Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll carry on.
Thank you, Minister, for being here this morning.
I'm perplexed by the last statement you made. You said that your government is committed to improving the immigration system by reducing backlogs and improving processing times.
You've had nine years to do this. I remember back in 2005-06, the processing time for spousal applications was about three or four months. That was the top. I can attest to that because in 2003, I sponsored my own wife and it took three months. Nowadays, it's taking up to 16 or 17 months for some of the countries in Southeast Asia, and there are different times for other countries.
I have two questions. First, how can it be reducing backlogs when the actual times have gone up? Second, why is there a discrepancy? In some countries it's only two to four months, while in others it takes up to two or three years.