Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I think there have been some variations in our main estimates, in terms of the funding that had been received as part of the changes to the refugee asylum system back in 2012-13. Among the items that had been included as part of the asylum system was funding for what we call the reviews and interventions pilot project, which would allow immigration officers to intervene at hearings before the refugee protection division.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, yes, we were prepared to provide this information. One question we've already responded to was about computers for schools. I know there were other questions. There was one on the staffing issue in the Middle East, which we've responded to. We had a question on biometrics, which we are prepared to respond to.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, we can.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I'll start and then turn the floor over to Mr. Orr. We made a number of changes to try to provide better services to members of Parliament. The intention was to have one line to go through to simplify the kinds of inquiries we are receiving. We also had a process for more complex cases—cases that the call centre might not be able to respond to—to have them addressed through the ministerial enquiries division.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, our department has many staff who are located in and of course work out of our missions abroad. I think we have the second-largest footprint, after Global Affairs, in terms of the number of Canadian-based staff working on immigration processing abroad, including locally engaged staff as well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I can clarify, I think this item is basically related to the support required for staff. In overall staffing for visas in terms of our department, we actually make sure that we look at missions across the network internationally. We locate our resources where we know the volumes are.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, we'll be happy to look into that. It may be that we don't normally break down our costing by mission according to business line to that degree. I can certainly make the commitment that we will go back and assess the question from the member, and respond to the clerk of the committee appropriately in terms of how we do actually account for our costing, but some of it may not be costing we would normally have.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, if the member could clarify the question, my understanding is that this is not just looking at refugees. Perhaps the member could clarify precisely what kind of costing. It sounded as if it was more than for Syrian refugees. It would be helpful if you could clarify that, and I take your point, Mr.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, in terms of the numbers of applications received to March 31, 2016, the number is around 12,000 for privately sponsored refugees. We are assessing those applications currently. We have more than 65 full-time staff located in the region who do processing, but we also have dozens of staff in Canada as well, both in terms of our office in Winnipeg and also in Ottawa.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We'll have to get back to you with that answer, Mr. Chair. As I said, we certainly did deploy staff overseas as part of the big initiative. Of course, because we have resumed normal operations, those staff members have in fact been returned to Canada. We'll have to confirm the exact number.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, Mr. Chair.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, we're certainly prepared to follow up on a number of the questions that were presented at the meeting last week. We have a series of questions. Perhaps you could identify which of the three you want us to respond to first.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, in response to the member's question, in fact, the main estimates include an amount of $1.3 million for the computers for schools program. This is a program of the Department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada. Our department actually included the funding or sought the funding of $1.3 million on behalf of the Department of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development as part of the overall Syria initiative.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, in response to that question, the settlement program has an annual budget of about $589 million. Incremental funding was received for settlement services as a result of the increase in the number of Syrian refugees coming to Canada, and in fact, these estimates include additional funding for settlement services.