That's a key concern in this whole process. We want to make sure that the people who make the decision to come to Canada to work in our profession know and understand what the process is. From that perspective, we've had our information available on the Internet for in excess of eight years now, I believe.
We have been continually improving our communications resources. From that perspective, we're linked to a lot of the settlement organizations across Canada, as well as to the different levels of the federal government, to try to make sure that the people have the link to the professional society. We also get a number of contacts through our membership in our international association.
What could we do to improve it? On our future wish list of things we'd like to see, we have a possible pre-evaluation tool that could be done online. The individual could take a challenge test that is similar to the competency-based exams that we use now. The test would not use the same questions, because those are a protected pool, but it would allow them to be evaluated online and have the computer help them in making that decision.
Are they ready to come to Canada? Do they have some gaps? We find that the profession is practised so differently in various parts of the world that they may be missing a key component when they come here, and they can start working on that component at home.
We do allow our evaluation process to start offshore. They can start submitting their documentation, go to their local university and get the university to send their paperwork. Once they've already come to Canada, there are huge delays for the immigrants to initiate that process, but we do require the documents to be submitted from the initial organization. We're doing a lot of photocopying.