Ms. Katie Alexander (Executive Director, Temporary Foreign Worker Program, Program Operations, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development) at the Citizenship and Immigration Committee

As Mr. Massé mentioned, we're currently experiencing a higher than normal volume of files, a 26% increase over this time last year, which has resulted in a delay longer than expected for most compared to this time last year.

For a low-wage stream, we're looking at a processing time of approximately 90 days at this point. Agriculture is a little bit faster—it's about 40 days—and our seasonal agricultural worker program is about 15 to 16 days.