I have five minutes?
Thank you very much, Chair. I'm very glad to take the time. I thought my time was withering away. I'm actually very glad to be able to speak.
As we've heard before....
My notes are in French, so bear with me on the translation.
As was mentioned on a number of occasions, there is really no appeal mechanism for visitor visa applications, which can create a lot of problems.
My riding receives a lot of tourists. Actually, many people who welcome their families to the Outaouais and Ottawa regions also take advantage of the opportunity to tour and show rural Canada to those who visit them. That is really important to us. I am not saying that people have a right to visit those regions, but it is in the interest of my constituents that people come to visit Canada's regions and to see what our region has to offer.
I think the lack of an appeal mechanism is a problem. People may not understand why a visa application was rejected. Was it an administrative error or was there a perception of a dual intent?
In my view, that can lead to two possibilities. First, the person may decide to apply again, which would represent additional costs for the applicant and a heavier workload for officials. Second, the person may simply forget about the visa application, which is understandable since we are basically saying that we do not want them here and we don't want them to visit the region.
That means a loss of tourism revenue for Canada. As I mentioned, this is a very important industry, especially for my riding. The municipalities in my riding are close to Montreal and Ottawa and a lot of people who visit those cities also want to discover the countryside. They want to see the forest and see how the leaves turn colour in the fall. That is important, because that is what keeps the economy going in my region.
Do you think an appeal mechanism would help? Do you have a better process in mind so that we don't discourage people? We must not constantly ask people to redo their applications simply because of a few small errors.
Ms. Long, you may go first. We could then give the floor to all the witnesses around the table. That would be great.
Thank you.