Thank you, Minister. I'm very glad you decided that you were going to work towards a target, because that was a point of contention with us in the past. So I'm very pleased to see that you are coming with targets.
The reason that targets are important is because...when you go on the government website, you will note that I believe for the year 1998-99, when I was parliamentary secretary, we missed the targets. They gave the reason as being Hong Kong and the change in status, but since then, from 2000 on, we've met and exceeded the targets in those timeframes. So it's an important point.
As you might be aware, we had the Auditor General before us, and one of the areas she talked about in her report and drew our attention to relates to temporary residence permits. She said the quality and consistency in these officers' decisions seem lacking. The Auditor General noted significant differences in approval rates among officers processing similar cases. Better selection criteria, better training, and better tools are required to assist these officers in their tasks.
Could you respond as to what is being done in your department on this and how it ties into the estimates?