Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today from beautiful New Zealand. I also want to thank you for the early time at which you went into the office today to participate in this meeting. I know that it's about eight o'clock Wednesday morning there. You should know that here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, it's just before four o'clock p.m. on Tuesday. So we're even meeting on different days, if you will.
We have decided in our deliberations to do a study on strengthening the protection of women in our immigration system. As you may know, Canada is one of the most welcoming countries in the world. Unfortunately we have seen repeated cases of abuse of our spousal sponsorship program in our immigration system.
Last week, for example, we had a witness appear before us named Salma Siddiqui, who discussed various cases of fraud that she has experienced, some of a nature personal to her and her family. She shared with us a story of a recent trip she took to Pakistan. She visited an immigration consultant there, posed as a single Muslim woman, and asked for advice on what some options would be. The advice she was given, surprisingly, was to engage in a paper marriage and go to either Canada or Australia, believe it or not.
Is this a problem you've seen in New Zealand?