Mr. Chair, we recognize that family reunification very much remains a priority for us. We have introduced a pilot to digitize spousal applications, which will facilitate the review of these applications and allow our officers, both in Canada and abroad, to process remotely. We've also increased the number of decision-makers on spousal applications by 66% to increase the application assessments more quickly and to reduce the wait times.
We are aiming to process approximately 6,000 spousal applications each month from October to December 2020. Combined with processing to date, this rate will lead to about 49,000 decisions by the end of the year.