Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about such an important issue.
My name is Ali Mokhtari. I'm a member of the Iranian Tehran Bar Association as a lawyer in Iran. I've also been a certified immigration consultant in Canada for the last four years. I also run a company called Canpars Immigration Services, offering immigration services to a huge number of people.
I represent hundreds of clients in different federal programs and have submitted 514 federal skilled worker completed applications within the first ministerial instruction since 2008. Up to now, only 23 of these 514 applications have been processed--or 4.4%. When it comes to the Damascus office it is even worse, because I have 506 completed applications filed in that visa office, and only 15 of them have been processed. That is just 2.9% of the total files I submitted.
Another point is that it is not only about the Damascus office and it's not about Iranians. Sometimes Mr. Kenney talks about Iranian files.In an interview I remember, he mentioned that it's because of security background checks or whatever. It's not about that. Those processed were done so in a timely manner within the timeframe he offered--between six and 12 months--and also, after the first ministerial instruction, I filed around 250 files, and more than 10% of them got processed within a 12-month period.
The other thing I want to mention is that they didn't process any file in the Damascus office with the AOR date of March 2 and later. You cannot find a single file with the AOR date of March 2 or after that has been processed.
I also have 144 GPs among those first ministerial instruction applications that were never processed and are on the shelves of the Damascus office. I want to mention a very interesting comparison between two cases. I have a brother and sister from the same family with the same educational background and experience. They are both doctors. The sister applied on February 6, 2009, and she received her medical papers on February 17, 2010. The brother applied on September 15, 2009, and he is still waiting to have his file processed.
I have all the documents here. I have a list of all my clients. As you can see, it's 12 pages long. For all these, the blue means they have been processed, so it's only 2.9%.
The other issue I want to raise--