Thank you very much.
I would like to obtain more details about the priorities and priority order, which you referred to at the end of your presentation.
When the Quebec program was announced in Quebec, the minister publicly confirmed that she had been given assurances that Ottawa would give priority to these applications and process them rapidly. Now, based on my experience—I have been the critic for citizenship and immigration for more than two years now—I know that this is a department with many priorities. Many people are processed on a priority basis. Essentially, the problem is that when everybody is given priority, no one has priority.
In rereading your text, I see that your highest priority will remain members of the immediate family—namely, people who submitted an application under the federal family reunification program—as well as urgent and exceptional cases. Other members of the family class will constitute your second priority—and here we are already going down in the order of priority. This is followed by applicants who meet the requirements of the special measures established by the Government of Quebec. In my opinion, the priority level is starting to get low.
I understand that, up until now, there have not yet been any applications from the Government of Quebec, but when this starts happening, will you change the priority level in order to quickly process the applications for people with nominee certificates under the Quebec program?
Could you give us a ballpark figure as to how long the wait time will be for people under the federal government program, in other words, how long will it take to do the security and medical checks?