Mr. Eyking and the rest of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.
As far as your question goes, CPC Sydney is proud to represent the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and we're proud to do the job we do. Year after year, by hook or by crook, through magic by our management team, we get the job done. We look after the potential citizens of this country and we look after the naturalized citizens of this country.
We did such a good job that when the permanent resident card centre was to be opened in 2002, Sydney was picked to be that pilot project because of the hard-work ethic of the people in Sydney and the job well done. The pilot project turned into a permanent line of business, and we're proud to be dealing with that segment of society as well.
Then when the department decided to take the foreign skilled workers initiative from our overseas offices and bring it to Canada, again because of the hard work and the commitment to a job well done by the employees of CPC Sydney, we were lucky enough to receive that pilot project.
Mr. Coderre was once our minister and came down to Sydney and took a tour of the facility. We showed that we do a very hard job. We do a very good job and we're proud of the job we do.
In some years we produce 400,000 cards to bring into the system, to try to nibble at the backlog, as Ms. McKay has alluded to. However, when you take our staff down to two people producing cards, that doesn't equate to 400,000 a year. We can't do it with two people producing the cards. We can't do it with 15 people trying to process 250,000 applications a year to bring to the production line.
We've proved time and time again that we are committed to the job, that we're proud to be members of Citizenship and Immigration, and we're proud to serve the people of Canada and the new citizens-to-be of Canada, and it's been proved by the two new lines of business that have been brought to Cape Breton, sir.