Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to move this motion. It is something I submitted back on September 18. It was in our briefing books.
I would like to call departmental officials as well as witnesses so that we can review what we see time and time again in our constituency offices. We get people coming in saying that their application for a visitor's visa for their parents has failed or that an application for a visitor's visa, be it for diplomats or for a performing group that is coming to Canada, has failed.
Most often, although we're able to give them advice on what to do or not do, we're not getting information back from the post. The post sometimes sends us back an answer saying that they failed and that's it; go away and leave us alone. Although we try our best to give information and direction to our constituents on how to make a perfect application, time and again there's a bit of failure on everybody's part.
This is an opportunity for us to call witnesses, stakeholders, and department officials and to examine how the process is done, how we can make things better, and how we can answer our constituents. It's not only for members of this committee but for other members also. From this we will get more information. I believe that at the end of the day we would be serving our constituents as well as people who want to come to visit Canada.
Many people applying to come to Canada figure they can send their application in without any supporting documentation, or the supporting documentation is not what it needs to be, or other countries do not have supporting documentation of the kind we want. We ask people to present tax returns, but from countries where there's no taxation whatsoever, what tax returns can they present?
There are people who feel that they've been wronged when they apply. I'd like the opportunity—at this session, or whenever we get some free time—to call people in to examine this.
There are also people who report that they cannot go to a post, people who live in countries where it's difficult for them to go. For example, people from Armenia who want to apply for a visitor's visa need to travel to Moscow, or they can send it in. They never get an opportunity to see an immigration official face to face. Maybe we need to look at an opportunity for people from those countries; we may need to get more site visits into those countries where we have no posts.
That's one of the things I'm bringing to this table, and I'm looking for the support of the committee because I think we all face those difficulties. Although we have a high success rate from a lot of countries, there are things we can do better to attract more visitors to Canada as we try to beef up our economy and make it better.
I've seen reports coming out of China where people have applied and have failed because they don't include everything; people sometimes don't think they have to.
So I'm giving this to the committee and asking for your support.