Mr. Chair, we're going to split the time between us, but we'll take the seven minutes.
The Canadian Bar Association is pleased to appear before this committee today on its study regarding immigration application process wait times, particularly for the investor class and family class applicants.
The Canadian Bar Association is a national voluntary association with about 37,000 members across the country. The citizenship and immigration law section is made up of about 900 lawyers with expertise in all areas of citizenship, immigration, and refugee law. The primary objectives of the organization are improvements in the law and the administration of justice. In that light, our representatives are here today with some practical suggestions on how to mitigate the impact of delays on applicants and on how to streamline the system.
For the purposes of our appearance today, we've circulated to you our written submission. The chair of our citizenship and immigration law section, Chantal Arsenault, and our executive member, Deanna Okun-Nachoff, will take you through the substance of our submission and answer any questions you may have about it.
With that, I'll call upon Ms. Arsenault to start off with our substantive comments.