I asked the question because going back to 2006, there were in fact cuts that took place. A program officer there, Inna Tsarkova, stated in a newspaper article that
In this year's [personnel] exercise, staff was reduced....
In the immigration section of the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv, this review and adjustment resulted in the elimination of one immigration officer position and two clerical/support positions....
She then went on to say that it was still too early at that point to determine whether staff cuts had resulted in a tangible decrease in visas and their ability to handle cases that came through their section.
I note that on the department's own websites, for the Kiev centre, processing times for skilled workers have gone from 34 months in 2004, with 80% of the cases being finalized, to 83 months. So it's gone from just under three years to basically seven years. Those are that numbers for 2008-09.
Those are the worst numbers on the planet. Is that acceptable?