Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. Our orders of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), are for a study of immigration application process wait times.
We have four witnesses today; four guests from around the world, it seems.
I want to thank you all for coming. This is a topic that the committee has been working on for some time. We even contemplated going to some of your offices.
I'm going to introduce the four of you from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration: Rénald Gilbert, director general, international region; Micheline Aucoin, immigration program manager in Manila and area director for southeast Asia; Sidney Frank, immigration program manager in Beijing and area director for north Asia; and David Manicom, immigration program manager in New Delhi and area director for south Asia.
I apologize if I pronounced some of your names incorrectly. You can correct me later.
We have two hours. I know that committee members have a number of questions.
What we hoped, Mr. Gilbert, was that if you could speak for a couple of minutes, the other guests would have up to 10 minutes each to speak on the problems in their particular areas.
I want to welcome you and thank you for coming and helping us. It's a topic that the committee is most concerned about and is continuing to work on.
Mr. Gilbert, you have the floor.