Turning to the permanent stream, and in particular the economic streams of immigration, we work very closely with provinces and territories on economic immigration. There are a number of streams and substreams, particularly the federal skilled worker program, the Canadian experience class, and business immigration. The provinces, under bilateral agreements that we have with them, have grown what we call provincial nominee programs over the course of the last few years, and Quebec, by virtue of the Canada-Quebec accord, has authority for selection of immigrants destined to the province, although federal admissibility criteria apply in all cases.
Skilled workers form one area in which we have effectively used intake controls to manage backlogs and to make significant progress with backlog reduction by using an occupational filter. Now, with a numerical cap under the third set of ministerial instructions from June 2010, we have been able to cut the backlog of skilled workers waiting to come to Canada by more than 50% since 2008, and we will continue to eliminate that backlog in the next couple of years.
With respect to family class, Canadian citizens and permanent residents over 18 are allowed to sponsor their close family members to come to Canada. For partners, spouses, and dependent children under 22, there are no numerical limits. It is a completely demand-driven substream of the family class, where all applications are processed on demand. In fact, we are moving towards a service standard where approximately 80% of those cases will be processed within 12 months.