohabitation requirement is not met because of a situation of abuse or neglect, covering the gamut from violent neglect, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I will see what I can do. It is quite difficult to describe the experiences of other countries.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think I have detailed information in my own mind right now about their experience. I don’t quite understand what you are asking. Would you like to know about the experience of other countries with the conditional status or with women in abusive situations or—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Best practices with regard to what, Madam?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm afraid I don't have with me whether or not other countries have Canada's provision to enable persons in an abusive situation to not meet their conditions without losing their permanent resident status. I don't have that information with me. But I think Canada's provisions for

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I've mentioned, I've served in both Pakistan and India, and those are two cultures where arranged marriages are common. It's really important to understand that in cultures where there are arranged marriages, there is also no tolerance for forced marriages. There's a clear di

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. There are a number of other countries that have conditional permanent resident types of provisions for sponsored spouses. The United States, the U.K., and Australia do; New Zealand does not. Our provision is relatively new, but we do have provisions, as we've noted, for per

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think the primary one is the new conditional permanent resident status. If that individual does not remain in a marital relationship for two years, if they've come in with conditional status, then they are subject to removal. We have the mechanisms in place for sponsors who hav

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, they can call the call centre and contact either CBSA or CIC's hotlines.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd add that I think it is important not to link marriages of convenience in a direct way with vulnerability. Certainly, some marriages of convenience could lead to vulnerability, but there's no interplay, if you will, between marriages of convenience and forced marriage, or thos

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't think there is any link between marriages of convenience and arranged marriages. The officers working abroad work within the local cultural norms. They understand the local cultural norms. They often have very specific training about local cultural norms. There are many

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Order of scale, it's about 15% or so.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll take that question. Marriages of convenience, when identified, are refused, so they don't enter Canada. The only marriages of convenience that would enter Canada are cases that were not detected accurately by the officers. In a way, I guess you're asking us our failure r

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I can't speak here about specific cases, but certainly, there are extensive instructions for officers which are publicly available. These instructions note that there are various types of abuse—physical abuse, sexual abuse, also psychological abuse—and to sensitize officers to th