Starting a couple of years ago, we observed that a large number of employers had used the temporary foreign worker program without any compliance problems. They were very credible businesses, and when applying for LMOs were getting approved in 95% or 100% of cases. We saw a huge volume of applications coming in that were getting approved for these credible and reliable employers, and we thought it would make more sense from an administrative point of view to streamline the process for those trusted employers. That's why in a sense we've created a separate queue for trusted employers. They can make these applications under the accelerated labour market opinion, and in most cases they're getting an answer in seven days or less.
I should say our officials at HRSDC can operate on the basis that it's likely those applications are sound because of the employer's past track record. In a sense, it's a form of risk triaging: we take the low-risk applications from high-quality employers, we fast-track those ones, and then we can spend more time and care analyzing the LMO applications from employers without a positive track record or with no track record at all. It's something anyone would do in a business. We take a qualitative analysis of workflow and push through more quickly those that are getting almost 100% approval. Although there is a quality assurance there, Service Canada will randomly pull out some of the A-LMO applications and do a rigorous analysis just to be sure they meet the criteria of the program and that Canadians are being offered jobs first.
The bottom line is that this means a lot faster service, it saves us administrative resources, and it allows us to focus on those applications that are probably more problematic.